Stakeholder management is critical in a multi-party or multi-division participation for executing projects and for any activity, said Mr Vinayak Hegde, senior delivery manager (Financial Services and Insurance), Infosys.
Delivering the Business Line Club lecture on effective stakeholder management, sponsored by Syndicate Bank for the students of Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana Education Centre's Mahajana PG Centre, he said that during lifecycle of an activity or project, several people will have relationship with this activity. The interest of the individuals or organisations actively involved in the project or activity will depend on the execution and completion.
Explaining to the students what a project is, Mr Hegde said that a project is an activity undertaken to create a unique product or service.
“A project starts on a definite date and ends on a particular date.
“We are not likely to be able to manage stakeholders in the traditional management sense. However, in a given project or activity, we can manage the project's relationship with them in a systematic way.”
He said that effective stakeholder management starts with stakeholder identification. Project managers or anchors have the responsibility of identifying them. Project managers or anchors need to gather information, analyse stakeholders' behaviour, segregate them into categories, develop a strategy for dealing with each category, and execute and maintain the strategy throughout the project.
“In the corporate world, using the reverse engineering method to identify stakeholders would be the ideal option,” Mr Hegde said.
The key question that can help in understanding key stakeholders is what financial or emotional interest they have in the outcome of a particular project, he said.
Mr Hegde told the students that it would be ideal to adopt the service level agreement driven approach while managing the stakeholders.
“In order to win the confidence of the stakeholders, certain service levels should be set during the engagement and they should be base-lined. Periodic review and reporting of these parameters could make the stakeholder feel comfortable. And, whenever change happens to the triple constraints (time, quality, cost), inform the appropriate stakeholders promptly. You also must ensure that the quality policy of the project is fully known to all the stakeholders at the beginning of the project itself,” Mr Hegde added.
Mr H.S. Krishnamurthy, Senior Manager, Syndicate Bank Regional Office, explained to students the features of SyndYuva, and SyndVidya, their products for the youth. Dr C.K. Renukarya, Director of Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana PG Centre, also spoke. Prof. S. R. S. Khadri, Director, Pooja Bhagavat Memorial Mahajana Education Centre, was present.