W2_MA_Extarnal Stakeholder management

Problem Definition

During the development of the project, there are many stakeholders that are involved in the development of the project. There are different effects could be caused by each of these stakeholders. Some of these stakeholders might have no interest on the project which might have a negative impact on the project [1].

 Identify the Feasible Alternative

Identifying the stakeholders for any project is an essential project development and it shall be done in a very early stage on the project. This will provide a good understanding of who and how to interact with these stakeholders. The stakeholders normally fall into categories which are [2]:

·         Beneficiaries: usually are the end users or any party that will benefit by the completion of the project.

·         Negative Beneficiaries: this could be a temporary or permanent impact to any stakeholder usually in the execution phase of the project.

·         Implementers:  in this case, the implementers are defined by the project developer who will be Building, Owning and operating the project.

·         Decision makers: usually being the government agencies or asset/ operation managers in later project stages.

·         Financiers: This includes the banks, shareholders, bond holders or those in the finance or accounting department.

·         Regulators: Any governmental entity that regulate the whole process from developing the project the decommission.

Development of the Outcome for Alternative

For a typical IPP project there are around 9 main external stakeholders. Those stakeholders have been identified as shown in Table 1.

External Stakeholder (involved during various stages of the project)		Categories
AER	Authority for Electricity Regulation	Regulator & Decision Maker
EHC	Electrical Holding Company	Regulator
MECA	Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs	Regulator
MOH	Ministry of Housing	Regulator
MOF	Ministry of Finance	Financier
MOLA	Ministry of Legal Affairs	Regulator
PAEW	Public Authority of Electricity and Water	Regulator
OETC	Oman Electricity Transmission Company	Implementers & Decision-Maker
DISCOs	Distribution companies	Beneficiaries

Table 1

Each of these stakeholders have different effect on the project, therefore a stakeholder analysis which would identify the type or the strength of involvement in the project.

External Stakeholder (involved during various stages of the project)		Information	Influence	Interest	Impact	Totals
AER	Authority for Electricity Regulation	10	10	10	10	40
EHC	Electrical Holding Company	7	1	6	3	17
MECA	Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs	6	10	1	10	27
MOH	Ministry of Housing	8	9	2	10	29
MOF	Ministry of Finance	7	10	4	4	25
MOLA	Ministry of Legal Affairs	9	4	3	5	21
PAEW	Public Authority of Electricity and Water	4	5	6	5	20
OETC	Oman Electricity Transmission Company	8	9	10	9	36
DISCOs	Distribution companies	3	4	5	3	15

Table 2

Selection Criteria

From the analysis above the stakeholders can be ranked in as shown in table 3.

External Stakeholder		Totals
AER	Authority for Electricity Regulation	40
OETC	Oman Electricity Transmission Company	36
MOH	Ministry of Housing	29
MECA	Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs	27
MOF	Ministry of Finance	25
MOLA	Ministry of Legal Affairs	21
PAEW	Public Authority of Electricity and Water	20
EHC	Electrical Holding Company	17
DISCOs	Distribution companies	15

Table 3

The totals represent the level of involvement of the stakeholders, the higher the rank and more involvement in the project.

Analysis and Comparison of the Alternative

The results from the analysis of the stakeholders could be used to map the interest of these stakeholders in the project and the power they have on the project. The power here will be the sum of the total excluding the interest score from it. A simple 2×2 view figure is used as to present the results as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Selection of the Preferred Alternative

There are many ways to improve and encounter issues that might arise during the project development stage. The project managers should take the following action with stakeholders in each quadrant as shown on Figure 2 [3]

Figure 2

·         High power, interested stakeholders: these stakeholders shall be fully engaged and satisfied.

·         High power, less interested people: shall be kept satisfied and more effort shall be made to get their interest in the project.

·         Low power, interested people: must be adequately informed, and no major issues are arising.

·         Low power, less interested people: these stakeholders should be monitored but no excessive communication is required [4].

It is clear that from the analysis that we have four stakeholders have a high power in the project and very less interest in the project. These parties shall be kept satisfied and engaged them in the project to increase their interest.

Performance Monitoring and the Post Evaluation of Result

For each specific project, there might be more /less stakeholders and the analysis of each of these stakeholders might be also impact depending on the nature of the project. This requires a specific stakeholder’s analysis for each project and to be updated through the phases of the project.

[1] Stakeholder management, APM, retrieved from { https://www.apm.org.uk/body-of-knowledge/delivery/integrative-management/stakeholder-management }

[2] IDENTIFYING AND ENGAGING STAKEHOLDERS, GUILD OF PROJECT CONTROLS COMPENDIUM and REFERENCE, retrieved from { http://www.planningplanet.com/guild/gpccar/identifying-engaging-stakeholders }

[3] STAKEHOLDER POWER/INTEREST MATRIX, retrieved from { https://knowhownonprofit.org/organisation/strategy/directionsetting/stakeholdermatrix.jpg }  

[4] Stakeholder Analysis, retrieved from { https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_07.htm }