Stakeholder Engagement (Domain III) contains the focus areas & quick notes on this topic which will help you to pass the PMI-ACP® exam offered by PMI. Domain III Stakeholder Engagement accounts for 17% of all questions in the Exam (i.e. ~20 questions among 120 Exam questions). Below is a collection of the key knowledge addressed in Stakeholder Engagement and the tasks related to the domain ( Engage current and future interested parties by building a trusting environment that aligns their needs and expectations and balances their requests with an understanding of the cost/effort involved. Promote participation and collaboration throughout the project life cycle and provide the tools for effective and informed decision-making).
Focus Areas for Stakeholder Engagement
Definition and identification of stakeholders
Stakeholders of a project are individuals, groups, or organizations that are affected or perceived to be affected either positively or negatively by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project.
Classification of stakeholders (Engagement Levels)
- Unaware – Stakeholders who are unaware of the project and potential impacts.
- Resistant – Aware of the project and resistant to change.
- Neutral – Neither supportive nor resistant.
- Supportive – Would like to see the change happen and has a positive outlook toward it.
- Leading – Actively engaged in ensuring the project is a success.
- Managing Stakeholders: Managing Communication, Managing Vendors, Managing Distributed Teams
Group Decision-Making Techniques
- Styles of Group Decision-Making: Command, Consultative, Consensus
- Methods of Reaching a Decision: Unanimity, Majority, Plurality & Dictatorship
- Thumbs Up/Down/Sideways
- Fist-of-Five Voting
Definition of Done (DoD)
Done means the feature is 100% complete according to pre-agreed conditions (e.g. including all the way from analysis, design, and coding to user acceptance testing and delivery & documentation) and ready for production (shippable)
- Done for a feature: feature/backlog item completed
- Done for a sprint: work for a sprint completed
- Done for a release: features shippable
Information Radiators
Agile teams follow a tradition of communicating and visualizing progress very transparently using information radiators. They put up a variety of artifacts and metrics on prominent public spaces like a large whiteboard or a wall on the corridors or hallways so that they can be effortlessly viewed by anyone walking past them.
Interpersonal Skills for Managing Stakeholders
- Emotional Intelligence
- Collaboration
- Motivating
- Active Listening
- Level I – Internal Listening (thinking about how things will affect me)
- Level II – Focused Listening (trying to understand what are the speaker is really trying to say)
- Level III – Global Listening (keep track of not only what has been said but also the different signs and gestures the speaker employs to convey the full message)
Negotiation
- Determine the power, influence, legitimacy, history, and background of the party that you are going to negotiate with.
- Determine the stance you would need to adopt and the minimum that you would settle for.
- Do a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) analysis of the negotiating parties that will help to devise a strategy.
- Be objective and separate people from the problem (the negotiation topic).
- Anticipate issues and reactions from negotiating parties to help in arguments and counterarguments.
- Arm yourselves with data and facts to justify your stance (and weaken the one from the other side).
- Determine which of the negotiation tactics is most applicable to generate a win-win outcome or the most favorable one.
- Remain professional at all times and be diligent in your argument. But save some tactics up your sleeve for the last resort.
- Envision the worst-case result if a favorable decision does not arrive at the end of the negotiation. Have contingency plans in place
Conflict Resolution Techniques
- Problem-Solving/confronting – solving problems by examining alternatives
- Compromise – seeking common ground that brings in some degree of satisfaction for all parties
- Smoothing/accommodating – emphasizing areas of agreement rather than differences
- Collaborating – considering multiple views and perspectives, ultimately leading to consensus and commitment
- Withdrawing/avoiding – retreating from a conflicting situation
- Forcing – pushing one’s view over others, resulting in win-lose outcomes
Project Charter
- Vision: the purpose of the Agile project – answering the “why” of the project
- Mission: describes what will be achieved or done – answering the “what” of the project
- Success Criteria: describe how the project will be considered a success or reach an end
