Click here to download a print-ready version of this Hermie cartoon.
Panel 1
Boss Betta: Mooch, as our PM for the latest rollout, you need to identify the stakeholders and allocate the budget accordingly.
Pat “PM” Mooch: Yes, Sir, Mr. Betta, Sir! I know just how I’ll do it!
Panel 2
Boss Betta: Great. This project impacts everyone, so get the right people in your kickoff meeting. Here’s your budget…
PM: YIPE! Is that the whole budget, Mr. Betta? In my experience…
Boss Betta: Right. Make it work…
Panel 3
PM (on an online meeting with all of the department heads): Hi! I’m the Project Manager for the new rollout. Who do you think I should include at the kickoff meeting?
Panel 4
Kat (on screen): I need myself, of course, then at least five of my supervisors.
Gary (on screen): I’ll need to have our outside IT vendor, the rollout vendor, and me.
Marshall (on screen): OH! You know I’ll need to be there plus a few of my key people. Call that 8 or so.
Hermione (on-screen): It has to be inclusive, so we’ll need representatives from across the organization.
Rocco (on screen): Not sure why you need a janitor, but sure! I’ll be there.
Hermie (on screen) looks worried.
Panel 5
After the kickoff… 2552 in attendance…
PM: Thanks for attending our project kickoff meeting.
Boss Betta: Whew, I wasn’t expecting so many stakeholders.
PM: Well, the good news, Sir, is that everyone now knows about the project.
Panel 6
PM: The bad news is that the payroll for this meeting just exceeded our allotted budget for the whole project, so I need to start closing it out.
Boss Betta’s jaw drops.
Hermie (grimacing): Smoothest rollout yet…
Pat “PM” Mooch faces a familiar project-management fear: What if I leave out someone important? Their solution is certainly inclusive, but when 2,552 people attend the kickoff meeting, the project’s entire budget disappears before the work begins. The cartoon exaggerates the problem, but not by as much as we might like. Organizations frequently confuse identifying stakeholders with inviting everyone to every meeting. A stakeholder register, however, should stem from a careful analysis for effectiveness and efficiency.
Identify Broadly, Then Engage Deliberately
Stakeholders include people who can influence a project, contribute to it, or experience the effects of its outcome. Good stakeholder analysis should therefore cast a wide net. The Project Management Institute recommends identifying stakeholders’ needs and expectations while assessing their influence on the project. Prosci similarly describes stakeholder engagement planning as a structured process for identifying, analyzing, and involving people throughout a change initiative.
The key word is involving. Involvement does not require everyone to attend the same meeting.
A useful stakeholder register should capture more than names and departments. It should help the team understand each stakeholder’s:
- Level and type of impact
- Influence over the project
- Expertise or information
- Decision-making authority
- Concerns and expectations
- Current and desired level of support
- Appropriate communication channel and frequency
That information allows the project team to tailor engagement instead of sending one enormous calendar invitation.
Give Every Participant a Purpose
A kickoff meeting should generally include the sponsor, core project team, essential decision-makers, and representatives who can speak to critical impacts or dependencies. Every attendee should have a reason to participate.
Other stakeholders may be engaged through:
- Departmental representatives
- Workgroups or advisory committees
- Manager briefings
- Focus groups and listening sessions
- Surveys or interviews
- Change-champion networks
- Targeted communications
- Training and readiness activities
Rocco the janitor might be an important stakeholder if the rollout changes facilities procedures, building access, safety requirements, or his daily work. If it does not, asking him to attend merely to demonstrate “inclusivity” wastes his time without giving him a meaningful voice.
Representation Is Not Exclusion
When a change affects thousands of people, inviting thousands of people to a meeting is rarely practical engagement. Instead, project leaders should select representatives across the roles, locations, shifts, experiences, and demographic groups affected by the change.
Those representatives need clear ways to gather input from others and report information back. The broader organization should also have accessible feedback channels so that overlooked impacts can surface.
Inclusive engagement means that affected groups have a genuine voice and a reliable way to participate, not that everyone receives the same meeting invitation.
Every Meeting Has a Budget
Meetings consume project resources, even when the cost never appears as a separate line item. Consider the number of participants, their loaded hourly compensation, the meeting’s duration, preparation and follow-up time, and the opportunity cost of work delayed while everyone attends.
Before scheduling a large meeting, ask:
- What must this meeting accomplish?
- Who has information, authority, or responsibility essential to that outcome?
- Who could participate through a representative or another channel?
- What decision, action, or deliverable should result?
If those questions cannot be answered, the roster—and possibly the meeting itself—needs reconsideration.
Finally, remember that a stakeholder register is a living tool. Influence, impact, support, and engagement needs will change throughout the project. Review and update the register instead of treating it as paperwork completed at kickoff.
Effective stakeholder engagement is not about assembling the biggest possible crowd. It is about involving the right people, in the right ways, at the right times. Otherwise, as Hermie observes, the project may achieve its smoothest rollout yet—directly into closure.
Does your organization need help turning a rollout plan into meaningful engagement and adoption? Learn about Harmonious Workplaces’ Change Execution & Adoption services.
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