FICHE OUTIL N°3

Stakeholders

Stakeholders are defined as a group of persons having an interest in the decisions of an organization.

These groups might be positively or negatively impacted by the association’s activities.

In order to maximize your chances of succes in your project, as project manager, you have to identify all of the stakeholers and their expectations, concerns requirements. Once this work done, you must analyze how they can positively or negatively impact the project. Some stakeholders have the power to undermine the project.

It is also necessary to distinguish the people on whom you can lean on to convince, to pass on a message, to obtain additional resources ... This kind of support is often decisive in the success of a project.

Différentes catégories de parties prenantes gravitant autour de l’association :

Stages of dialogue with stakeholders:

1. Identification and representation of stakeholders :

This step is essential to fully understand the ins and outs of the project. It is about clearly identifying all

the people, structures, institutions that will have an impact - positive or negative - on the project in order

to have an enlightened vision of the situation.

It is advisable to start from a first circle: those who are most involved / impacted such as sponsors, end

users, etc., to list them and then ask them who else can be impacted by the project. And for what reason.

When launching a project, the identification of stakeholders is also essential in order to define

the structures, companies, institutions that should be contacted first and those who will only

come later. Generally, we immediately think of funding, this is a bias because above all, when

launching a project, the stakeholder to contact first is the one who will effectively contribute to

the project.

For example in the context of the construction of a wind turbine, it is the company which will build,

assemble and install the wind turbine which will be to be contacted before the potential financers and

donors. It is only once an agreement has been reached with the company that will actually do the work

that it will be necessary to contact the funders.

To illustrate these remarks, let us take the example of the stakeholders identified by the Lagardère group

which chooses to rely on 4 spheres (spheres which can vary depending on the field of action of the project

leaders):

2. Relations and dialogue with stakeholders :

This step is essential since the methods of communication and the ways of interacting with stakeholders

will differ according to the nature of the stakeholders. We will not interact in the same way with civil

society as with a supplier, media or public institution.

In the entrepreneurial and sometimes associative framework, there are 3 levels of engagement in the

dialogue mode :

Information and communication

Dialogue and concertation

Agreement, partnership, collaboration and contractualization

In order to have a clear idea of the remarks exposed above, let us take the example of the dialogue modes

of the Bonduelle company :

3. As part of project development :

The modes of dialogue within the framework of the development of the project will be essential in order

to ensure the smooth running of the project but also to ensure the involvement and motivation of the

stakeholders to carry out the action started.

Obviously, some informations must remain confidential. The important thing lies in the pedagogy and

explanation of your choices in the face of expectations, but also in the contextualization of these choices.

We can distinguish 3 modes of dialogues in order to collect opinions, remarks and advice of

stakeholders :

Through stakeholders direct testimonies whom are directly involved

Through a synthesis of the opinions of the stakeholders, it is a question of collecting the opinions

and carrying out a synthesis in order to highlight the important points.

By the expression of a stakeholder spokesperson who will relate the opinions of his peers to the

projectmanagement

4. Identification of issues and expectations of stakeholders:

This step is essential in the context of a project in order to correctly identify the expectations and

challenges for the structures and institutions involved in the project that is in place. By correctly

identifying these expectations, it is easier to meet the expectations of the greatest number of

stakeholders, by responding to them in an order of priority which will be defined in advance (we will

prioritize, for example, the expectations of the final beneficiary over those of any media.

To illustrate the method for identifying the challenges and expectations of stakeholders, let’s take the

example of EDF’s sustainable development report. The important thing here is not so much the content

but the method; are listed : the expectations of the various stakeholders, the mode of dialogue by which

we have managed to collect these expectations, and finally the actions carried out or in progress to meet

these expectations.