Psychology for Effective Stakeholder Management

The complexities in project management are growing every day due to increase in size, rapidly changing technology landscape and mounting expectations from diverse stakeholders on the outcomes. Managing the needs of the stakeholders with these complexities is becoming more challenging. Traditional stakeholder management relies upon process centric approach based on rational factors. But, stakeholders also have emotional needs and these need to be attended to. By focusing on human factors in addition to rational factors, we can be more effective in stakeholder management. Psychology being a science that seeks to understand human factors can provide insights for application in stakeholder management.

This article elaborates on how project managers can leverage insights from psychology to manage the human factors. For example, Social Psychology provides a valid methodology for influencing stakeholders without authority. Likewise, Organizational Psychology offers solutions for effective internal and external communication. Positive Psychology which focuses on what goes well will enable project managers to build more productive engagement with stakeholders. The main discussion points of the article include

• The dimensions of human interactions at different levels covering Organization, Project Team and an Individual in a project

• The various challenges associated with human factors

• How insights from psychology can be used to address the challenges

The article takes examples from real life case studies and provides implementable recommendations for today’s project managers. This will ensure effective stakeholder management which is of paramount importance for the success of a project.

Published in: Project Management Institute (PMI), National Conference, India, 2016.