How to collect requirements from large stakeholder group?

Submitted by aliweb on Mon, 05/28/2012 - 04:28

 As PMBOK says that you must idenfity all stakeholders. And if required then you must interview them to gather their requirements. I want to know how do you do that in case of a large project where the stakeholder is a large group?

For e.g. let's say there is a project about building a 50KM road. Now in this case general public is also a stakeholder who will use this road so how do you get their requirements? Or you just talk to the government and since government is representative of people hence what ever they say is public requirement?

Another example if you are developing a computerized system for a large public sector organization. The end users in that organization who could be 3000 will be stakeholders so how do you get their requirements?

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saket_pmp

Mon, 05/28/2012 - 06:09

You need to read about the definition of project stakeholders. See what PMBOK says:


Stakeholders are persons or organizations (e.g., customers, sponsors, the performing organization, or the public), who are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project.


You have ignored the underline one and that’s most important. As a project manager the project stakeholders would only be those people who have positive/negative impact on the process you are conducting and you need to invite just those people in the meetings and discussion (i.e. based on relevance).


Even the Identify Stakeholders in PMBOK mentions it clearly:
Identify Stakeholders is the process of identifying all people or organizations impacted by the project.


All project client and customers are NOT project stakeholders from a Project Management perspective.

aliweb

Mon, 05/28/2012 - 10:02

That's what I am saying that the end user is one of the stakeholder and a very important one. And like PMI itself says:

Identify Stakeholders is the process of identifying all people or organizations impacted by the project.

So how can you say that customer and client is not a stakeholder?

And stakeholders can not only be negative/positive but direct/indirect and internal/external too.

saket_pmp

Mon, 05/28/2012 - 10:15

Agree and accepted. Any end user is one of the stakeholder and a very important one but may not be important for the project manager.


That’s why Identify Stakeholders is one of the project initiated phase and PM has to assure that using various tools and his expert knowledge he create Stakeholder register and Stakeholder management strategy right at the start of the project.


Let say I am an IT project manager and I have to make a website that would be used by millions of people. In reality all these million people are the stakeholders. But as a PM I cannot design a website considering million of minds and their requirements. Democracy is NEVER a rule to make things. What I would do is I would create or select a group representative (say 50) based on various segmentations and these 50 representative would be my stakeholder who would be the POC (Point of contact) for their segments of people.


Keep in mind, through election you can choose a candidate (for the people and by the people), but the same candidate NEVER makes a law considering all people who voted for him.

aliweb

Mon, 05/28/2012 - 12:20

 Now what you are saying is right and that's what I wanted. Indentifying stakeholders is separate problem and managing them is separate. Just because you won't manage them directly doesn't mean you don't identify them.

So you are correct in saying that you would create or select a group representative (say 50) based on various segmentations.

And if I am making a website for millions of users I can still gather users requirement just not directly. For e.g. if I am going to make a social networking website then I can gather data about users behavious, trend, what is in these days, what features are required in social networking site e.t.c. from various sources which is basically requirements from those millions of users.

aliweb

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 01:29

 Talked to a PgMP regarding this issue and he said:

Two options we can also use here if we have multiple users.

 

1)      Surveys (Offline /Online)

2)      User Personas (Agile Concept) / Empathy (latest Design Thinking Concept)