I recently surveyed five groups of project managers and asked them to prioritize the following
stakeholder groups. In alphabetical order they are Community, Customers, Investors,
Suppliers and Team Members/Employees.
The average ranking for all of the groups was 1. Customers, 2. Team members/Employees, 3.
Investors, 4. Suppliers and 5. Community. One of the groups had employees/team members
ranked number one, one group had investors ranked number one and three of the groups had
customers ranked number one.
The variation in the groups was not a surprise. I recently read the book Setting The Table:
The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer. Why read a
restaurateur's book on hospitality? A big part of project management is stakeholder
management, and whenever I can study excellence in seemingly unrelated fields, there are
often strong parallels to project management.
stakeholder groups. In alphabetical order they are Community, Customers, Investors,
Suppliers and Team Members/Employees.
The average ranking for all of the groups was 1. Customers, 2. Team members/Employees, 3.
Investors, 4. Suppliers and 5. Community. One of the groups had employees/team members
ranked number one, one group had investors ranked number one and three of the groups had
customers ranked number one.
The variation in the groups was not a surprise. I recently read the book Setting The Table:
The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer. Why read a
restaurateur's book on hospitality? A big part of project management is stakeholder
management, and whenever I can study excellence in seemingly unrelated fields, there are
often strong parallels to project management.
