Stakeholders influence a project’s performance and outcomes, for better or worse, so this principle calls for engaging them on purpose rather than reacting when they complain. The right amount of engagement varies by stakeholder; the aim is enough involvement to contribute to success and satisfaction, no more and no less.
Stakeholders can shift almost any lever on a project — adding scope, accelerating or stalling the schedule, trimming or inflating cost, shaping quality expectations, freeing or withholding resources, and surfacing or creating risk. Effective engagement means understanding their interests and influence, then communicating and involving them in a way that turns that influence toward the project.
Common misunderstanding. More communication is not always better engagement. Bombarding everyone with the same updates is noise; real engagement is tailored — the right people, the right information, at the right depth.
Where This Principle Shows Up
The domains and knowledge areas where this principle does its heaviest lifting:
In the Eighth Edition
This principle describes the framework as set out in the Sixth and Seventh Editions. The Eighth Edition reorganized it into 6 principles, 7 performance domains and 40 processes.