Project Stakeholders
In a project, there may be internal or external stakeholders or both. There are many types of project stakeholders and these are mentioned below with their responsibilities.
Business Analyst
• Stakeholder in all business analysis tasks
• May also be accountable for activities that fall under another stakeholder role
• Additional roles are Implementation SME, Project Manager, Tester, Domain SME
Customer
• Use products or services created by organization, may have contractual or moral rights that enterprise is obliged to meet
Domain SME
• Has expert knowledge applicable to business need or solution scope. Role filled by people who will also be end users, or solution indirect users (managers, process owners, legal staff)
End User
• Stakeholders who clearly interact with solution. Can include participants in business process, or use product or solution
Implementation SME
• Has knowledge regarding implementation of solution components. Common roles are, configuration manager, solution architect, usability analyst, developer, change manager, database administrator, project librarian, information architect
Operational Support
• Responsible for day-to-day management & maintenance of system or product
• Common roles are operations analyst, product analyst, help desk, release manager
Project Manager
• He is one of the most common types of project stakeholders. He is responsible to manage work, deliver solution that meets business need, ensure project objectives are met, balance scope, budget, schedule, resources, quality, risk
• Common roles are project lead, technical lead, product manager, team leader
Regulator
• Responsible for definition & compliance of standards
• Standards can be imposed on solution by regulators through legislation, corporate governance standards, audit standards, org centers of competency
Sponsor
• Responsible to initiate effort, define business need, develop solution that meets that need
• Authorize work to be performed, control budget & scope for initiative. Alternate roles are executive, project sponsor
Supplier
• Stakeholder outside boundary of organization
• Provide products or services to organization
• May have contractual or moral rights & obligations
Tester
• Responsible to deciding how to verify that solution meets requirements defined by business analyst
• Conduct verification
• Ensure solution meets quality standards, risk of defects or failures, is minimized
• Alternate role is quality assurance analyst
You will find or or more of these types of project stakeholders in your project space. Note that different types of stakeholders are dealt with different since all have different interests, power and authority in the project.