A Systems Approach to Project Stakeholder Management: Fuzzy Cognitive Map Modeling Richard C. Sperry 1and Antonie J. Jetter 1 Abstract Projects that make effective use of project stakeholder manageme ...

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A Systems Approach to Project Stakeholder
Management: Fuzzy Cognitive Map Modeling
Richard C. Sperry 1and Antonie J. Jetter 1
Abstract
Projects that make effective use of project stakeholder management (PSM) tend to run smoothly and be successful because
stakeholders understand and agree with the project approaches and outcomes. Projects with ineffective stakeholder manage-
ment, on the other hand, frequently experience delays and cost overruns or may even be terminated. To date, project teams have
limited methodological support for PSM: Existing methods are dominantly static and internally focused, making it difficult to
manage so-called external stakeholders, who are not under the authority of the project manager. This work aims to improve PSM
practice by closing the methodological gap. We developed a novel decision-support methodology, based on Fuzzy Cognitive Map
(FCM) modeling that leverages stakeholders’ public comments to anticipate the project’s impacts on them and to make conflicts
between stakeholder interests and project objectives transparent. A demonstration of the method is provided using a single
case—namely, a longitudinal case study at Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a federal agency that provides power to the
Pacific Northwest.
Keywords
project stakeholder, stakeholder analysis, sensitivity analysis, decision support, Fuzzy Cognitive Maps
Introduction
Over the past 30 years, projectmanagement literature has
developed a variety of techniques for project stakeholder man-
agement (PSM). At their core, these techniques aim to identify
the individuals, groups, and organizations that “have a stake” in
the project, to understand their specific interests, and to
develop strategies for engaging with them to increase project
success (Project Management Institute, 2017). The basic pre-
mise of PSM is that projects will run more smoothly and be
more successful if stakeholders understand and agree with the
project approaches and outcomes (Ackermann & Eden, 2011).
If no such understanding is achieved, projects can experience
delays and cost overruns, or may even be terminated (Aaltonen
& Kujala, 2016; Aaltonen & Sivonen, 2009; Sutterfield,
Friday-Stroud, & Shivers-Blackwell, 2006). When stakeholder
interests are dissimilar, agreements on project processes and
outcomes do not always emerge organically (Genus, 2006;
Guston, 2013). Instead, project teams need to use PSM to
engage in activities that foster agreement and increase stake-
holder support, while curtailing stakeholder influences that
might adversely affect the project (Cleland, 1997). To date, project teams have limited methodological support
for PSM of so-called external stakeholders, who are not under
the authority of the project manager (Cleland, 1997). Instead,
existing methods assume that the team can identify and focus on a relatively limited number of important stakeholders with
clear and stable interests. Accordingly, PSM methods focus on
single stakeholder m