Leading Answers

Leadership and agility insights
Mike@LeadingAnswers.com

10.4 Manage Stakeholder Expectations

 

Back to Process Group Mappings

10.4 Manage Stakeholder Expectations 

The process of communicating and working with stakeholders to meet their needs and addressing issues as they occur.

 

Simple Version: Checking people have the information they need and are happy with the format, detail, and delivery methods

PMI

 

Agile

PMBOK, Agile Difference, Comment

Inputs

Stakeholder register

Stakeholder management strategy

Project management plan

Issue log

Change log

Organizational process assets

 

Tools and Techniques

Communication methods

Interpersonal tools

Management tools

 

Outputs

Organizational process assets updates

Change requests

Project management plan updates

Project document updates

 

Inputs

Stakeholder register

Stakeholder management strategy

Project management plan

Issue log

Change log

Organizational process assets

Story Backlog

Velocity stats and projections

 

Tools and Techniques

Communication methods

Interpersonal tools

Management tools

Prioritisation

 

Outputs

Organizational process assets updates

Change requests

Project management plan updates

Release / Iteration plan updates

Reprioritized backlog

Project document updates

 

Managing stakeholder expectations is likely the most single important role for any project manager. Agile projects offer some unique challenges as well as advantages. We need buy-in for the iterative/incremental build approach. We need support for the ongoing business involvement, we need trust in letting teams self organize and pull work from the prioritized backlog. This all needs explaining and approving with sponsors and business representatives. The team also needs to know what is expected of them, undertaking a variety of roles, often without complete information and likely to iterate to the true requirements. Getting real buy-in (beyond superficial agreement) can be very difficult and consume a lot of time.

On the other hand, when the business understands that they are in charge of feature prioritization and sequencing, they get to control what gets worked on, and can get real time feedback on progress and function; managing their expectations suddenly gets much easier. The process is transparent and easy to adapt.

 

 

Books

PM Illustrated 2026

Beyond Agile

PMI-ACP Exam Prep

Agile Illustrated

Agile Fundamentals

PMI-ACP Workbook

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