Salience Model : Stakeholder Management

A problem facing project managers, especially in large projects, is how to communicate effectively with all the different stakeholders, who all have competing communication needs that they expect you, as the project manager, to fulfil. The Salience Model attempts to solve this problem by categorizing stakeholders according to their prominence. It works by ranking the stakeholders according to their power, legitimacy, and urgency.

• Power: to influence the project deliverables or the organization
• Legitimacy: of their interaction with the project and it’s appropriateness
• Urgency: of their communication requirements

These categories overlap, and we acknowledge this by placing our stakeholders into the following Venn diagram:

we have 7 categories of stakeholders in total (excluding non-stakeholders). We can write these groups in order of there prominence and the amount of attention you need to give each type of stakeholder as follows:

The classes of stakeholder which need special attention are those that overlap in the Venn diagram – 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Class 4 (Dominant) stakeholders not only have the power but also have a legitimate claim for communication and thus their needs should be taken into account.

Class 5 (Dangerous) stakeholders have the power, the need for time critical updates, but not the legitimacy. You need to pay special attention to these stakeholders and their needs as they could be dangerous to your project otherwise, possibly using their power and influence to build a concensus perception that your project is a failure.

Class 6 (Dependent) stakeholders have the urgency and legitimacy but not the power – perhaps these stakeholders are part of your project team. These need to be kept informed. Their urgency and legitimacy can be a great asset to the project.

Class 7 (Definitive) stakeholders are the most important of all. They have the power, the right to demand urgency from you or the organization, and the legitimacy to demand the communication.