What Are Project Stakeholders: Best Practices Guide 2025

Project stakeholders are people or organizations that affect your project, or are affected by it. This includes anyone who funds, approves, executes, benefits from, or is affected by your project. Their influence can be direct (approving the budget) or indirect (using the final product).

Effective stakeholder management starts with identifying who these people are, what they care about, and how they can help or disturb progress.

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), a project stakeholder is defined as:

Source: PMBOK® Guide, 6th Edition


Some drive the work. Others shape requirements or validate outcomes. Understanding who does what is critical to delivering on time, within scope, and with fewer roadblocks.

The basic stakeholder groups are:

Stakeholders matter because they directly influence whether your project gets the support, clarity, and resources it needs to succeed.

Engaged stakeholders remove blockers, accelerate decisions, and flag issues early. Neglected stakeholders create rework, slowdowns, and misalignment that lead to missed deadlines and failed outcomes.

Projects that actively manage stakeholder relationships perform better because they anticipate objections, earn buy-in, and stay aligned on what success looks like.

The different types of stakeholders include internal and external stakeholders, other relevant parties with high or low power and interest, and those classified by their role (like decision-makers, contributors, and support teams).

In the sections below, we’ll break down how these groups differ and how to manage them effectively.

The key difference between external and internal stakeholders is their relationship to your organization: internal work within the company, while external operate outside of it (but are still affected by the project).

You can see a detailed breakdown of these roles and how their priorities differ in the table below:

Stakeholders can also be classified by the type of involvement they have in the project. Some are responsible for making strategic decisions, others contribute directly to deliverables (plus many more different variations).

Examples and role overviews are in the table below.

Stakeholder types can also be classified by how much power they have over the project, and how interested they are in its outcome. This helps you prioritize communication and decide who to involve, consult, or simply keep updated.

Below is a sort table that shows you how to handle each group.

Stakeholders shift roles as the project progresses: they define goals in initiation, shape plans during planning, execute tasks in delivery, monitor progress midstream, and validate results during closure.

Here, they define what the project is and why it matters. Sponsors and executives approve the business case, set expectations, and flag high-level risks. Clients may also help shape goals and success criteria.

During planning, they shape how the project management part gets done. Project managers, team leads, and department heads build the roadmap, define responsibilities, and align plans with stakeholder expectations.

This is where most contributors are involved. Team members execute tasks, cross-functional collaborators coordinate handoffs, and key individuals provide feedback or remove blockers.

A this point, they review progress against KPIs, flag issues, and approve any changes to scope, timing, or budget. Those with authority or dependencies play a more hands-on role here.

Key stakeholders validate final deliverables, give feedback, and join post-project reviews. Sponsors and clients confirm whether the project met expectations, and internal teams wrap up documentation and handoffs.

You analyze and prioritize stakeholders by identifying everyone who can impact or be impacted by the project, and then ranking them based on their influence and level of interest.

This step ensures you’re not treating all involved party equally, but focusing effort where it counts most. Below, we’ll walk through the process in two clear steps so you can build a realistic and focused engagement plan.

Start by listing every person, role, or group connected to the project (directly or indirectly). Your stakeholder mapping should include:

Don’t rely on memory or assumptions but on a detailed stakeholder analysis:

Review org charts, project documentation, signed agreements, and historical records from similar projects. Then, meet with sponsors or functional leads and ask explicitly: “Who else has a stake in this?” This helps uncover shadow stakeholders – the people with high influence but no formal title in the project plan.

Next, assign each person to these four groups using a power/interest grid.

A RACI matrix defines who’s involved in each project task and what role they play. It helps prevent confusion, duplicate work, or missing approvals. It works best when you’re dealing with multiple stakeholders or cross-functional teams.

RACI stands for:

Start by creating a simple table. Down the left column, list the key tasks, every key decision, or deliverable in your project (ideally at the milestone or high-impact level). Across the top row, list stakeholder roles (not just names), such as “Project Manager,” “Client,” “Project owner,” or “Developer.”

Then, for each task, assign one or more of the following roles:

This matrix helps you prevent duplicated effort or missed handoffs. Keep the RACI visible to everyone on the project team, and don’t forget to update it when responsibilities shift.

Tip: Don’t overuse C and I. The goal is clarity, not crowd-pleasing.

You should communicate with stakeholders by tailoring what you share, how often you share it, and the format you use (based on their level of involvement, their stakeholder influence, and role).

Clear communication builds trust, prevents misunderstandings, and keeps project management moving forward without endless back-and-forth. It also lays the groundwork for more efficient stakeholder engagement and collaboration because it aligns expectations and priorities.

Below, we’ll cover the communication basics. By the way, we’ve packed plenty more tips in our client communication guide.

Start with your stakeholder register. It’s the single source of truth for managing who’s involved and how they should be engaged. Go beyond just names and titles.

For each person on the list, include:

The goal is to prevent one-size-fits-all communication. If a legal reviewer only wants to see compliance milestones, don’t loop them into project progress standups. If a sponsor wants weekly highlights, don’t bury them in daily task details.

The more clearly you define these preferences upfront, the fewer misunderstandings you’ll have down the line.

Once you’ve defined communication preferences, tailor the level of detail and timing of updates based on how much influence a stakeholder has – and how closely they care about project outcomes.

The tools you use will shape how easily stakeholders stay informed and how engaged they remain throughout the project.

For high-priority communication, use tools that show or even visualize relevant information without clutter. Project dashboards work well when stakeholders need real-time visibility. Async channels like Slack or email work better for low-touch updates that don’t interrupt focus time.

Keep documentation (like the project charter or the project risk register) and decisions centralized so no one has to hunt through threads, outdated files, or scattered tools.

If you’re using multiple tools (e.g., Slack, spreadsheets, dashboards), make sure everyone knows where to find what, and when to expect it.

Productive is built for this. It brings tasks, updates, timelines, and files into one place, so internal and external parties stay aligned without micromanagement or tool overload.

Create structured opportunities for stakeholders to provide feedback at key points or milestones (not just at the beginning or the end). Without this, frustrations or misalignments often stay hidden until it’s too late to fix them without delays.

Here are three ways to build in feedback loops:

The goal isn’t just to collect input, but to act on it quickly, before these issues grow into blockers.

A realistic example of this could be an unrealistic project schedule that’s bound to be late. If you got feedback on potential issues, you should create forecasted scenarios (with numbers) and present them to the steering committee. After the discussion, use their input to re-adjust the schedule.

This approach demonstrates that you’re listening; it also gives you early warnings before issues grow.

You maintain visibility by making key information accessible without requiring constant project updates. The best way to handle stakeholder challenges is to flag friction early and adjust your engagement strategy before it becomes a blocker.

Stakeholders stop engaging when they don’t know what’s going on, feel left out of decisions, or don’t understand how their role fits into the bigger picture.

These tools and workflows let stakeholders self-serve information when they need it (without relying on manual updates).

What this might look like:

This helps decision-makers track progress at a glance and gives contributors confidence that things are on track. There’s a big list of project management tools with client portals on our blog, you might head over there for choosing advice and user reviews.

If you’re using Productive, you can centralize all of this (tasks, files, discussions, and timelines), so visibility isn’t a bottleneck or an extra admin task.

Spot disengagement before it causes delays. Look for slow approvals, stakeholders going silent after key updates, or vague feedback that keeps repeating. These are signs of unclear expectations (or worse, lost alignment).

Don’t wait. Message them directly. Ask if anything has changed or if the format, timing, or content of your updates isn’t working for them. Most disengagement is fixable, if you catch it before it turns into rework or delays.

Project stakeholders often create friction due to one of four root problems: misaligned goals, disengagement, information overload, or resistance to change. Here’s how to spot each one and respond effectively.

Engaging with stakeholders starts with understanding what each stakeholder needs, when they need it, and how they prefer to stay informed. Your stakeholder management plan should include the right people, prioritize them based on power and interest, and map clear responsibilities with tools like the RACI matrix.

From there, target your communication using formats and tools that match each role’s expectations. Strong engagement doesn’t mean more noise. It means better alignment, faster decisions, and fewer blockers.

If you build that foundation and start engaging stakeholders early, you’ll reduce conflict, avoid surprises, and keep your projects moving. Productive brings your tasks, timelines, docs, and updates into one place, so stakeholders stay aligned without the extra effort.

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