– See All Project Management Key Concepts –
Power and influence models, versus the Salience model for capturing stakeholder engagement
During your PMP exam you will come across many different stakeholder engagement techniques, and it’s important to know the difference between these various Power over Influence or 2D models, and the Salience model, which is known as a 3D model because we’ve got three particular parts to that particular model.
The Salience Model
So the Salience model itself describes the classes of stakeholders based on assessments of their Power, Urgency and Legitimacy. So power is the level of authority or ability to influence. The Urgency is the need for immediate attention, so how urgent is the stakeholders involvement in the project? And legitimacy is how appropriate is their involvement.
The salience model is useful for large projects where there are complex communities of stakeholders, or where there are complex networks of relationships within the project or the organization itself. Here’s an example, as you can see it’s known as a 3D model or a cube model, but the best way to represent it is through these three circles. So you’ve got Power, Legitimacy and Urgency and you can simply note all of your stakeholders within within these three circles and where they fit in the three circles to make it that easy graphical representation.
Power over Influence Models
We can also look at that in conjunction with the two dimensional classification models. They are more useful for small projects, or projects with simple relationships between stakeholders. We’ve got Power over Interest, or Power over Influence, and Impact over Influence. All of those you might use depending on which one fits you the best or fits the project the best.
My personal favorite is the influence of the stakeholder over the impact to that stakeholder. So does it have a high impact and does that person have a high influence? So are they an executive within that particular area, and is it having a high impact on them? We probably want to manage them very closely.
If it’s a high impact but they have a low influence on our project or the organization, then we just really want to keep them informed. If it’s a low impact to them and they have a low influence, then we can just monitor their involvement. If they have a high influence, but a low impact you still want to keep them satisfied, because with a high influence they may be able to influence the project, derail it or even help it under the right conditions.
So those are the power and influence models versus the salience model in your project.
– David McLachlan