Project ownership and stakeholders – From a project manager’s angle

Abstract

Building and leading a company as well as managing projects has always been about managing for stakeholders. The economic world today consists of interconnected networks of customers, suppliers, communities, employees, financiers. Ownership plays a special part in the life of companies and projects. Beyond physical possession of business property it includes responsibility (even in hard times), ability to make decisions, taking control and pride in tangible results and creating value during the process. Addressing project ownership issues should fit within the general framework of the organization. By the temporary and unique nature of projects they are still performed to achieve specific goals. Projects are usually performed by temporary teams, have a non-repetitive feature and provide non-standard deliverables. The purpose of this study is to show, present and highlight the connection between project ownership and stakeholders. For this, I have taken the liberty of referring to the original stakeholder literature (mainly Freeman) and a Hungarian edition of an international standard providing guidance on concepts and processes of project management that are important for, and have impact on, the performance of projects. Stakeholder literature is added with personal observation from 20 years of work in project management. This paper is thus written with the methodology of participatory action research where my experience has been gained through direct management and/or involvement in smaller and larger projects in different roles at all affected levels (project preparation, implementation and evaluation).