--- title: SAP BW Tutorial Best Practice on Stakeholder Management Plan [Template] description: How to develop a stakeholder management plan, why it is important and when you must have it created by. image: https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/hs-fs/file-16542660-png/images/bringing_the_giant_down_400_clr_6007.png --- ![Stakeholder Management Plan](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/hs-fs/file-16542660-png/images/bringing_the_giant_down_400_clr_6007.png) # SAP BW Tutorial Best Practice on Stakeholder Management Plan [Template] Table of Contents ## *The Key Steps To Developing Your Project [Stakeholder Management Plan](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/enterprise-reporting-strategy-development)* *As a [SAP HANA Project Manager](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/enterprise-services/sap-industry-solutions/sap-project-management), it is important for you to identify each [project stakeholder](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/consulting-rate-calculator-whats-your-rate), evaluate that [stakeholder](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/sap-asap-project-review), gather their [requirements](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/improve-your-sap-bw-project-requirements-gathering), estimate the time to implement each requirement and also to develop a Stakeholder Management Plan. * *In this article, I discuss the importance of identifying Project Stakeholders and how that process naturally leads to several other subsidiary SAP Project Management Plans we recommend you develop.*   In addition to the [Project **Risk Register**](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/sap-sem-cpm-risk-register-design-template), the other tool we recommend you immediately start work on is the **Stakeholder Management Plan**. ![Stakeholder Management Plan](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/hs-fs/file-16613208-gif/images/stick_figure_handyman_pounding_nail_300_clr_4108.gif)**Nail Down Your Stakeholder Management Plan Early to Ensure Project Success**   What is a **Stakeholder** and why should you have a Stakeholder Management Plan?  A stakeholder is anyone who has an interest in your [project](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/9-reasons-sap-bw-projects-fail-maybe). ## **Three Stakeholder Types** There are at least 3 types of project Stakeholders including: - **Friendly Stakeholders** - **Neutral  Stakeholders ** - **Unfriendly Stakeholders**   **Friendly stakeholders** are people who want to see your project succeed. The Project Sponsor can be a friendly stakeholder. The Project Sponsor is responsible for [the project concep](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/learn-what-makes-sap-dfps-solution-different)t and for launching the project so they should be the most friendly project stakeholder. Friendly stakeholders have requirements.   ![Friendly Project Stakeholder](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/hs-fs/file-16573383-png/images/media_icon_like_800_clr_9163.png?width=176&height=176&name=media_icon_like_800_clr_9163.png) There are also **unfriendly stakeholders**. These are people who don’t want to see [change](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/inbound-marketing/discover-project-managers-utopia-with-these-change-management-tips). They could also be people who might want to see you fail or who might try to sabotage your project.     Unfriendly stakeholders have requirements as well. It is important not to ignore unfriendly stakeholders because they can interfere with your project. It is important to identify unfriendly stakeholders, evaluate their requirements, determine the risks and benefits of their requirements, realize they may always be unfriendly and to devise a containment plan so that you can complete your project successfully, implement their requirements and protect the success of your project from unfriendly stakeholders.   ![Unfriendly Stakeholder](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/hs-fs/file-16542660-png/images/bringing_the_giant_down_400_clr_6007.png?width=188&height=141&name=bringing_the_giant_down_400_clr_6007.png)  **Don't let the Unfriendly Stakeholders Tie You Down.**   **Neutral stakeholders** are people who are kind of neutral toward the success or failure of your project. From a strategy point of view, when you need more friends on your project, try winning over more of the fence sitting neutral [stakeholders](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/how-to-improve-sap-profitability-management-the-ultimate-guide) to your side.   ![Neutral Project Stakeholder](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/hs-fs/file-16609493-png/images/smiley_face_neutral_button_400_clr_9153.png?width=208&height=182&name=smiley_face_neutral_button_400_clr_9153.png) **Neutral Stakeholders Need to Be Persuaded** ## Practice Project Stakeholder Management [Best Practices](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/how-to-improve-sap-profitability-management-p2-the-ultimate-guide)   Whether they are friendly, unfriendly or neutral, **all stakeholders have requirements**. You should continue to identify stakeholders until no further stakeholders can be identified that will impact your project in one way or another. In any organization, this could take some time and should be an ongoing process. These are your stakeholders and they set your project scope. Everyone and everything else outside the scope is outside your project. Every new request you get after that you have to ask yourself, is this in scope or out of scope. If it is in scope then you need to take care of it. If the new request is out of scope, then save it for the next project. ### **Stakeholder Influence** Stakeholders have an impact on and affect the following attributes of your project: - **Requirements** - **Scope ** - [**Quality**](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/data-quality-best-practices-for-effective-sap-bw-reporting) - **Risk** - **Schedule** - **Costs** - **Success** - **Failure** From a project management stand point, Stakeholder Requirements are the most important because [requirements drive everything](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/sap-best-practices-greenfield-implementations) else that happens on your project. Requirements set the project expectations and deliverables (**Project Scope**). Requirements set the expected level of quality for the deliverables which affects overall project costs. ### **Estimating Project Durations** Your **Project Schedule** is also determined from the requirements. The time required to implement a particular requirement is estimated and costed based on past experience.   This is not the only method, but is one of the best.   The time estimates for all requirements are then put into a critical path schedule time line. This becomes the project schedule. More on how to do this later. Some requirement have more inherent [risks](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/9-epm-sap-strategy-management-how-to-best-practices-to-implement-now) involved than others perhaps because there are unknown technical challenges to be faced and also because they take longer to implement. All these risks are factored into the overall schedule. There are several different project duration estimation techniques that I have tried and that work. I will talk more about estimating project durations in a later article. ### **Project Scope** Overall, implementing the requirements, the scope, of your project is what the project is all about. There are Time Requirements, Schedule Requirements, Cost Requirements and Quality Requirements. These are all forms of project **Constraints**. ![Project Scope 500 wht 8918](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/hs-fs/file-16580063-gif/images/project_scope_500_wht_8918.gif?width=194&height=260&name=project_scope_500_wht_8918.gif) **Identify the Project Scope**   I do not recommend that you jump in and start [WRICEF development](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/12-risk-management-considerations-to-measure-wricef-a) until you have spent some time identifying stakeholders and gathering their requirements. Ask yourself, how can you implement if you do not know what product or service you are supposed to create? ### You can't. This is where you will run into trouble with the customer. So if requirements are so important, it becomes important to manage the requirements and in order to do that, you have to manage the stakeholders, otherwise the requirements will be a moving target. Without managing the stakeholders you can never finish the [project](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/inbound-marketing/11-super-secret-service-level-agreement-techniques) because the requirements will be constantly changing. ### This is called Scope Creep. You can’t allow this. You will need to create several additional project management subsidiary management plans.   You need a: - [Stakeholder](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-sap-s-hrms) management plan - Scope management plan - Schedule management plan - Risk management plan - Communications management plan ### **Is Microsoft Project a Project Management Plan?** As you can see, a project management plan will contain several subsidiary [management plans](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/develop-a-data-governance-framework) all of which take time to develop (like a few months). It is clear that a list of tasks presented in **a Microsoft Project file is not a Project Management Plan**.   A lot of people make this mistake.   A Microsoft Project file is simply a task scheduler created as part of an overall Project Management Plan. There is a time and a place to use Microsoft Project but not until long after the stakeholders have been identified and after the requirements have been identified. ### **Communications Management Plan** Stakeholders also want and need to know **what is going on** with the progress of the project. They want to know the project status and where things are at. They want to know hourly, daily and weekly where you are at with the project. So We can identify one additional plan the project manager needs to create: - **The Communications Management Plan** The Stakeholder management plan drives the [requirements gathering process](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/sap-bw-tutorial-best-practice-on-requirements-gathering). Requirements drive the project scope. As new stakeholders come and go on the project or the sponsoring organization, all stakeholders will constantly be asking for this or that HOT new [requirement](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/enterprise-reporting-strategy-development) and they will want to know what is your promise date and when you can have it done.   Setting proper expectations upfront, getting everyone on the same page with regular communications is important. ![Communications Management Plan cell phone pc 400 clr 2321](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/hs-fs/file-16546624-png/images/communications_management_plan_cell_phone_pc_400_clr_2321.png?width=190&height=307&name=communications_management_plan_cell_phone_pc_400_clr_2321.png) **Communicate with Stakeholders**   In this article we have discussed a little bit about the following topics: - [**Risk Register**](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/manage-risk-using-our-risk-management-guide/) - **Stakeholder List** - **Stakeholder Types** - **Stakeholder Management Plan** - **Project Scope** - **Scope Management Plan** - **Communications Management Plan** - **Schedule** - **Estimating Project Durations**   I will discuss each of these topics in further articles as well as provide you with templates and my practical hands on project management tips.  In the meantime, you can download a proven [Project Stakeholder](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/inbound-marketing/how-to-nail-sap-partnership-management) Management Plan Template by pressing the button.   [![Download Template Stakeholder Management Plan](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/118735/3533d819-8d48-46e4-beec-105f8de37143.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/118735/3533d819-8d48-46e4-beec-105f8de37143)   **People Who Read This Also Read:**  - **[How to Use a Project Charter to Start a Project](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/how-to-use-a-project-charter-to-start-a-project)** - **[10 Key SAP BW Project Risk Management Tips](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/10-key-sap-bw-project-risk-management-tips)** - **[10 Advanced SAP BW Project Estimation Techniques](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/10-advanced-sap-bw-project-estimation-techniques)** - **[10 Reasons You Need a SAP Project Review](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/10-reasons-you-need-a-sap-project-review)** - **[How You Can Estimate a SAP BW Project in Under 5 Minutes](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/how-you-can-estimate-a-sap-bw-project-in-under-5-minutes)** - 10 [Critical Chain](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/10-critical-chain-project-manager-tips) Project Manager Tips - Learn What is [Catch Weight Management](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/learn-what-is-catch-weight-management) - Understanding [Embedded Systems](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/understanding-embedded-systems-vs-sap-hana) vs [SAP HANA](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/understanding-the-most-common-sap-data-warehousing-concepts) Topics from this blog: [Best Practices](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/topic/best-practices) [Project Management](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/topic/project-management) [How-To](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/topic/how-to) [Development](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/topic/development) [Stakeholder Management](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/topic/stakeholder-management) [Communications Management Plan](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/topic/communications-management-plan) ### Download SAP BW Mindmap Learn what SAP Business Warehouse is and what it does in under five minutes [![Get this Mindmap](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/118735/8db2ad37-8211-47a3-86ae-09b6b2bb297b.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/118735/8db2ad37-8211-47a3-86ae-09b6b2bb297b) [mailto:someone@yoursite.com](mailto:someone@yoursite.com) ### Doug Ayers I am an MBA, B.S. in Computer Engineering and certified PMP with over 33 years working experience in software engineering and I like to go dancing after work. I program computers, solve problems, design systems, develop algorithms, crunch numbers (STEM), Manage all kinds of interesting projects, fix the occasional robot or “thing” that’s quit working, build new businesses and develop eCommerce solutions in Shopify, SAP Hybris, Amazon and Walmart. I have been an SAP Consultant for over 10 years. I am Vice-President and Co-Founder of SAP BW Consulting, Inc. [View All Articles by Doug Ayers](https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/author/doug-ayers) ## The SAP Blog Subscribe to our blog and receive SAP BW Updates, demand generation, inbound marketing, sales enablement, technology and revenue generation insights and ideas delivered right to your email. [mailto:someone@yoursite.com](mailto:someone@yoursite.com) ![SAP](https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/viewthroughconversion/960101754/?value=0&guid=ON&script=0) ![](https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=199270410761059&ev=PageView&noscript=1) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@id" : "https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/sap-bw-tutorial-best-practice-on-stakeholder-management-plan#blogposting", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "about" : [ { "@type" : "Thing", "name" : "stakeholder management", "sameAs" : "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_stakeholder" }, { "@type" : "Thing", "name" : "plan", "sameAs" : "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning" }, { "@type" : "Thing", "name" : "Management", "sameAs" : "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management" } ], "author" : { "@id" : "https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/about/doug-ayers#person" }, "dateModified" : "2025-02-16T10:00:00", "datePublished" : "2025-02-16T10:00:00", "description" : "Learn the key concepts and practical steps for building 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communication.", "position" : 5 }, { "@type" : "HowToStep", "name" : "Monitor stakeholder feedback and update the plan as needed.", "position" : 6 } ] } ``` ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@id" : "https://www.sapbwconsulting.com/blog/sap-bw-tutorial-best-practice-on-stakeholder-management-plan#faqpage", "@type" : "FAQPage", "mainEntity" : [ { "@type" : "Question", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "Effective stakeholder management ensures alignment, minimizes resistance, and increases project success." }, "name" : "Why is stakeholder management important in SAP BW projects?" }, { "@type" : "Question", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "A stakeholder management plan should include identification, analysis, engagement strategies, communication plans, and monitoring procedures." }, "name" : "What are the key components of a stakeholder management plan?" }, { "@type" : "Question", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "It should be 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