2 management - School of International Business and ...

199 Project Management
After the social environment is identified, the stakeholders are examined along the dimensions of
influence/power and potential for conflict. This can be presented in a simplified assessment scale
for the dimensions, from "low" to "high," in a 2x2 stakeholder portfolio (see Fig. 6).
Figure 6 | Stakeholder portfolio with examples
Stakeholder moderation mainly means defining and implementing measures for stakeholder care.
These serve to reduce the potential for conflict in the project. The position of the stakeholders in
the four portfolio quadrants can lead to the systematic development of stakeholder strategies. A
strategy can be developed for each quadrant.
Quadrant I : repressive strategies
Quadrant II : discursive strategies
Quadrant III : discursive strategies
Quadrant IV : participative strategies
Participative strategies
Participation consists of making the actors in the project environment "partners in the project
work." This can allow the actors to participate in the project at various levels of intensity.
Discursive strategies
These deal with ways to handle conflicts. Discursive strategies therefore include project participa-
tion as a core element. They go beyond that, because they turn "project participants into project
partners" with hard conflicts between the project and the project's environment; the goal is often
not attainable by mere participation. Thus the discursive strategies target fair and transparent
forms of factual discussion, and as a result, lead to appropriate balancing mechanisms in the
project in case of unavoidable conflicts, for example by considering the environment.