InfographicSimon BuehringIntroduction29 Apr 2026Agile is based on 4 key values and 12 key principles. While the agile values provide project managers and developers with a very general overview of what it means to be ‘agile,’ and help guide the agile process, the 12 agile principles give examples of how agile should be implemented.PRINCE2 (Projects IN Controlled Environments) is a structured project management method used to plan, control and deliver projects through defined roles, stages and management products. It is used by project managers, project teams and governance groups such as a Project Board to improve control, business justification and delivery outcomes.The 12 agile principles underpin every successful agile project and can inspire even non-agile teams. They form a core part of any

t what we call lessons learned. So, these are all techniques for identifying stakeholders. Now here’s the exercise I’m going to get you to do. If you want to just grab a plain piece of paper, or you can do this in a Word document or some other note-taking solution, doesn’t really matter what. I want you to think about a current project that you’re involved with. If it’s one that you’re just starting, might be even better still, or if you can’t think of one that you’re just starting, maybe think back a little bit, you could think to a recent project. 00:08:58 David Longstaff

: Do you know, in some ways, this even works just as well for home life? So, you could also think of a personal project that you’ve been involved with. If you can’t think of any, then could I ask you just, how about I give you a scenario to consider? Imagine you’re the project manager for a housing construction project in a major town. So, I’m going to go quiet now for a moment. Can I just get you to identify as many stakeholder individuals, groups, or organisations that you can come up with. You don’t have to share this, but if you want to, just identify as many as you can come up with, write them down on paper or whatever note-taking app you’re using. And this would typically normally be done as a collaborative workshop or brainstorming session.

00:10:39 David Longstaff : I’ll give you a couple of minutes for this exercise. I may witter on in the background. It’s purely just so that you know you’re still connected, and I’m still connected. If you are happy to share and there’s nothing confidential, then feel free to share in the chat box which project that you chose. Feel free to anonymise it if it’s a little bit more sensitive. And if you’re happy to share, you could maybe even pop into the chat box some of the types of stakeholders. You don’t need to put in individual names and organisations, but you could kind of broaden it out a little if you want; that is all optional. By the way, I don’t want you to share any confidential information, of course.

00:11:51 David Longstaff

: So, it was a little bit tricky for me to know just how long to give you, because the reality is this would probably take, but it could be an hour’s workshop. I mean, this is an exercise you would come back to multiple times throughout your project, because you may identify new stakeholders in the definition stage, if you’re used to project management terminology. You’ll come across more stakeholders throughout deployment, still more in the transition phase, and then on into the extended life cycle, such as in the adoptions phase, the benefits management phase. And frankly, even if you’re using an agile project management methodology, you’ll come up with more stakeholders still, even in the evolutionary development phases, the transition phases, the even early on in the pre-project feasibility foundations, there’s all sorts of different terminology, but almost every stage of project life cycles, you’ll identify new stakeholders. Okay, if you want to share and you’re happy to share, feel free to type into the chat box. But no need, I don’t. Okay, excellent, so we just had a quick look. Is that right? So, Paula, NPD project refreshing an established and very successful product. Stakeholders are so, the team, you’re absolutely right, Paula. I don’t know anything about your project, but do not underestimate that your team members are clearly going to be involved. They’ll have a role, but they will also be impacted, and that links to some of your other comments, Paula, their colleagues and managers, the customers, our group who own the CO. And then everyone else in the business has a stake or an interest in the success of this product’s evolution. Nice points. Thank you, Paula. 00:13:59 David Longstaff

: If anybody else wants to share, feel free to do so, but it sounds like you’ve already identified that in your project, almost everybody in the organisation is, and you’ll probably come up with, depending on the nature of your project, plenty of external groups as well. Some may be more impacted; some may be less impacted, but this is the very first part of stakeholder engagement. It’s identifying who they are and actually not limiting this list. There is sometimes a bit of a tendency to identify some key stakeholders early on, and then we sort of miss out others. So, it’s good to almost, it doesn’t matter how crazy the ideas are that come, let people in a brainstorming session feel comfortable at throwing in groups and individuals as well, that you may not automatically think of. So, I’ll just give you a moment longer; you’ve got some obvious ones. Do you also have some perhaps less obvious stakeholders? You’ve got to go back and think about these ones. Quick look at the second comment, an event, organisation, some big conference. The delegates are obviously stakeholders, excellent, thank you for that help. Speakers definitely are, yes. Suppliers, facilities, staff, catering. My goodness, these are wide groups, aren’t they? Thank you for that help. It’s much broader than we might initially think, and first part of this is just get them down. Now, at this stage, we haven’t done any analysis of them. All we’ve done is listed them, identified who they are. Let’s move on, so we also need to understand what’s their interest and relationship to the project, it won’t be the same for everyone. So, for some people or some groups, they may be particularly interested in the finance side of the project.

00:16:06 David Longstaff : What’s it going to cost? It might be that they’re more interested in health and safety aspects of your project in the top middle box there. It could be some sustainability factors that they’re really interested in, environmental issues. It could be even kind of very much on an individual level, a local level, it could be things like traffic and congestion. How is this project going to affect that? Amenities? What about schools? Are there going to be schools that will support this project? Medical facilities? What about shops? So now this is probably particularly in the example I gave regarding the housing construction, but this is just as relevant to other types of projects as well. So, can I just again, I’ll stop for a moment. Can you just next to all the various groups that you’ve listed and individuals that you’ve listed, just kind of identify what’s their sort of particular interest in the project? It won’t all be the same.

00:17:51 David Longstaff

: Okay, and now I’m going to bring up a matrix that’s designed to help you further carry out an analysis. So, the early analysis was just to analyse what’s their area of interest but another element that is covered by APM’s material, and indeed PMIs, if this is pretty global, is understanding a stakeholder’s both level of interest and level of influence or power. So, you’ll see on this kind of typical two by two matrix, we’ve got those who have low interest in the project, low power. And down in the bottom left box, top right orange box, you’ve got high power and high interest, and then variations within there. Actually, we can just mirror that, because we might say, well, how about their attitude towards the project? We’ve got those who are very much for the project, but actually, if you were just to kind of replicate it, you might have just the same boxes for those who are against the project. And again, they will have a degree of power and influence and a degree of interest in your project. So, if I was to put just some terminology around these levels, you’ll see we’ve got backers and blockers. So right-hand side are all backers, the left-hand side are all blockers. We’ve got their power level, so highly influential in the top boxes. And then in the lower boxes, we’ve got those who are what are referred to as insignificant. I don’t want to kind of diminish their role, but that’s how they are mapped in APMs and PMIs and most matrices for stakeholder engagement and analysis. We’ve also got then their interest level mentioned in the middle option, which is whether they’re active, highly active, or whether they are actually quite passive towards this. Now, if you just think about some of your stakeholders, you might think about your project sponsor. 00:20:08 David Longstaff

: So where would you want your project sponsor to be? Well, clearly up in that top right box. You want your project sponsor to be for your project, obviously, but you also want them to have a high degree of interest and a high degree of power or influence. You could ask, How influential does your project sponsor need to be? The answer tends to be high enough, but there is a balance because if they are too senior in the organisation, what you may find is that they lose activity. In other words, they’re not that interested because they’re being pulled in so many other directions. One factor around an effective sponsor is making sure that they have enough time to commit to your project. So, project sponsor, you want them to be very active, highly influential, and we’ll talk about why that’s a benefit a little bit later on. But yes, you want your project sponsor to be up there in the top right. You can also plot your other stakeholders. So, for example, if this were the housing construction project, or actually, frankly, Alpa, I know from my background in, I did have a role not too long ago in managing a major annual conference that the health and safety executive may well have quite an important part to play. Now, where would they appear on this stakeholder matrix? Are they that interested in whether your project actually succeeds or fails? Not particularly. So, you might find them slightly towards the middle of that vertical red line, but how influential are they? Incredibly. They can close your project down in minutes if you have a major failing in health and safety, and this can be all sorts of projects. So that’s just a couple of examples. I’m wondering if I can now just get you to go back to your exercise, and I’ll go quiet again for a few minutes while you do this. Can I get you to map out the stakeholders for your project? Just pop them into those boxes.

Simon BuehringBusiness case example 1: Moving home
19 Feb 2026Suppose you and your spouse are considering moving to a new home. You will need to weigh up the pros and cons of moving. This is done using a business case. You might not call it that, but that’s what it is. Let’s look at an example.
Reason
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network. Dive deep into the role of a business change manager and what you can learn on change management courses. Discover more by reading on.As you can see from the example, the first thing to be clear about in a business case is the reason for doing the project or activity. In this example, the couple has answered the question
Why?
In fact, there are two problems here – the local school and John’s long commute.
Options considered
A business case should weigh up the competing options which have been considered. After all, there is usually more than one option. Perhaps an alternative option would have been for John to change his job to one nearer their current house. However, this wouldn’t solve the issue with the school.
Preferences Benefits
The benefits of a project or activity are the positive things you’re going to get back in return for your investment of time and money. In this case, the kids will get a better education, and John will save time each day.
Timescales
Is change management a good career choice?It’s also important to understand how long the investment of resources will take. This is so that the organisation (or family in this case) knows when the resources will be freed up to work on other
Preferences projects
Simon Buehring or activities.
19 Feb 2026There are usually 2 timescales to consider. First, the timescale of the project or activity – in this case 3 months to find a new house and move there. Second, the time over which the benefits shall be realized. In this case it’s 5 years until the kids leave school.
Costs
Considering a career in change management? Read this article to understand why it's a growing field and how to get started.The costs of doing the project or activity is the next important bit of information. On this project, the costs of moving to a new house will be £5,000. These are the project costs.
However, the couple will spend an additional £2,000/year for every year over which the business case is calculated. For a project in an organisation, this is usually referred to as the operational costs of maintaining and operating the projects outputs e.g. an IT system. At this point, the couple knows the total costs over the timescales when the benefits shall be realized.
Risks
For any activity or project, it’s also important to understand the major risks involved. Risks are the uncertain things which may or may not happen during the period of the investment. There is only one risk identified here, which is the risk that the couple might lose touch with friends who live close to them right now.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user. Investment appraisal
The next section is where the costs and timescales and risks are weighed up. For this project, it’s a simple decision for the couple to decide if it’s worth spending money over the next 5 years to give their kids better schooling and to save John 2 hours a day commuting.
For an organisation to decide if an investment is worthwhile, however, there are several different ways in which it can decide about the investment.
Often in organisations there are rules defined to help business analysts or
project managers
Statistics write what’s called an investment appraisal. In the next example, we’ll look at one example known as net benefits.
Business case example 2: Handheld device project
Imagine a heating repair services company that uses a paper-based set of forms filled in by an engineer during site visits. The spare parts required to fix the heater are recorded on a form which is given to staff to process back in the office. They then order the parts, and schedule a follow-up visit for the engineer to fix the heater.

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