SIMS: A Stakeholder Information Management System for Successful Projects

Abstract

In recent years, there has been much attention given to stakeholder management. A clear indicator of its importance is that the Project Management Institute (PMI) has included a new knowledge area dedicated to project stakeholder management in the 5th edition of its Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). The scarcity of stakeholder information management systems, the high price of the existing solutions and the absence of free or trial versions are all indicators that stakeholder management is still developing and rising. The purpose of this paper is to gather and analyze theoretical requirements for stakeholder management as described in various academic resources, use these requirements to design an information system using various techniques and diagrams, and finally develop a prototype following the proposed system design. In general, the biggest focus will be on creating a solid ground for a comprehensive stakeholder register as it plays a central role in stakeholder management processes. Through a literature review, it can be noticed that researchers gave much attention to the issue of categorization and prioritization of stakeholders through the assessment of their various attributes such as power, interest, legitimacy, etc. For that reason, one of the proposed system features is customizable scales that will satisfy all proposed attributes and enable their assessment. The ultimate goal of the research is to bridge the gap between the theoretical and practical side of stakeholder management by designing and developing a stakeholder information management system using the latest web technologies.