Domain: Stakeholders

In the PMBOK® Guide, Eighth Edition, from PMI®, communications is no longer a domain of its own. Its processes sit inside the Stakeholders performance domain, next to the engagement processes they serve. That is how owners already work: every report, meeting and notice exists to keep a particular person informed, supportive or out of the way of the critical path. This lesson covers the domain's seven processes and builds a stakeholder plan for Northgate.

Learning outcomes

• Name the seven processes of the Stakeholders performance domain and the focus area where each mainly sits.
• Explain why the 8th edition puts communications inside the Stakeholders domain.
• Map stakeholders by power and interest, and compare current with desired engagement.
• Draft an owner's communications matrix for a construction project.

The lesson

What the Stakeholders domain covers

Stakeholders is one of the seven performance domains PMI lists for the 8th edition, with Governance, Scope, Schedule, Finance, Resources and Risk. It covers finding the people and organizations who affect or are affected by the project, understanding what they need, and keeping them engaged in a way that builds shared understanding. Sponsor engagement is singled out as a key concept, and for an owner's project that is right: an owner's executive who stops paying attention is a bigger risk than most site problems.

Seven processes, two strands

The domain holds seven processes. Four are about engagement and three about communications, and they run in parallel through the focus areas, as Figure 1 shows. Ricardo Vargas notes that communications is now part of stakeholder management rather than a separate area. The reason is practical. A communications plan written without a stakeholder analysis sends the same report to everyone; a stakeholder plan without a communications plan has no way to act.

Identify Stakeholders starts in the Initiating focus area and never really stops. Its output is a stakeholder register: who each stakeholder is, their role, what they want from the project, how much they can affect it and how much they care.

Plan Stakeholder Engagement decides, for each stakeholder or group, how engaged they need to be and what will move them there. Plan Communications Management turns that into a schedule of information: who needs what, when, in what form, from whom, and how they can respond.

Manage Stakeholder Engagement is the work of meetings, negotiation, consultation and follow-through. Manage Communications produces and distributes the information on the plan, and stores it where people can find it.

Monitor Stakeholder Engagement checks whether engagement is moving in the right direction and adjusts the strategy. Monitor Communications checks whether the information actually reached people and was understood, not just whether it was sent.

Two tools that do most of the work

A power and interest grid sorts stakeholders by how much they can affect the project and how much they care. High power and high interest: manage closely. High power, low interest: keep satisfied. Low power, high interest: keep informed. Low on both: monitor. It is a starting point, not a verdict; a municipal inspector with low interest in your schedule still has the power to stop it.

An engagement assessment rates each key stakeholder's current and desired engagement on a simple scale. A common five-step scale, used in earlier PMBOK Guide editions, runs unaware, resistant, neutral, supportive and leading. The gap between current and desired is what the engagement plan has to close.

Tailoring the domain

On adaptive work, frequent demonstrations and short feedback loops do much of the engagement work, and the communications plan can be light. On a predictive building project with a contract, a municipality and neighbours, the plan needs to be explicit and written down, because much of the communication is contractual or regulatory and has to happen on time. Lesson 5 covers how to set the weight of each domain.

Northgate worked example

Northgate Distribution Centre (fictional) is a 12,000 m² tilt-up warehouse on a 2.6 ha site in Vaughan, Ontario. The owner is Northgate Logistics Inc. (fictional), a private owner-occupier with an owner's project manager and an owner's representative. Halvorsen Builders Ltd. (fictional) is the general contractor under CCDC 2-2020, and Ridgeline Architects Inc. (fictional) is the prime consultant under OAA 600. See the Northgate fact sheet.

The stakeholder map

Figure 2 maps nine stakeholders identified at the M1 kickoff on Tuesday January 19, 2027. The positions are the owner's representative's judgment, and they will move. The electricity distributor, for example, sits in "keep satisfied" most of the year, but its connection work controls permanent power at M7 on Friday October 1, 2027, so in the summer of 2027 it needs closer management.

Current versus desired engagement

Figure 3 rates five of them. Two gaps stand out. The operations team, who will run the building from M10 on Monday January 17, 2028, are unaware: nobody has asked them about dock scheduling, office layout or the racking interface. And the racking contractor, under a separate owner contract, does not yet know that its start depends on Halvorsen reaching Ready-for-Takeover at M9 on Friday January 14, 2028. Both gaps are about people the GC's schedule does not cover. Only the owner can close them.

View the data

Stakeholder	Current	Desired	Owner's action
Executive sponsor	Supportive	Leading	Monthly steering meeting with decisions, not updates
Operations team	Unaware	Supportive	Requirements workshops; walk-throughs before M9
Halvorsen (GC)	Neutral	Supportive	Prompt answers, fair change process
Racking contractor	Unaware	Supportive	Interface meetings from M6; shared milestone dates
Neighbours	Resistant	Neutral	Advance notice of heavy work and truck routes

The communications matrix

The communications plan turns the analysis into a schedule. A short matrix is enough for most owners. The frequencies below are illustrative; the owner sets them in the plan and the contract sets some of them.

Monitor Communications then asks a blunt question each month: did the people who needed to act on the report actually act? If the sponsor approves changes in the steering meeting but finance learns of them from the monthly report, the matrix needs fixing.

Owner's move

• Own the stakeholders the contractor cannot see. Operations staff, separate contractors, lenders and neighbours are the owner's job, not Halvorsen's.
• Keep the sponsor in a decision role. Bring the sponsor choices with consequences, not status updates.
• Re-map at each milestone. Power and interest shift: the electricity distributor before M7, the fire department before M9, the racking contractor from M6.
• Write a communications matrix and test it. Every line names an audience, a purpose and a sender. Check monthly that it is working.
• Bring operations in early. Their requirements belong in the Scope domain's elicitation, long before the walk-through at M9.

Common mistakes

1. Treating communication as distribution. Sending a report is not the same as informing someone. Check that it was read and acted on.
2. Mapping once and filing it. A stakeholder map from kickoff is out of date by the first milestone.
3. One report for everyone. The sponsor, finance and the site team need different things at different levels of detail.
4. Forgetting the future users. The people who will run the building often hear about it last.
5. Letting the contractor speak for the owner. Neighbour and authority contact should follow a plan the owner has agreed.

Quick quiz

1. How many processes are in the Stakeholders performance domain in the 8th edition?

   1. Four
   2. Five
   3. Six
   4. Seven

2. Where do the communications processes sit in the 8th edition?

   1. In their own Communications domain
   2. In the Governance domain
   3. In the Stakeholders domain
   4. In the Resources domain

3. The City of Vaughan building department has high power but limited interest in Northgate's schedule. Which strategy fits on a power and interest grid?

   1. Monitor
   2. Keep informed
   3. Keep satisfied
   4. Ignore until occupancy

4. Northgate's operations team is rated unaware, with a desired level of supportive. Which process plans how to close that gap?

   1. Identify Stakeholders
   2. Plan Stakeholder Engagement
   3. Monitor Communications
   4. Develop Schedule

5. What does Monitor Communications mainly check?

   1. That every report was sent on time
   2. That information reached people and was understood and used
   3. That the contractor's schedule is updated
   4. That the budget is within contingency

Show answers and explanations

1. D. Identify Stakeholders, Plan Stakeholder Engagement, Plan Communications Management, Manage Stakeholder Engagement, Manage Communications, Monitor Stakeholder Engagement and Monitor Communications.
2. C. The 8th edition puts communications inside the Stakeholders domain.
3. C. High power with lower interest calls for keeping the stakeholder satisfied, which here means complete applications and inspections booked on time.
4. B. Plan Stakeholder Engagement sets how each stakeholder will be moved from current to desired engagement.
5. B. Sending is not enough; the check is whether the information did its job.

Key terms

Stakeholders performance domain

The PMBOK Guide 8 domain covering identifying, engaging and communicating with stakeholders, through seven processes.

Stakeholder register

The list of stakeholders with their role, interests, influence and expectations.

Power and interest grid

A two by two map of stakeholders by their power over the project and their interest in it.

Engagement assessment

A comparison of each stakeholder's current and desired engagement on a simple scale.

Communications matrix

A table of what information goes to whom, when, in what form and from whom.

Sponsor

The person or group who provides resources and support for the project and is accountable for enabling its success.

References

1. Project Management Institute, PMBOK® Guide, Eighth Edition (product page: seven performance domains, November 2025 publication).
2. PMExams, The full PMBOK 8 process map in reader order (process names by domain).
3. Ricardo Vargas, PMBOK Guide 8th edition processes flow (communications within stakeholder management).
4. Elizabeth Harrin, Rebel's Guide to Project Management, Project performance domains explained (updated for PMBOK 8) (2026; sponsor engagement).
5. 4PMTI, What is the PMBOK 8th edition? Principles, domains, focus areas, and what changed.
6. BRC Academy, Northgate fact sheet (fictional case study).

Verified on November 6, 2026.

Next lesson in this trackDomain: Resources (coming soon)