Enlist your project stakeholders

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  Microsoft Teams

This article is part of the Project Stakeholders stage of your upgrade journey, the first and most essential activity you complete for your project's success.

From implementing project deliverables to driving accountability, your stakeholders hold the key to the success of your project. There are two groups of stakeholders you'll want to assign: (1) a sponsorship coalition that includes executive and project sponsors who have a vested interest in and influence on the project's success, and (2) the project team, consisting of the people responsible for ensuring technical and user readiness, who will complete the various tasks in the project plan. The common thread between these two groups is the project manager, who works to ensure that project tasks get completed on schedule and reports project status back to the coalition.

Tip

Take time to identify the ideal executive sponsor, someone who can help set the tone of your project, leads by example, and holds others accountable. This should be a senior manager or executive who has authority over the project scope and vision. They should also be the final decision-maker in removing blockers and resolving conflict to help keep the project on time and on budget.

Optionally, you can create a steering committee. Sometimes large or more complex projects end up with "too many cooks in the kitchen," resulting in disconnects among the stakeholder groups. For these projects, you might want to form a steering committee. A steering committee is responsible for driving decisions, providing strategic oversight, supporting the project's initiatives, and—when necessary—removing blockers. You can find more information about implementing a steering committee in the steering committee guide.

Decision points	Who are the right people to serve as your stakeholder team for this project?
Next steps	Consider the scope of your project and assign the relevant stakeholders. Use the following table as a guideline, but note that this list isn't all-inclusive. Tip Build a responsible-accountable-consulted-informed (RACI) matrix to further distinguish those who will be held accountable from those who simply need to be kept informed in a particular area of the project.
Decide whether to create a steering committee, and assign roles as appropriate.

Roles	Responsibility
Sponsorship coalition
Executive Sponsor	Drives overall messaging and accountability
Business Sponsor	Facilitates new technology requests for their business unit
Department Managers	Represents the teams most affected by this change
Human Resources Manager	Is accountable for talent management
Project Manager/Lead	Oversees the transition project, ensures completion of all tasks
Project team
Collaboration Lead/ Architect	Creates and implements the solution architecture
Network Lead	Provides insights into network design and execution
Security Lead	Provides insights into security design, process, and implementation
Synchronous Communications Lead	Owns presence tooling such as chat, meetings, and calling
Asynchronous Collaboration Lead	Owns asynchronous tooling such as SharePoint, OneDrive, and so on
Telephony Lead	Provides insights into telephony design and implementation
Service Owner/ Quality Champion	Owns the operation of Teams all-up, including the quality of the user experience
Desktop and Devices Lead	Provides input into clients, devices, and desktop apps
IT Pro/Tenant Admin	Ensures the network readiness and Microsoft 365 admin center configurations are in place
Support/Help Desk Lead	Manages the readiness of your support desk
Change Management Lead	Oversees the user change management and adoption program
Marketing Lead	Designs and implements communications campaigns
Training Lead	Designs and implements training plans

After you've gathered your stakeholders, proceed to the next step: Define your project scope.