People II: Stakeholders, Conflict and Communication

What you'll learn

• Define stakeholders broadly, explain how they determine project success, and relate stakeholder engagement to the People domain tasks of the July 2026 PMP exam content outline and the PMBOK Guide, eighth edition
• Identify stakeholders with several techniques, maintain a stakeholder register responsibly, and analyze stakeholders with the power/interest grid, the salience model, the stakeholder cube and simple weighted scoring
• Use the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix to set current and desired engagement levels, write engagement strategies with owners, and align expectations through measurable success criteria and constraint priorities
• Engage stakeholders through the life cycle by managing expectations, tracking sentiment, maintaining issue, decision and change logs, and diagnosing and responding to rational, emotional and political resistance
• Apply the basic communication model, the dimensions of project communication, active listening and questioning, and cultural awareness to prevent and repair misunderstandings
• Plan communications from stakeholder requirements, calculate communication channels and meeting costs, choose interactive, push and pull methods, and build a communications management plan, communication matrix and RACI chart that meet accessibility obligations
• Write decision-focused status reports, define RAG criteria that prevent watermelon reporting, design dashboards, translate earned value results into plain language, run productive meetings and use virtual and AI tools responsibly
• Diagnose sources of stakeholder conflict, map interests across parties, decide when to resolve or escalate, prepare effective escalation briefs and handle contractual and inter-group disputes
• Prepare and conduct distributive and integrative negotiations using BATNA, reservation points, the zone of possible agreement, principled negotiation and trades across issues, and recognize common tactics
• Apply the four values of the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct to conflicts of interest, gifts, bribery, honest reporting and new issues such as artificial intelligence, using a structured decision process
• Plan honest public engagement, respect Indigenous and tribal consultation obligations in the applicable jurisdiction, and engage international and virtual stakeholders inclusively
• Build a stakeholder and communication recovery strategy for a troubled project and apply the same habits to situational People questions on the PMP exam