When is a Salience Model used?

According to the PMBOK® Guide, specifically within the Identify Stakeholders process, the Salience Model is a classification tool used during Stakeholder Analysis.

Definition and Purpose: The Salience Model is used to describe classes of stakeholders based on their assessments of three specific attributes:

Power: The level of authority or ability to influence the project outcome.

Urgency: The need for immediate attention or the time-sensitivity of the stakeholder ' s claim on the project.

Legitimacy: The perceived validity or appropriateness of the stakeholder’s involvement.

Application: This model is particularly useful in large, complex projects or where there are a vast number of stakeholders and complex networks of relationships. By mapping these three attributes, the project manager can identify which stakeholders have the highest priority ( " Definitive Stakeholders " ) and require the most engagement.

Classification: Stakeholders are grouped into categories such as Latent, Expectant, or Definitive, depending on which of the three attributes they possess. This helps the project manager tailor the Stakeholder Engagement Plan effectively.

Comparison with other options:

A. In a work breakdown structure (WBS): The WBS is a tool for scope management used to decompose project deliverables into smaller, manageable work packages. It does not involve stakeholder classification.

B. During quality assurance: Quality assurance (now called Manage Quality) is focused on the project ' s processes and ensuring that the project will satisfy the quality standards. It does not utilize stakeholder salience modeling.

D. During quality control (QC): Control Quality is the process of monitoring and recording results of executing the quality activities to assess performance. It is an inspection-driven process, not a stakeholder analysis process.