Effective Communication Skills: Stakeholder Analysis (Udemy.com)
Master the gold standard tool for project management, change management and software implementation
Created by: Gordon Adelsberg
Last updated July 2017
What you will learn
- You'll learn how to sell ideas internally and externally.
- You'll be able to help the sales team close more deals.
- You'll be able to navigate successfully through a client's organization.
- You'll be able to understand, quantify and prioritize what's important to stakeholders.
- You'll understand what's important to senior management.
- You'll lower the chances of a project failing.
- You'll learn effective business communication skills.
- You'll have clients who like and respect you....and that leads to add-on sales.
- You'll have a great engagement tool to use at your next job interview.
How it compares
Against the other 1,210 rated Udemy courses in Business on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.4 out of 5higher than 27% of them
- Reviews6,915#118 of 1,211 by number of reviews
- Length0.5 hoursshorter than 99% of them
- Last updatedJuly 2017earlier than 95% of them
Course Description
Communication 502: Understanding Stakeholder Analysis
Why do projects fail? According to the Project Management Institute (PMI) 90% of the time it's due to poor communication. In this course, you'll learn the effective business communication skills needed for project success.
Stakeholder management is one of the essential skills for career advancement. If you can’t convince the buyers - both economic buyers and influencers - that you and your team can navigate through their organization, then you can’t sell...either internally or externally. For any project to succeed, you MUST have a stakeholder engagement strategy. You can not be an effective project manager if you can't manage stakeholders.
(And yes, you can self-report one PDU for your PMP® continuing education.)
All change management efforts - both internal and at client sites - require you to sell your ideas. The sales staff should be able to communicate the vision of how things could be, but you – the specialist or subject matter expert – will show the "buyer" how to get there. Expect questions like “How will this change impact my people?” You’ll hear, “How much of my people’s time will this implementation take?” Or some form of, “How will we convince [insert group here] that this is a good idea?" You must answer clearly and concisely, and a good stakeholders analysis will help you do so, both in the sales meeting and during your work with your customer. If your stakeholder engagement skills are weak, you will fail even if you're lucky enough to get the sale.
This course is designed for technical people and subject matter experts who are frequently in front of customers. Participants will learn 1) the logic and process for a robust stakeholders analysis 2) some tips to build stakeholder engagement, and 3) a stakeholder matrix and a template designed for presentations to senior management.
Instructor Details
- 4.4 Rating
6,915 Reviews
Gordon Adelsberg
Do you want to build a great career? You MUST be able to communicate.
Here's what senior executives consistently say when asked what technical professionals can do to advance their careers: Improve your communication skills.
Not code faster. Not get another certification. Communicate better.
Whether you're an engineer, programmer, developer, data scientist, or life sciences professional — technical brilliance will only take you so far. The professionals who get promoted, get funded, and get heard are the ones who master executive communication: the ability to translate complex ideas into language that moves decision-makers to action.
Business communication for technical professionals is a skill gap that derails brilliant careers every day. The people who rise are the ones who learn to present to leadership with confidence, earn stakeholder buy-in, and influence decision-makers — even without formal authority. Influencing without authority, building a compelling business case, and communicating with C-suite executives are learnable skills. That's exactly what I teach.
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Reviews
By Eric Foster on 1/23/2026
Keep extraneous sounds from your presentation. if you leave the fire trucks in then that distracts from what you are saying as a persons attention will go immediately to the fire truck siren. You may have been on a roll and were happy with the information you presented but it shows you were lazy and did not care about distraction. By leaving that sound in you left in a big negative against yourself and the biggest thing i got from that presentation is that.. hmm fire trucks... wonder where they are going...
By Anonymized User on 9/30/2025
Getting a view of the type of information I should be focusing on conversations where it's more technical in nature has been one of my goals for a long time. It was great to get this information through this course.
By Biraj Choudhury on 4/10/2024
the content was well structured and provided practical u=insights into understanding and engaging with stakeholders effectively. I appreciated the clear explanations and actionable strategies presented throughout the course.
By Nancy Curtis on 1/2/2024
Very clear, good examples and presented at a good pace for understanding the methods. Side note: In Section 3:3 Complete Slide - 6. Complete – video has a mis-spelled word – Yeild. Should be Yield
By Paige Spaven on 9/21/2023
This course was presented in a great format and the tools are straight forward, logical and easy to implement regardless of company or area the project is being delivered in. Very applicable skills.
By Magdalene Kamau on 1/23/2023
Very good explanation of process. Just wondering how I will apply this to my work as yes, stakeholders are important but my work isn't centred around them but more around the users of the system we are working on.
By Beth Reed on 11/3/2022
I was expecting to see a KISS approach to stakeholder analysis and this was exactly that! It is simple yet effective and serves as a foundation for anyone going through the process for the first or even tenth time! Thanks Gordon!
By William Dunkerley on 6/16/2022
Ok..Would change the reference in stakeholder definition to "change" to "activity ( activities)" or "event(s)", i.e. Influence on activity or impacted by activity. More accurate way because not all stakeholders are participating in a change as much as an activity which may or may not result in a change.
By Anonymized User on 5/1/2022
It's helpful to make a better plan by using detail analysis on people, process and the result. It is also helpful to make a throughout preparation before start communication with all parties to introduce and sell your business plan successfully.
By Claire Jones on 3/22/2022
This is the perfect way to approach analyzing stakeholders and understanding what makes them tick. It is going to provide the tool our Project Managers need to assess new client, build a project charter, and ultimately execute a project. I predict it will introduce some needed discipline into our company's Professional Services team activities!
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 88 / 100






