Having said all this, where does it leave the software project manager? In order to have a "happy project" a software project manager should respect the flow of the stakes, as illustrated in the diagram below, and must ensure that stakes go "full cycle".

Uhhr, well, let's describe this "flow" in a few steps:

Links of Interest
3 Steps Towards Becoming An Agile Project Manager

• Stakeholders have stakes
• Stakeholders communicate their stakes by means of requirements to the process or the product
• Project management should make every stakeholder a winner by accepting and inventing requirements that keep satisfying the stakes of individual stakeholders and are not conflicting with the general process and product
• Project management should give continuos feedback on the state of the stakes
• Based upon the feedback, the requirements might change. In this way, a new cycle starts.

You must know this flow!