Stakeholder Analysis

Stakeholder analysis

Often the process of identifying stakeholders will result in a long list of individuals and groups. After listing all of the stakeholders for a large building project for a University I found that I had identified nearly 20,000 stakeholders. However, once I analysed the list I found that a significant proportion were made up of clearly identifiable groups of people with similar interests. The snap shot of my stakeholder analysis is shown below. It shows the stakeholder groups and their interest areas mapped onto a matrix.

Completing an interest matrix will help you develop a communication plan that is aligned to each stakeholder's focus and concerns.

Once you have mapped the interests of your stakeholders you need to prioritise them in order of importance. Different methodologies suggest different ways of analysing stakeholders some complex and some very simple. A common approach is to map the interest and influence of each stakeholder group on a quadrant.

This stakeholder analysis uses a Power/Interest grid. The OGC suggest three columns and rows with interest/influence either high, medium and low (see Managing Successful Programmes). Other variations on this quadrant include power, impact, support and attitude.

You can complete your stakeholder analysis by drawing the quadrant on a flipchart or using a simple table in Word. Click here for blank stakeholder analysis template.

Once you have mapped your stakeholders you can focus your efforts on the highest priority groups while providing sufficient information to keep the less influential groups happy.

The table below shows an example engagement strategy based on the interest/influence stakeholder map.

Resources

Interest matrix
Stakeholder analysis template in Word, Visio and Excel.
Stakeholder map

Stakeholder analysis

Resources

Further reading