Map The Stakeholders

Map the Stakeholders
by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang | 3 months ago | 7 min read
Having faced the problem statement and de ned the challenge space, the
challenge owner or initiator now needs to gather the troops. In more complex
settings or larger organisations, drafting a stakeholder map, outlining people
involved, a ected, or in uenced both internally and externally is a necessary
rst step.
If you’re a project owner or initiator, one of your tasks will be to
understand, manage, and bring together various parties a ected by your
intended endeavour, both internally and externally. One of the very rst
steps is to form a team, which in many cases will only be possible after
surveying the list of the in uenced and the in uencers.
For this, you'll need some kind of plan. One such plan leveraged by many
organisations is the stakeholder map. This could start out small and grow
as your scope of research and investigation expands and you gain a clearer
idea of the challenge territory. Your new team may join you in this
endeavour. A whiteboard or wall chart with post-it notes could be enough
to start getting the people scoped out quickly.
Stakeholder Mapping
Stakeholders are those people, groups, or individuals who either have the
power to a ect, or are a ected by the endeavour you're engaged with. They
range from the head of your organisation to the man on the street who may
experience the e ects of what you set out to do. Stakeholders are a ected
and can a ect your endeavours to varying degrees, and the degrees should
be considered when analysing and mapping out the stakeholder landscape.
Mindtools.com provides some helpful guides on how to go about

analysing who your stakeholders are and what their in uence may be. Their
suggested approach is to plot on a graph their "Power of In uence" and
their "Level of Interest" to give you an idea of how to manage the range of
stakeholder needs.
Mapping the internal players and their levels of involvement, buy-in to the
process and knowledge of, or experience with Design Thinking will allow
the challenge owner to make some key decisions about who to include and
when. It may also provide some insight as to who may need to be consulted,
convinced, or asked for permission about using a Design Thinking
approach.
Mapping external parties a ected will provide a plan that can help you
decide who to approach in the upcoming research phases that focus on
empathy and human needs. For example, within a service design project,
understanding the customer base, segmentation, and need variations may
provide a good platform for setting up the various focus groups,
observation plans, and other ethnographic methods that may be applied to
gain customer insight.
Create a list of all those internally on the challenge owners' side of things:
people within the company, organisation, or group attempting to tackle the
challenge. The list should include anyone who will be a ected in any way,
directly or indirectly, and who will need to make a decision or act on the
project in some way.
Give each person a rank in terms of importance and interest level; you can
use your own scale of importance, depending on the number of people
being assessed.
Gathering the listed stakeholders in groups, plot them onto the map in
relation to their in uence and interest. The pictures formed by both the
internal and external stakeholder maps will give you a good indication of
the type of team you may need to assemble to handle the Design Thinking
challenge ahead.
Evaluating stakeholder influence and

interest
Mindtools also provides a list of questions or considerations on these
stakeholders, which are summarised below:
What nancial or emotional interest do they have in the outcome of your

work?
What motivates them most of all?
What information do they want from you?
What is the best way of communicating your message to them?
What is their current opinion of your work?

Who in uences their opinions generally, and who in uences their
opinion of you?
If they are not likely to be positive, what will win their support?
If you don't think you will be able to win them around, how will you
manage their opposition?
Who else might be in uenced by their opinions?
These questions will assist in further making sense of the map and
understanding who to include in your team, and who the team may
interface with going forward, both externally and internally. It also
provides you with a good idea of which people will be most important to
empathise with in the coming phases, where you will be exploring the
human needs and experiences in your challenge space. The Mindtools
stakeholder guide also provides a stakeholder mapping template to use in
this process of making sense of who has an impact or is impacted by your
challenge space.
The "DIYtoolkit People and Connections Map" inspired by Namahn and

Yellow Window Service Design: Design Flanders (2012) Stakeholder Mapping
provides an alternative visual method of mapping the spheres of in uence
and in uenced across the spectrum of stakeholders.
An even deeper level of exploration is Cultural Mapping, an inquiry method

developed by David Gray, an innovation and organisational change
consultant; author of Gamestorming. Cultural Mapping may be suitable, for
instance, where the very core of an organisation's purpose and values are
being evaluated or rede ned.
The Take Away

Stakeholders are those people, groups, or individuals who have either the
power to a ect, or are a ected by the endeavour you're engaged with. They
range from the head of your organisation to the man on the street who may
experience the e ects of what you set out to do. Stakeholders are a ected
and can a ect your endeavours to varying degrees and the degrees should
be considered when analysing and mapping out the stakeholder landscape.
References and Where to Learn More

MindTools.com. Stakeholder Analysis.
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_07.htm
DIY Tool Kit, People Connections Map Template and Guide.

http://diytoolkit.org/tools/people-connections-map/
ServiceDesignToolkit.org, Namahn and Yellow Window Service Design,

Design Flanders (2012) Stakeholder Mapping Work Poster.
http://servicedesigntoolkit.org/downloads-2011.html
Dave Gray,May 06, 2014, Culture mapping: Space and place.
http://www.slideshare.net/dgray_xplane/culture-mapping-space-and-
place
Hero image: Author/Copyright holder: Kennisland. Copyright terms and

licence: CC BY-SA 2.0

Map The Stakeholders - Interaction Design Foundation

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Map The Stakeholders - Interaction Design Foundation

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Map The Stakeholders - Interaction Design Foundation

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Mindtools.com provides some helpful guides on how to go about

Evaluating stakeholder influence and

What nancial or emotional interest do they have in the outcome of your

What motivates them most of all?

What information do they want from you?

What is the best way of communicating your message to them?

What is their current opinion of your work?

Who else might be in uenced by their opinions?

The "DIYtoolkit People and Connections Map" inspired by Namahn and

An even deeper level of exploration is Cultural Mapping, an inquiry method

The Take Away

References and Where to Learn More

DIY Tool Kit, People Connections Map Template and Guide.

ServiceDesignToolkit.org, Namahn and Yellow Window Service Design,

Hero image: Author/Copyright holder: Kennisland. Copyright terms and

You might also like