Stop 09 · Stakeholder Management & CommunicationTopics · 1/9

Stakeholder Identification & Analysis

In short

The stakeholder you forgot is the one who blocks your launch. Spend an hour mapping everyone who's affected or has a say, and you'll know who needs a meeting and who needs a monthly email.

Mapping out everyone with an interest in a project's outcome, and their influence and interest level — using this map to decide how much and what kind of communication each stakeholder actually needs.

The purple blob holds a clipboard at the gate of an apartment building with a row of parked scooters and cars.

Think of it like this

A new parking rule in the society

The secretary wants one parking spot per flat. Car owners care a lot. The treasurer controls the budget for painting lines. The security guard has to enforce it. The elderly couple without a car barely care. Same rule, very different conversations.

Watch it happen

The power-interest grid for a new expense app

Stakeholders

Manage closely

Keep satisfied

Keep informed

Monitor

CFO

Legal head

Employees

Facilities

1/5First list everyone affected or with a say: sponsors, users, approvers, support teams, partners.

The big ideas

What you need to know

List widely first

Include people who approve, use, support, pay for, or get reports from the change. Trim later.

Power and interest

Place each stakeholder on the grid. It tells you how much attention and what kind of contact they need.

Keep a register

A simple sheet: name, role, interest, influence, what they care about, preferred contact, owner.

People move

A quiet stakeholder can become critical when the change reaches their team. Review the map each phase.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Mapping only the people in the kick-off meeting.

Do this instead

Ask each stakeholder 'Who else should I talk to?' Downstream teams are often missing from the first list.

Oops

Treating every stakeholder the same way.

Do this instead

Match the contact to the quadrant: workshops for some, a short monthly email for others.

Your mission

Map a college change

~25 min

Quick check

The head of compliance can stop your project but rarely asks about it. Where do they sit, and how do you treat them?

Go deeper

1Build a stakeholder map (influence vs interest) for a hypothetical project.
2Learn why treating all stakeholders identically wastes effort on low-influence, low-interest ones.
3Practice identifying a hidden stakeholder that's easy to overlook in a given scenario.