Stakeholder analysis
A stakeholder analysis is a way of making sure that all the people involved in a system, design or project are identified. Stakeholders could be directly involved with the system, or on the periphery.
Similar tools
There are many different tools that you could use to understand the way that stakeholders interact.
- a mud-map of the stakeholder relationships shows how different stakeholders are connected
- an influence-interest grid shows the balance between influence and interest between stakeholders in a 2-axis grid
- a connection circle maps out different stakeholders and the power relationship they have
- an organisational hierarchy shows the structure of an organisation, but is less useful at identifying how they are related around a problem\
Example applications
An example situation of using a stakeholder analysis would be in a community consultation about a new engineering project. For example, the light rail project in Canberra has many different stakeholders with differing powers of influence, such as government, residents, commuters. These stakeholders can be broken down further - commuters could be cyclists, motorists, users of public transport, etc.
Steps
We will construct a stakeholder analysis using two tools - a mud-map and then a influence interest grid.
- Construct a mud-map of stakeholder relations first by identifying the stakeholders at the core of the problem.
- 10.From this core, work out from the centre and connect all the stakeholders that influence or are influenced by that stakeholder using lines or arrows. Indicate the relationships using labels if needed.
- 11.Take a sensible number of stakeholders from this mud-map, and create a influence-interest grid (low to high on each axis)
Hints
- Invite people you don’t think about immediately to be involved with the stakeholder analysis — you might find out they know a lot more about it than you
- Keep ideas broad. Remember this is a tool to understand relationships, and there is no one correct answer.
- Think about scenarios in which other stakeholders may be involved. For example, what would happen if the project was funded by different external stakeholders? How would that change the dynamics of the project?
Core resources
- Service Design Tools - Actors Map (Online or as PDF)
- Cockburn, A., ‘Writing Effective Use Cases’, Addison Wesley Introduction to Use Cases [Chapter 1, PDF 13 pages]