What is it?
A stakeholder map is a simple graphical tool that helps you identify who the key players are in a project and help work out how you need to influence them.
It’s good to understand how each stakeholder feels as early as possible, e.g. are they actively supportive, unsure or even against what you are doing? With the map you can see where they are emotionally, how much influence they have politically and then use that as a basis of an action plan to move them to a different place if required.
When would you use it?
Early in the project and then you want to periodically come back to it and reassess your position.
Have you moved the right people into the right areas? Are you spending too little time with some and too much with others? Do you need to alter your strategy with anyone as what you’re doing right now isn’t having an effect? Has anyone new popped up that needs dealing with?
Who would you use it with?
Every tool should be used in a team environment if possible. This one, though, can be pretty sensitive as you quite often name names. It can be a good way to bond a team as the conversations you have when you’re at the action planning stage tend to be quite secretive and everyone likes to be in on a secret, right?
Are there any rules?
Never print and leave you map lying about unless you’re on hand to explain the reasoning. It’s just not worth the hassle plus these days there are legal ramifications to worry about.
The more ballsy of you could use it as a basis of a conversation with someone you’re trying to move.
“Hi Rob, take a look at where me and my team think you sit on this project. How do you feel about where we’ve said you are? Do you think that’s about right as in that product development meeting last week you said this which has led me to think you maybe don’t think this is such a good idea? What I would really like is for you to be here. What do you think?”
What’s the process?
Step 1 – draw the map
If you’re doing this with a group then get a big piece of paper, stick it on the wall and draw the graph below. If you’re on your own an electronic version is fine but I’m a big fan of going big regardless as it makes it easier to stand back and reflect along the way. Perspective, even just spatially, can be very enlightening!
Most other stakeholder maps I’ve seen are a little simpler than this. They ask on the x-axis whether the person has a low or a high interest in the project and on the y-axis whether the person has low or high influence on the outcome. Personally I don’t think that gives you as rich a picture of the emotional and political forces at play and therefore leaves you lacking insight at the Action Planning step later.
Step 2 – plot the stakeholders
For each person (or group) ask the following questions:
1. Is the person/group for or against the project/change and by how much?
2. Is the person/group actively engaged by our project or are they passively disengaged?
If you’ve gone with the graph on the wall approach use a post-it note for each person/group so you can move them around. You’ll find that your attitude changes to previous judgements as you go so you’ll want the flexibility.
“Ah, we had Bob up there at maximum positivity but now thinking about Sally here I reckon she’s even more don’t you think?. Let’s scale Bob back a little.”
The location of a stakeholder on the map is determined by rating their relative disposition towards your project and the degree to which they are actively involvd in it. Hence, two stakeholders may both be active, but have quite opposing dispositions towards your project: one actively undermining it while the other is actively promoting it. The difference between ‘the enemy’ and ‘the change champion’.
Above are some of the ‘characters’ you might typically identify in your project. Do you recognise them?
Step 3 – influence and relationships
Two important dimensions of a stakeholder map that help you analyse the underlying ‘political’ landscape of your project – how influential is the person/group over the outcome of your project and what are the relationships that exist between the characters?
You represent influence by the size of the bubble (when using post-its for the draft on the wall you could use a scoring system 1-5 which you write on) and relationships by drawing connecting lines. The thickness of the line can be used to indicate the relative strength of that relationship – the closer the relationship, the thicker the line. Note that a relationship can be negative as well as positive! You could use a different colour or a dotted line to represent a negative one perhaps?
Here’s what you might end up with.
Step 4 – action planning
Now you have a good picture of the political landscape of your project what are you going to do about it? Clearly the perfect picture would be if everyone was up there in the top-right quadrant but that’s probably not going to be possible overnight so it’s about prioritising and picking your battles strategically.
I tend to use two mini-steps in this part by first asking in step 4a – where do I want to move so-and-so to?
For example:
“In the map above it’s clear that Mike is someone of influence and he’s already ‘with us’ when it comes to the project objectives but he’s not playing that much of an active role at present. Are we OK with that or are we missing a trick if we don’t make more of a role for him. He has good relationships with a couple of other passive/positive characters in Bob and Rob but also to our ‘lazy cynic’ in David? We could definitely do without David in that role so it’s worth spending some time on Mike is it not?”
Step 4b is for those that we want to move – what are we going to do to make that happen?
Continuing with Mike:
“Our change champion Sally (who happens to have tonnes of influence too) has a brilliant relationship with Mike so let’s talk to her to see what she thinks. I’m sure she’ll have a plan, she always does! That should do it. Next stakeholder? What are we going to do about Rachael?”
Repeat steps 4a and 4b until done.
Summary
So I hope that gives you a good picture of how the Stakeholder Map can work for you. As I said at the top this is not a one-time only exercise as the political dynamics of a project tend to be in constant flux. Revisit your map periodically (again with your team if you can) to see what’s changed, analyse whether your last action plan did what you hoped it would and work out where you need to focus your efforts next.
Happy mapping!
