Stakeholder analysis is a critical process for ensuring project success. It involves identifying all groups and individuals who have an interest in or influence over your project, analyzing their needs and expectations, and developing plans for effectively engaging and communicating with them. Conducting thorough stakeholder analysis early on and continuing to manage stakeholders actively throughout your project can make the difference between success and failure.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explain what stakeholder analysis is, why it is so vital for project success, tools and techniques for mapping and prioritizing stakeholders, real-world examples, and templates to help you conduct effective analysis. Read on to understand the stakeholder analysis process and how to get stakeholder buy-in for your key project.
Stakeholder analysis identifies all parties who have an interest in or impact on your project and determines their needs, potential concerns, influence over the project, and importance of their buy-in for success. Stakeholder management is the process of communicating with, engaging with, and influencing project stakeholders to gain their support and ensure successful outcomes.
Conducting a thorough stakeholder analysis early in your project and managing stakeholders actively throughout is key for several reasons:
In essence, stakeholder analysis sets your project up for success by enabling effective communications and active stakeholder management throughout. It leads to fewer surprises, productive collaborations, timely buy-in, and engaged supporters.
Conducting an effective stakeholder analysis involves several key steps:
The first step in stakeholder analysis is brainstorming every individual or group who is impacted by, interested in, or has influence over your project. Cast a wide net here—it’s better to include stakeholders who end up not being major players than to leave out important ones by being overly selective at this stage.
Typical examples of stakeholders to consider include:
To aid your brainstorm, ask questions like:
Next, map your initial stakeholder list on a quadrant grid based on their influence over and interest in your project. This mapping exercise will help you visualize which stakeholders have high vs. low influence/interest, so you can tailor engagement appropriately.
Once your initial stakeholder analysis is complete, prioritize the most important stakeholders—those who require immediate, frequent, and tailored communication/engagement from you and your team.
Factors like power/authority levels, interest in seeing your project completed, potential to derail progress, time sensitivity, and degree of cooperation needed are helpful to consider here.
Be sure to identify champion stakeholders who are enthusiastic supporters and can activate others. Also take note of any obstacles/opponents who require special PR/communications efforts too.
Now it’s time to outline how you’ll actively manage this prioritized list to gain alignment.
For each major stakeholder group, detail:
Be sure your plans are tailored to address each group/individual based on their unique needs, communication styles, preferences, incentives, and degree of power over your project.
Keep analyzing, communicating, anticipating concerns, addressing issues, and engaging supporters actively as your project progresses. Interests, influences, needs, and potential roadblocks can change over time, so don’t conduct your analysis just once and call it done! Review it regularly and adjust your plans frequently to account for changes.
A variety of tools and templates exist to assist with thorough stakeholder analysis, tailored communications plans, and active management strategies.
Tools that add structure and helpful analysis prompts for your stakeholder planning include:
To develop tailored messaging and engagement strategies for key stakeholders, use templates like:
If conducting an analysis session with your project team, collaborative stakeholder analysis exercises can spur thorough brainstorming and productive analysis, including:
Say you are the project manager for an initiative focused on implementing new software across your large company. Here is how you might conduct an analysis:
First, identify all parties who are impacted, interested in, or influential over this software implementation project.
Internal stakeholders likely include:
External stakeholders may include:
Plot your stakeholders on a power/interest grid:
This makes sponsor executives, vendor project leads, high-impact ops managers your key stakeholders requiring most engagement.
For each key stakeholder group, develop plans detailing preferred communication channels, needed talking points, and influence management tactics.
Throughout planning and implementation, continue actively monitoring emerging needs as people learn more. Adjust your communications approach based on reactions you receive.
For example, if some staff feel threatened by the technology, work with managers to demonstrate how it will make jobs easier not
Stakeholder analysis is a critical process for ensuring project success. It involves identifying all groups and individuals who have an interest in or influence over your project, analyzing their needs and expectations, and developing plans for effectively engaging and communicating with them. Conducting thorough stakeholder analysis early on and continuing to manage stakeholders actively throughout your project can make the difference between success and failure.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explain what stakeholder analysis is, why it is so vital for project success, tools and techniques for mapping and prioritizing stakeholders, real-world examples, and templates to help you conduct effective analysis. Read on to understand the stakeholder analysis process and how to get stakeholder buy-in for your key project.
Stakeholder analysis identifies all parties who have an interest in or impact on your project and determines their needs, potential concerns, influence over the project, and importance of their buy-in for success. Stakeholder management is the process of communicating with, engaging with, and influencing project stakeholders to gain their support and ensure successful outcomes.
Conducting a thorough stakeholder analysis early in your project and managing stakeholders actively throughout is key for several reasons:
In essence, stakeholder analysis sets your project up for success by enabling effective communications and active stakeholder management throughout. It leads to fewer surprises, productive collaborations, timely buy-in, and engaged supporters.
Conducting an effective stakeholder analysis involves several key steps:
The first step in stakeholder analysis is brainstorming every individual or group who is impacted by, interested in, or has influence over your project. Cast a wide net here—it’s better to include stakeholders who end up not being major players than to leave out important ones by being overly selective at this stage.
Typical examples of stakeholders to consider include:
To aid your brainstorm, ask questions like:
Next, map your initial stakeholder list on a quadrant grid based on their influence over and interest in your project. This mapping exercise will help you visualize which stakeholders have high vs. low influence/interest, so you can tailor engagement appropriately.
Once your initial stakeholder analysis is complete, prioritize the most important stakeholders—those who require immediate, frequent, and tailored communication/engagement from you and your team.
Factors like power/authority levels, interest in seeing your project completed, potential to derail progress, time sensitivity, and degree of cooperation needed are helpful to consider here.
Be sure to identify champion stakeholders who are enthusiastic supporters and can activate others. Also take note of any obstacles/opponents who require special PR/communications efforts too.
Now it’s time to outline how you’ll actively manage this prioritized list to gain alignment.
For each major stakeholder group, detail:
Be sure your plans are tailored to address each group/individual based on their unique needs, communication styles, preferences, incentives, and degree of power over your project.
Keep analyzing, communicating, anticipating concerns, addressing issues, and engaging supporters actively as your project progresses. Interests, influences, needs, and potential roadblocks can change over time, so don’t conduct your analysis just once and call it done! Review it regularly and adjust your plans frequently to account for changes.
A variety of tools and templates exist to assist with thorough stakeholder analysis, tailored communications plans, and active management strategies.
Tools that add structure and helpful analysis prompts for your stakeholder planning include:
To develop tailored messaging and engagement strategies for key stakeholders, use templates like:
If conducting an analysis session with your project team, collaborative stakeholder analysis exercises can spur thorough brainstorming and productive analysis, including:
Say you are the project manager for an initiative focused on implementing new software across your large company. Here is how you might conduct an analysis:
First, identify all parties who are impacted, interested in, or influential over this software implementation project.
Internal stakeholders likely include:
External stakeholders may include:
Plot your stakeholders on a power/interest grid:
This makes sponsor executives, vendor project leads, high-impact ops managers your key stakeholders requiring most engagement.
For each key stakeholder group, develop plans detailing preferred communication channels, needed talking points, and influence management tactics.
Throughout planning and implementation, continue actively monitoring emerging needs as people learn more. Adjust your communications approach based on reactions you receive.
For example, if some staff feel threatened by the technology, work with managers to demonstrate how it will make jobs easier not
Stakeholder analysis is a critical process for ensuring project success. It involves identifying all groups and individuals who have an interest in or influence over your project, analyzing their needs and expectations, and developing plans for effectively engaging and communicating with them. Conducting thorough stakeholder analysis early on and continuing to manage stakeholders actively throughout your project can make the difference between success and failure.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explain what stakeholder analysis is, why it is so vital for project success, tools and techniques for mapping and prioritizing stakeholders, real-world examples, and templates to help you conduct effective analysis. Read on to understand the stakeholder analysis process and how to get stakeholder buy-in for your key project.
Stakeholder analysis identifies all parties who have an interest in or impact on your project and determines their needs, potential concerns, influence over the project, and importance of their buy-in for success. Stakeholder management is the process of communicating with, engaging with, and influencing project stakeholders to gain their support and ensure successful outcomes.
Conducting a thorough stakeholder analysis early in your project and managing stakeholders actively throughout is key for several reasons:
In essence, stakeholder analysis sets your project up for success by enabling effective communications and active stakeholder management throughout. It leads to fewer surprises, productive collaborations, timely buy-in, and engaged supporters.
Conducting an effective stakeholder analysis involves several key steps:
The first step in stakeholder analysis is brainstorming every individual or group who is impacted by, interested in, or has influence over your project. Cast a wide net here—it’s better to include stakeholders who end up not being major players than to leave out important ones by being overly selective at this stage.
Typical examples of stakeholders to consider include:
To aid your brainstorm, ask questions like:
Next, map your initial stakeholder list on a quadrant grid based on their influence over and interest in your project. This mapping exercise will help you visualize which stakeholders have high vs. low influence/interest, so you can tailor engagement appropriately.
Once your initial stakeholder analysis is complete, prioritize the most important stakeholders—those who require immediate, frequent, and tailored communication/engagement from you and your team.
Factors like power/authority levels, interest in seeing your project completed, potential to derail progress, time sensitivity, and degree of cooperation needed are helpful to consider here.
Be sure to identify champion stakeholders who are enthusiastic supporters and can activate others. Also take note of any obstacles/opponents who require special PR/communications efforts too.
Now it’s time to outline how you’ll actively manage this prioritized list to gain alignment.
For each major stakeholder group, detail:
Be sure your plans are tailored to address each group/individual based on their unique needs, communication styles, preferences, incentives, and degree of power over your project.
Keep analyzing, communicating, anticipating concerns, addressing issues, and engaging supporters actively as your project progresses. Interests, influences, needs, and potential roadblocks can change over time, so don’t conduct your analysis just once and call it done! Review it regularly and adjust your plans frequently to account for changes.
A variety of tools and templates exist to assist with thorough stakeholder analysis, tailored communications plans, and active management strategies.
Tools that add structure and helpful analysis prompts for your stakeholder planning include:
To develop tailored messaging and engagement strategies for key stakeholders, use templates like:
If conducting an analysis session with your project team, collaborative stakeholder analysis exercises can spur thorough brainstorming and productive analysis, including:
Say you are the project manager for an initiative focused on implementing new software across your large company. Here is how you might conduct an analysis:
First, identify all parties who are impacted, interested in, or influential over this software implementation project.
Internal stakeholders likely include:
External stakeholders may include:
Plot your stakeholders on a power/interest grid:
This makes sponsor executives, vendor project leads, high-impact ops managers your key stakeholders requiring most engagement.
For each key stakeholder group, develop plans detailing preferred communication channels, needed talking points, and influence management tactics.
Throughout planning and implementation, continue actively monitoring emerging needs as people learn more. Adjust your communications approach based on reactions you receive.
For example, if some staff feel threatened by the technology, work with managers to demonstrate how it will make jobs easier not