Keeping them in sync can be challenging when your projects involve many parties. A stakeholder analysis template is a standard way of carrying out such an assessment.
Table of Contents
What is Stakeholder Analysis?
Stakeholder analysis is collecting and analyzing information about the people with a vested interest in your organization.
Stakeholders are people or groups that can affect or be affected by your organization’s activities. They can be affected directly, such as when they buy your company’s products, or indirectly, such as when they are affected by how you run your business.
For example, when you’re thinking about starting your own company, you’ll want to consider what will happen to all of the stakeholders involved in your business if it succeeds. When you’re thinking about expanding into a new market, consider whether there are any existing competitors or other businesses that could be affected by this change (or benefit from it). If so, these groups could become stakeholders in your new venture and should be included in your stakeholder analysis.
Stakeholder Analysis Templates
Stakeholder Analysis Templates are pre-designed formats used by organizations and project teams to identify, assess, and analyze the stakeholders involved in a project, initiative, or decision-making process. These templates provide a structured framework for understanding the interests, influence, and potential impact of various stakeholders on the project’s success. Stakeholder Analysis Templates ensure consistency, clarity, and systematic assessment of stakeholders, facilitating effective stakeholder engagement, communication, and management.
Stakeholder Analysis Templates assist organizations and project teams in understanding and managing their stakeholders effectively. By using these templates, they can systematically identify stakeholders, assess their interests and influence, and develop appropriate engagement strategies. Stakeholder Analysis Templates facilitate stakeholder mapping, communication planning, risk mitigation, and decision-making, ensuring that stakeholder perspectives are considered and integrated into project activities. These templates are valuable tools for project managers, team leaders, and organizations seeking to foster positive stakeholder relationships, enhance project success, and promote stakeholder satisfaction.
When should you perform a stakeholder analysis?
You should perform a stakeholder analysis as part of any project where:
- You want to improve the relationship with your stakeholders
- You want to understand how they view your organization
- You want to understand how they view the project
- You want to understand how they might react to changes in the project.
Why is stakeholder analysis so important?
Stakeholder analysis is a fundamental part of strategic planning and management โ it can help you identify areas where you might be losing focus or neglecting essential considerations. It can also help you determine whether your business goals align with your stakeholders or if any conflicts need to be addressed.
It’s important to note that stakeholder analysis isn’t just for large corporations; smaller companies can also benefit from this process. In fact, it’s one of the most important elements of starting up any new business venture โ especially when it comes to crowdfunding campaigns on sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
Understanding the Stakeholder Analysis
There are many different ways of performing a stakeholder analysis. Some analysts prefer using the “top-down approach,” while others use the “bottom-up” method. The top-down approach starts with the organization and its mission statement, followed by divisions and departments. The bottom-up approach starts with individual stakeholders, moves up to stakeholders in groups, and finally to stakeholders representing an entire industry or community.
Regardless of which method you use, a stakeholder analysis’s purpose is to identify the most important people in any given situation and their interests. A stakeholder is anyone who can affect or be affected by your organization’s activities and decisions.
The main types on the matrix basis are:
High-interest strong influence
These stakeholders have a high interest in the organization’s activities, but they have little influence over them. For example, customers or members of the public may be interested in what an organization does but do not influence its actions.
High-interest low influence
These stakeholders have both a high level of interest and some degree of influence over the organization’s activities. For example, shareholders or employees may be highly interested in an organization’s activities. Still, they would only be able to influence those activities after first gaining access to decision-makers within it.
Low-interest high influence
These stakeholders have a low level of interest in the organization’s activities but can exert considerable influence over them. For example, regulators may not care much about what companies do but can control companies through legislation and regulation if they want to.
Low-interest low influence
These stakeholders have little interest in your business and little influence on its success. Their opinions are fine when it comes to making critical decisions about your project. For example, if you want to build a new factory, there may be local residents who don’t like having large buildings built near their houses, but they won’t stop it from happening anyway, so they only have a little influence over this decision.
The Benefits of Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholders are people who have an interest in your business. They include partners, customers, and suppliers, as well as employees, regulators, and competitors. Stakeholders also include anyone else that might be affected by your business decisions โ for example, local communities where you operate.
Stakeholders can have both positive and negative effects on your company’s success, so it’s important to understand them all to manage them effectively.
The benefits of stakeholder analysis include the following:
Identifying stakeholders: Stakeholder analysis helps identify all parties involved in your project, including internal and external stakeholders. It also identifies key players who may need to be more obvious at first glance.
Identifying needs and expectations: Stakeholders have varying needs and expectations based on their role in the organization or industry. These must be understood and addressed so that everyone works toward a common goal.
Communicating effectively: Communication with stakeholders is essential to ensure that everyone understands what is happening throughout the project lifecycle and can provide feedback along the way.
Increase stakeholder buy-in: If you ensure everyone has the same information, you can avoid misunderstandings and miscommunications that could lead to conflict down the road. You’ll also be able to make decisions that align with everyone’s interests instead of just some people’s.
Build trust: A company that actively seeks out input from internal and external stakeholders will appear more transparent and trustworthy than one that makes decisions behind closed doors without consulting anyone else first. This is especially important if you’re launching a new product or service or making other significant changes to the way business is done at your organization.
How to Create a Stakeholder Analysis (Step by Step)
The following steps will help you create a stakeholder analysis:
1. Identify your stakeholders. Who are the people who matter to your business? Start by making a list of everyone who has a stake in the success of your business. These could include shareholders, managers, employees, customers, and suppliers. Then consider whether any groups, such as regulators or competitors, might be interested in what you do but aren’t directly involved.
2. Define their roles and interests. How do each person’s roles affect their interests? Consider whether they have conflicting or complementary interests with other stakeholders. For example, if one person owns shares in your company and other works for it, then their goals will likely be quite different because they’ll both want different things from the company’s performance.
3. Prioritize each stakeholder. You should separate your stakeholders into groups based on their level of influence or impact on your business. For example, some stakeholders have little influence over your business but others have significant influence over what happens within your organization โ such as executives at other companies or government officials who regulate your industry. You should organize these groups based on their relative importance to your company’s success and then prioritize them accordingly.
4. Prioritize Stakeholders. Before you start prioritizing your stakeholders, it can help to organize them into groups based on their involvement in the project itself: those who will be directly impacted by the outcome (such as customers), those who will have an indirect impact (such as suppliers), and those who are simply interested in learning more about what is happening (such as media). This will help you easily identify who needs to be included during each phase of your stakeholder analysis process.
5. Gauge each stakeholder’s level of support. Before conducting any stakeholder analysis, it’s important to gauge their support for your project or idea. You want to know who is willing to help with your project and who isn’t so that you can develop strategies that align with their interests and yours.
6. Plan a way forward and make a final report. Once you know who wants what and their interests, it’s time to create a plan for delivering on these demands while maintaining your company’s values or mission statement.
Conclusion
Building a successful engagement strategy and gathering stakeholder approval takes work, but it is essential to the success of your project. You can help make this process easier by analyzing your stakeholders based on evidence-based data.
This means gathering information through interviews, surveys, focus groups, or even questionnaires. You will want to collect as much information as possible to help you choose your stakeholders and then decide your strategy. The more information you have gathered regarding your stakeholders, the better equipped you will be to determine how to reach out to the right people and the best way to approach them.
FAQs
How do you write a stakeholder analysis?
When writing a stakeholder analysis, identify all stakeholders, assess their interests, importance, influence, and potential impact. Gauge their support or opposition. Develop strategies to manage relationships and expectations.
What is a stakeholder analysis chart?
A stakeholder analysis chart is a visual representation mapping out each stakeholder based on their power/influence and level of interest. This quadranted chart helps quickly visualize key information.
What are the 4 steps of stakeholder analysis?
The 4 key steps in a stakeholder analysis are:
- Identify stakeholders
- Assess interests and influence
- Map out relationships
- Develop engagement strategies
What is included in a stakeholder analysis?
A stakeholder analysis typically includes:
- List of key stakeholders
- Overview of interests, expectations
- Levels of influence and importance
- Potential risks, impacts, support
- Strategies for stakeholder engagement