Are you looking to manage your stakeholders and their impact on your projects? This stakeholder mapping template is an excellent tool for mapping out each stakeholder’s influence, power, and interest in your projects. This Excel-based stakeholder analysis matrix template will help you quickly identify which stakeholders to keep close, prioritize, or monitor. It will also help you determine the communication model for each stakeholder.
What is Stakeholder Mapping?
Stakeholder mapping is the process of identifying, evaluating, and understanding different individuals, groups, or organizations interested in a project. By clearly defining the different stakeholder and their level of interest in a project, as a project manager or team leader, you can devise the best way to engage them.
To help you do this effectively, you should always consider using a template. A stakeholder map template is a visual tool that enables you to map out the different stakeholders, their interests, and their level of engagement. This is particularly important if you have many stakeholders to deal with or multiple phases of a project running concurrently, with each stakeholder having different degrees of interest.
Key Components of this Stakeholder Mapping Template
As a project manager, one of your core duties when managing any project will be to make sure that everything from the project’s schedule and tasks to resources and the stakeholders is well taken care of. While it may be easy to set everything in motion, your success in most cases will be pegged on how you deal with the shareholders. Using this template will help you map out the different shareholders and determine the best way to deal with each one of them in the most effective way. To better understand how to use this Excel template, here is a breakdown of its key components:
- Stakeholder names: There is a provision to list all the names of the stakeholders. In this section, list their names. You can also add their aliases to help you better understand and remember each stakeholder.
- Role: In the “Role” section, make sure to list their role in the project. For example, “provides direction and funding,” “executes project tasks,” “supplies necessary services,” etc.
- Influence: This section includes a dropdown number list to help you number the level of interest or influence of each stakeholder in the project. With 1 being the lowest score and 10 being the highest, give each stakeholder a rating. This rating will be updated in the matrix and will help you determine how to engage them and what effort to put in when doing so.
- Action: The action item will be updated automatically when you select the QTR values. When setting the configuration file to reflect the actions associated with different QTR values, it is important to understand how each action will determine how the stakeholder will be mapped on the matrix. Here is what you should know about the different actions listed:
- Keep Satisfied: This action is for stakeholders who have a great influence on the project but have a low personal interest in it. For these types of stakeholders, try to keep them satisfied without overwhelming them with too much information. Also, consider providing them with regular but concise updates.
- Monitor: Stakeholders to put in this category should be those with low influence and interest in the project. For this category of stakeholders, consider monitoring them, but try to avoid providing them with too much information. Consider applying minimum effort when monitoring them. As you monitor them, be prepared to re-categorize them should their interest or influence change during the course of the project.
- Manage Closely: In this category, you should list stakeholders with high interest and influence in the project. These are those stakeholders you want to fully engage and use maximum effort to satisfy them. To do this, try to maintain regular communication with them and involve them in the decision-making process.
- Keep Informed: Stakeholders to include in this category should be those who have high interest in the project but have little to no influence. For this type of stakeholders, consider keeping them adequately informed and consulting them on their areas of interest. Also, provide them with regular updates and acknowledge their contribution to the project.
How to Use this Stakeholder Mapping Template
There are three main things that you should understand when using this template- the configuration sheet setup, using the main template, and matrix functionality. These three will help you understand how the template works and what you should do to update the values as you map the different stakeholders:
1. Configuration sheet setup:
To use this template, first navigate to the configuration sheet. Here, follow the instructions provided. Start by inputting the names of all the stakeholders involved. This list will form the basis for the dropdown menu on the main sheet. This will make it easy for you to select the stakeholders when mapping them.
Next, set up the QTR (Quadrant) values for both the X and Y axes. These values will determine the boundaries for each quadrant in the stakeholder matrix and map each stakeholder accordingly.
Finally, set up the action items. Which action do you want the values of the QTR to be associated with? The action items you choose in this section will be updated automatically in the main sheet when you select the QTR values.
2. Using the template:
When using the main sheet of this template, start by selecting the name of the stakeholder you want to map from the dropdown menu. Remember, this dropdown menu is populated with the name you entered in the configuration sheet.
After selecting the stakeholder, select the value you want to associate them with. These values represent their level of influence over the project and their intent towards it. When you select the QTR values, you will note that the action item will be updated automatically. Similarly, the stakeholder matrix visualization will be updated and the name of the stakeholder associated with the particular action item set will be mapped on the matrix.
3. Matrix functionality:
The matrix is the foundation of your stakeholder map. It dynamically reflects the data you input. As you enter the influence and intent scores, the corresponding stakeholder’s position in the matrix is updated automatically. The position in the matrix is determined by the intersection of the X and Y QTR values you entered in the configuration sheet.
Different actions or strategies, such as the ones mentioned before, will be suggested depending on the quadrant a stakeholder falls into. This dynamic, interconnected system will allow you to visualize and analyze your stakeholders quickly and determine which method to use when engaging them. The responsiveness of the input changes in the template will also help you explore different scenarios and update the stakeholder analysis during the course of the project.
