If you're working an office job, odds are you're constantly dealing with stakeholder management. And the bigger your company, usually the complex this gets – the more people need to be across projects, the more processes you have to wade through, and the more convoluted the chain of approval.

We've all had projects where the stakeholders get particularly difficult, or where we had to mitigate conflict because stakeholders didn't feel informed. So today, we're going to talk about the stakeholder map, my absolute favourite tool for managing my stakeholders. (Read through to the end to grab your free template!)

🤔 What's the stakeholder map?

The stakeholder map is a 2x2 grid where you can plot your stakeholders. One on axis you've got Power (or Influence) and on the other you've got Interest.

Power is about their realm of influence in terms of this project. They might be able to shut it down, have major control over a portion of it (like rollout), or have extremely high influence over other stakeholders.

Your other axis is Interest, which is about how much they care about the project.

The map is really important for visualising your stakeholders, and if you're going to do it you'll need to remember that it's project-specific. A particular stakeholder won't always be in the same box for everything.

📦 The four boxes.

For the sake of this exercise, you want to make sure you put all of your stakeholders into one of the boxes – no sitting on the border! If you really aren't sure, commit to the more challenging one.

Let's go through each of the four boxes.

💕 High influence, high interest = manage closely.

Your stakeholders that have high interest in your project and have high influence are the ones to manage closely. These are usually the stakeholders that will be the most "difficult" and will require the most attention, because if they're not happy they'll make it known.

👍 High influence, low interest = keep satisfied.

Your stakeholders that have high influence but aren't particularly interested are ones you should keep satisfied. If you're aware of what they expect and ensure it's incorporated into your project (or can satisfactorily rebuff) then they will usually continue to be low-touch.

✨ Watch out...

If you don't keep these stakeholders satisfied, they will ramp up to high interest very quickly.

📧 Low influence, high interest = keep informed.

Your stakeholders that are really interested in your project but don't have much influence are to be kept informed. You'll want to make sure they feel like they're in the loop, but you don't have to engage them as intensely as you would your high influence stakeholders.

✨ Watch out...

If you don't keep these stakeholders informed, they might find a way to have more influence – usually by talking to the other stakeholders.

👀 Low influence, low interest = monitor.

Stakeholders that are low influence and low interest are usually not people you have to do much about, but if you find that a common stakeholders winds up in this box, then you should keep an eye on them to make sure they don't move boxes.

💬 Engagement strategies.

Once you have your stakeholders in the boxes, you can start to figure out your engagement strategies – how you're going to communicate with them:

• How frequently should you be meeting with each stakeholder group? What are they likely to want to cover in these meetings?

• What other communication channels should you be using? Maybe regular emails, a Slack/Teams channel, or a showcase?

• How are you going to keep your high influence/low interest stakeholders satisfied?

🤷‍♀️ When should you do a stakeholder map?

You don't need to pull out the stakeholder map for every project, but I recommend using it when either:

• You've got a BIG project coming up that will have a lot of stakeholders, or

• You're experiencing conflict/pushback from mismanaged stakeholders.

💖 Get a free copy of the stakeholder map.

If you're a Figjam user, you can grab my free stakeholder map template on the community.

🔥 Your turn!

Are you about to start a big project, or in the middle of one right now? Take 5 minutes to fill in the stakeholder map template, and then ask yourself:

• Is there anyone I've been mismanaging? How can I correct that?

• Are there too many people in the "manage closely" box? Is there anyone I can work on moving?

• What strategies can I put in place to ensure the rest of this project goes smoothly?