Stakeholder mapping is an important part of the stakeholder management process.

By identifying everyone that has an interest or role to play in your work, you can keep people informed, on-side, and empowered to advocate for you. Like so many journeys, it all starts with a map.

What is a stakeholder?

A stakeholder is any party, internal or external to your organisation, that is liable to be affected by a project or change. Because of the potential impact, it’s likely you’ll need to communicate with them appropriately. It could include:

your colleagues, including other teams
senior leaders and other people with strong influence
suppliers and providers
your customers or supporters
interested external parties, like your local community
regulators or policy-makers
the media

Some of us won’t think too much about stakeholders in our day-to-day roles, but for complex business changes and major projects, you’ll want to consider them more carefully.

What is a stakeholder map?

If you have a lot of different stakeholders, it can be worth making a record of all of them.

It makes sense to group them together somehow – for instance, your allies and opponents – and there a few different ways of doing this.

Once you’ve “mapped” your stakeholders into groups, you can then decide on the best way of communicating with each party appropriately.

Let’s look at three commonly-considered factors when it comes to mapping stakeholders.

Influence: the powerful vs. the not-so-powerful

Some stakeholders are more influential than others. If they can wield a veto, or they are a crucial contributor, then they should be considered very important.

Could your legal team get your project canned?
Could local government tie up your business in red tape?
Could a critical supplier letting you down put everything in peril?

These are all highly-influential stakeholders. On the other hand, your mum may be delighted to hear of your professional progress, but unlikely to have too much sway on how things turn out.

2. Interest: the engaged vs. the indifferent

Not all stakeholders will be equally engaged. That might be because the project only has a minimal influence on them – or perhaps they don’t yet realise the impact in the offing.

For instance, the government is typically very powerful – they could pass a law banning you from doing anything, if they wan’t! – but, in all likelihood, not that interested.

3. Attitude: supporters vs. opponents

Note: Strong attitudes are not always correlated with level of interest.

This is obvious in politics, for example: while everybody is strongly opposed to animal cruelty, for example, only a select few people are actively engaged with the issue, by, e.g. seeking out relevant news, campaigning, donating to relevant organisations, or attempting to influence government policy.

This is why you don’t tend to hear about it in election campaigning.

Depending on your project, your stakeholders may have a fairly neutral outlook on proceedings. You just need to keep them informed about any relevant aspects that might have an impact on them.

However, other initiatives are more contentious, and may provoke strong opposition from determined foes, while also attracting passionate advocates.

In this scenario, managing stakeholder communications becomes more complex, as you’ll want to manage your messaging differently depending on the stakeholder’s stance.

Stakeholder map templates

Get your sticky notes ready!

With three dimensions in play, there are a lot of different ways to ‘map’ your stakeholders.

For uncontroversial initiatives, it will often suffice to place stakeholders on a 2x2 chart of influence and interest. Conversely, if you work in advocacy, you may want to use influence and attitude as your axes.

You can use another visual element to represent the ‘third factor’ – for example, you could use different coloured sticky notes to represent whether they’re supportive or opposed, or use larger labels for your most influential stakeholders.

You can see how many different approaches their are in Miro’s gallery of stakeholder map templates – find one that works for you!

Communicating with stakeholders by influence, interest and attitude

With three relevant axes to map, David Hillson and Peter Simon invented the ‘stakeholder cube’ in 2007, creating eight seperate types of stakeholder. The table below explains how to think about – and communicate with – each group.

Stakeholder type	Influence	Energy	Attitude	Description
Saviours	✅	⚡️	😇	Powerful engaged supporters. Your main advocates who can help to push the project forward. Regular communication and involvement in key decisions are essential. Keep them informed about the project status, and use their influence to gain support from other stakeholders. It's also beneficial to leverage their enthusiasm to champion the project among other stakeholders.
Saboteurs	✅	⚡️	😡	Powerful engaged opponents. These stakeholders can seriously disrupt the progress of your project.You will need to actively negotiate with them or overcome their objections. Dispute resolution strategies and finding win-win situations should be a primary focus. Or try to reshape the project so they are less influential (e.g: so they lose veto power) and are reduced to Irritant status.
Sleeping giants	✅	💤	😇	Powerful passive supporters. The goal should be to activate them into Saviours. Keep them informed about the benefits of the project, show appreciation for their support, and inspire them to get involved. Their influence can be very useful, so look for opportunities to engage them more actively.
Time bombs	✅	💤	😡	Powerful passive opponents. These stakeholders can become problematic if their concerns are not addressed. It's important to keep them informed and engaged, even if they are not actively involved. Encourage them to voice their concerns and make an effort to address these issues promptly. They may be more persuadable than Saboteurs, and could become Sleeping Giants.
Friends	🤷🏻‍♀️	⚡️	😇	Everyday engaged supporters. These stakeholders are your cheerleaders. Engage them, encourage their active involvement, and take advantage of their positive energy. They may not have much influence, but they can still help to create a positive atmosphere around the project. Try to increase their visibility and influence so they can become Saviours.
Irritants	🤷🏻‍♀️	⚡️	😡	Everyday engaged opponents. They will actively try to block progress, but may not have the power to do so. Engage carefully and not overmuch: constant updates or attempts to counter every objection may only encourage them! Diplomatically acknowledge concern, try to cool their passion and redirect their energy elsewhere.
Acquaintances	🤷🏻‍♀️	💤	😇	Minor passive supporters. Make sure to keep them informed and occasionally seek their advice to make them feel valued. While they may not be very active, they still hold potential to become Friends or even Sleeping Giants in the future.
Trip wires	🤷🏻‍♀️	💤	😡	Minor passive opponents. They are not active and have little influence but are somewhat still against the project. They are less engaged than Irritants so may be easier to persuade and turn into passive supporters. Monitor these stakeholders closely, address their concerns when necessary, but devote your main efforts towards more influential stakeholders. Over time, try to turn them into acquaintances or even friends.