Influence, interest and the people who can stop your project. Mapping who matters, and the conversations that follow once you know.
Articles
One row per stakeholder, one column per engagement level, and two marks per row. The distance between the two marks is the only thing on the grid you can actually act on.
Three attributes, seven classes, one question: whose claim gets attention first. Hold all three and you are a definitive stakeholder, and definitive stakeholders do not wait.
A reward is set in advance and conditional. Recognition is retrospective, unexpected and free. Most project managers control the second and none of the first, which decides where the effort goes.
Terms
A payment agreed in advance and released when a piece of work reaches an agreed end state, conditional on the outcome rather than on the contribution made along the way.
A stakeholder holding power, legitimacy and urgency at once, whose claim takes priority over every other claim on the work.
Where a stakeholder sits on the scale from unaware to leading, judged on observed behaviour rather than on stated position.
Acknowledgement of a contribution given by colleagues rather than awarded down a management line, usually through nomination or an open thank you.
A stakeholder classification that sorts claims by three attributes, power, legitimacy and urgency, producing seven classes plus the nonstakeholder.
Identifying who holds a claim on a piece of work and classifying those claims, so that attention is allocated deliberately rather than by whoever shouts loudest.
The actions, owners and dates for moving named stakeholders from their current engagement level to the level the work requires.