Stakeholder analysis: matrix, example and template

A stakeholder analysis records who is affected by a change, who has influence over it and where these people and groups stand on it. Its result is a stakeholder matrix and, more importantly, a list of actions: whom do you involve how, who takes care of it and by when? In projects I do not only sort groups by influence but also by impact, because the most affected groups are the ones who have to make the change work in daily life. A free template as an Excel file with a filled-in example is further down.

What is a stakeholder analysis?

Stakeholders are all people and groups with an interest in an initiative or affected by it. In a software rollout these are not only the future users but also management, IT, the works council, finance, partners and sometimes customers.

A stakeholder analysis answers three questions for each of these groups:

1. How much does their daily work change? That is the impact.
2. How much can they move or block? That is the influence, often called power.
3. Where do they stand today? That is the attitude, from support through neutral to opposition.

The answers show who needs which kind of involvement. The terms are often mixed up. The stakeholder analysis is the whole method. The stakeholder matrix is the grid with two axes in which you place the groups. A stakeholder map is usually a visual variant, often with circles around the project in the middle.

How do you do a stakeholder analysis?

I work in five steps. The effort is manageable: for an initiative with five to ten groups, a half-day workshop with the sponsor, the project manager and the most important line managers is usually enough, plus follow-up.

1. 01

   List the groups

   1 hour · project manager and line managers

   List every person and group that is affected or has influence. Rather too fine than too coarse: field sales and inside sales are two groups, even if they sit in the same department.

2. 02

   Rate the impact

   1 hour · line managers

   For each group, write down what concretely changes in daily work and rate it on a scale from 1 to 3.

3. 03

   Judge influence and attitude

   1 hour · sponsor and project manager

   Who can take decisions, release budget, block resources? Where does the group stand today, and how do we know?

4. 04

   Place them in the matrix

   30 minutes · change manager

   Put every group into the grid and derive the strategy: manage closely, keep satisfied, keep informed or monitor.

5. 05

   Define actions

   1 hour · everyone

   One concrete action per group, an owner and a date. Without this step the analysis stays a slide.

The third step is the tricky one. Attitude tends to be guessed instead of asked. If you do not know where a group stands, write that into the table and plan a conversation. A wrong assumption about an influential group costs more later than two interviews today.

What does a stakeholder matrix look like?

The best known form is the power-interest grid, which goes back to Aubrey Mendelow and is therefore also called Mendelow’s matrix. It has four fields, and each stands for a strategy. The Nielsen Norman Group explains the method clearly in its guide to stakeholder analysis1.

Field	Power	Interest	Strategy	Example in a CRM rollout
Manage closely	high	high	involve regularly, take decisions together	Head of sales
Keep satisfied	high	low	inform selectively, consult on decisions	CFO, works council
Keep informed	low	high	keep up to date, collect feedback	Inside sales
Monitor	low	low	check from time to time whether anything changes	Purchasing

For project management this matrix is often enough. In change management it misses an axis. The group that has to use a new system every day often has little formal power and, at first, little interest. In the classic matrix it ends up in “monitor”. Yet this group decides whether the change arrives in daily work.

That is why in change management I work with a second view: influence times impact. Groups with high impact always need a plan of their own, whatever their influence. Groups with high influence and low impact mainly need information and the occasional decision. This turns the stakeholder analysis into the basis for the change plan per group, as I describe in What is change management?.

Example: stakeholder analysis for a CRM rollout

Take a company that introduces a CRM system such as Salesforce for sales and service. An extract of the analysis could look like this:

Group	Impact	Influence	Attitude today	Action	Owner
Head of sales	medium	high	supportive	make visible as sponsor, forecast in the monthly report from the system	Project manager
Field sales	high	medium	sceptical	show the benefit in their own day, key user per region	Head of sales
Inside sales	high	low	open	training on real cases, early testing	Change manager
Works council	low	high	unknown	meeting in the first month, disclose reports	Sponsor
IT operations	medium	medium	supportive	plan the handover to operations	Head of IT
Finance	low	medium	neutral	inform about new reports	Project manager

The works council says “unknown”, which is more honest than a guess. In Germany it has a right of co-determination for software that can evaluate employees’ behaviour or performance, so this conversation belongs at the start. Field sales is the most critical group: highly affected, with enough informal influence to work around the system, and sceptical. A circular email will not help here; their own manager will, and colleagues acting as key users. And every row has an owner, and that is rarely the change manager.

I left out the ADKAR stage column in the example; the template contains it. It shows where a group stands right now: is awareness of why something changes missing, or the knowledge of how it works? Depending on the answer, the action is a completely different one. How the model works is explained in Change management models compared.

In larger initiatives the table grows quickly. In a global rollout of Salesforce Sales Cloud with more than 500 users in the US, Asia and Europe that I supported, every group also has to be split by country, because leadership, language and attitude differ per country. In an IT transformation with more than 20,000 affected people in 19 countries you work with groups by function and region, not with individuals.

Stakeholder analysis template

The template as an Excel file contains two sheets: an empty table with all columns and the example from above, extended by the ADKAR stage. The columns:

• Group or person: fine enough that one action fits.
• What changes: one sentence on daily work after the change.
• Impact and influence: each from 1 to 3.
• Attitude today: supportive, neutral, sceptical, opposed or unknown.
• ADKAR stage: where the group stands right now.
• Action, owner, date: the actual result.

Typical mistakes in stakeholder analysis

These are the typical ones:

• The analysis is done once and then forgotten. Attitudes shift with every decision. A group that was neutral at kick-off can oppose the change after the system has been selected. So review the table at every phase change.
• Groups are too coarse. “Sales” is not one group if field sales, inside sales and key account management are affected in completely different ways.
• Attitude is guessed. If nobody has talked to a group, the table says “unknown” and lists an action that changes that.
• The most affected groups are missing from the strategy. The classic matrix overlooks them because they have little formal power.
• There is no link to the communication plan. The analysis tells you who hears what, when and from whom. How to build that is in the article on the change management communication plan.

Outside support pays off for unclear attitudes and difficult conversations

For an initiative with three or four groups, the project manager can build the analysis alone with the template. Support pays off when many groups or countries are affected, when the attitude of important groups is unclear, or when nobody inside can hold the difficult conversations, for example with the works council or a sceptical manager. In Salesforce programmes I work together with Fabian Kramer; how we set this up is described in Salesforce change management: why rollouts fail and on the page Salesforce change management consulting.

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Sources1

1. 1guide to stakeholder analysis (opens in a new tab)nngroup.com