Organizations are in business to compete for value creation to the customers. In their bid to get this done, they are required to come up with crucial decisions that will aid the value creation processes which are in turn appreciated by their customers.
According to a report by Bizfluent, stakeholder mapping enables business managers to have a visual representation of the various stakeholders of their organizations. It allows them to be in the know of their interest and importance to their organization. This enhances their decision-making and operational efficiency.
Hence business managers must know the stakeholders that are making vital decisions about their business activities.
However, the stakeholders of every organization vary from one to another; the onus is on the business manager to identify the key players from saboteurs and time wasters.
In reality, this is always a hard nut to crack for most business managers. Stakeholder mapping is the ideal tool you need to identify the voice of your customer as it relates to the success of your organization.
It will help you to know the stakeholders that should be considered when you are making vital business decisions that will drive the growth of your organization.
Sinnaps, an online project management tool is useful for stakeholder mapping because it aids in analyzing every stakeholder in your organization and helps you to come out with the order of their importance when it comes to decision-making.
Also, it is a planning tool that is helpful in the management of the resources of your project effectively. It supports you by breaking down your workloads into manageable chunks that you and your team can easily get on with.
Again, it supports effective communication among the project team thereby allowing them to be on the same page in the management and execution of their workloads.
Índice
Stakeholder Mapping: Why It Is Important For You
Stakeholder mapping offers you a dynamic tool that will define who the stakeholders of your business organization are.
Without mincing words, the stakeholders of every business are internal or external but it allows your business to evolve as the business environment, stakeholder requirements and opinions change.
The examples of stakeholders in every organization are the customers, employees, suppliers, competitors, government, community, and the owner.
The internal stakeholder mapping will help in the identification of groups or individuals that are working within your organization to know the magnitude of the interest and influence they have on the decisions about your organization.
With stakeholder mapping, the task of understanding their level of interest and influence on your organization becomes easier and you will be in the know of how much effort you are required to keep them satisfied.
As a business manager, when you identify the stakeholders by their influence, you can know the ones that have the power to set and modify the requirements of your business project.
Also, identifying the stakeholders based on interest enables you to know the ones that are affected by the outcome of your project but they lack the power to influence the requirements of your project.
Hence you must focus on satisfying the expectations of the stakeholders who have a high level of influence on your business. Also, you must keep the stakeholders that have a high level of interest informed in your business organization.
The use of a stakeholder chart will provide visual assistance that will help you in executing your stakeholder mapping by analyzing each stakeholder comprehensively. It provides you with a stakeholder diagram that will simplify the analysis of all stakeholders and deduce the interest or influence that they have on your organization to aid your decision-making strides.
Manage your teams’ resources and workload
Stakeholder Mapping Example
In stakeholder analysis example, the process of creating a project stakeholder map, you are required to make a list of those that have interest or influence on your project. The stakeholders in the stakeholder mapping example are investors, clients, chief executives, and suppliers.
Then you can use this list to weigh the influence of each person on the list. Also, you are required to draw a box that will be divided into four quadrants.
Again, each of these quadrants is further divided into 4 quadrants to make the entire box into sixteen quadrants altogether. Then label down the left side beginning at the top with “significant importance”, “some importance”, “less importance”, and “no importance”.
Also, label across the top beginning at the left with “significant influence”, “some influence”, “less influence” and “no influence”.
Now start to organize your stakeholders depending on their importance and influence. After this, you will have a graphical display of the stakeholders with the most importance and influence which is the group on the upper left-hand corner.
The stakeholders with less importance and influence are the group on the lower right-hand corner. A typical stakeholder mapping example is shown below:
Stakeholder Mapping Techniques and Process
Stakeholders are vital to the success or failure of any business establishment and you need to know the level of importance and interest they have on the running of your organization.
The following are the stakeholder mapping model and steps that will effectively assist you in the analysis of stakeholders to boost your decision-making efforts.
- Analysis of power versus interest grid: this is often a very important stakeholder mapping grip. Here, you are needed to determine the stakeholders of your project and confirm the interest that every stakeholder has on your project.
The stakeholder mapping technique and process allow you to deduce the magnitude of the authority that they need to alter the course of your project.
Furthermore, you are needed to try and do a pair of <the two> X 2 matrix analysis with power on the vertical axis and interest on the horizontal axis.
After this, you will be able to classify the stakeholders depending on their power and interest. The stakeholders within the high right corner of the grip have the power and interest. Therefore you need to work closely with them by collaborating with them.
Besides, use a RACI matrix template, which is all you need for the definition and documentation of the roles and responsibilities of your members. RACI is an acronym derived from: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.
Other deductions from this stakeholder mapping techniques and process are the following:
The stakeholders within the high left corner of the grid have high power however very little interest and you need to guarantee that they are happy daily.
The stakeholders within the bottom right corner of the grid have low power however high interest and you are expected to enlighten them concerning the progress and changes of the business. They are necessary allies that will facilitate issues resolution in the organization.
The stakeholders within the bottom left corner of the grid have low power and low interest. You are only needed to watch their level of interest and have interaction with them with communication ways that need very little effort and detail.
- Influence – impact grid: this is often another stakeholder mapping grid that is done by plotting the influence of the stakeholders versus impact. However, influence is set by how actively a stakeholder is concerned or the magnitude at that a stakeholder will force others during the decision-making process. The impact is that the capability to bring modification by the stakeholders. It helps in prioritizing the stakeholders of a firm.
- Power – influence grid: in this stakeholder mapping technique and process, the amount of influence is how a stakeholder is actively concerned in a business or project whereas power is the level of authority.
- Importance – influence grid: this is often determined by the order with which the interest and desires of each stakeholder should be addressed as outlined by importance.
For instance, Sinnaps will help project managers in implementing their stakeholder mapping techniques because it is a planning tool and with ease of use feature.
5 Steps for effective planning
Online Stakeholder Mapping Tool
An online stakeholder mapping tool is useful in identifying the individuals, groups, and organizations that have a stake in your business. It can help you in prioritizing the stakeholders based on their level of interest and influence on your project.
It enables you to leverage stakeholder engagement with the aid of a stakeholder engagement map. This enriches your understanding of how to engage the stakeholders with an effective communication plan to boost the decision-making efforts of your organization.
The stakeholder communication plan that helps you to know who the stakeholders are and at what level they are required to be involved.
Also, an online stakeholder mapping tool helps in creating the stakeholder influence map that assists you to know the influence that each stakeholder has on your business and boost your long-term viability and success.
The agile stakeholder map online offers you the agile approach that can be used to identify your project stakeholders. No doubt, the interest and influence of every stakeholder of your project are different but it is your responsibility to know the ones that will have a great impact on the outcome of the project.
Furthermore, it provides you with a stakeholder relationship map that will aid you in managing the relevant stakeholders in your organization for sustainable growth. By managing the relationships with your stakeholders, you have a greater capacity to be successful in your organization.
Also, It affords you the stakeholder heat map that provides you with a detailed visual picture of where, when and how each stakeholder will be affected by a change in a project
In the network diagram project management, you have a graphical representation of all tasks, responsibilities, and workflow for a project.
By combining it with stakeholder mapping will bring out the best from your project because you can easily identify the stakeholders in every phase of the project and be in the know of those with high influence and interest in the project.
This will aid the successful completion of the project on-time. For example, Sinnaps can be used to complement the network diagram project management with stakeholder mapping to come up with decisions that will boost the success of your project with ease.
