If Change is constant then so should be Stakeholder Management.

What is Stakeholder Management?

Relationship management of individuals or groups who can impact your work (project, product, team) or who through your work you seek to impact. 

Who or what are Stakeholders? 

They can be anyone both internal to your organisation (team members, managers, business partners) or external (customers, suppliers, regulators etc.)

Why Create a Stakeholder Radar?

Change is a relationship game, hard worked for success can be lost if you don’t work equally as hard on building strong stakeholder support and engagement. 

The Visual Agile Coach Stakeholder Radar focuses on the initial identification and then the assessment of the levels of interest, influence and interaction each Stakeholder may seek or need.

When to Create a Stakeholder Radar?

• At the start of a project (or defined piece of work)
• Incorporate within PI planning, before is essential to get the right people to attend
• When starting a new team, or if your team is struggling to engage across the business

How to Create a Stakeholder Radar (with Drawify)

1. Tailor your Stakeholder Radar:  
2. 1. Our Stakeholder Radar is divided Internal v External Stakeholders.  Upstream (production) or Downstream (marketing / distribution) is another distinction that can be used
3. 2. Label the rings, there is lots of choice here, the basic rule is the closer to the centre the stronger the connection to the project or team.

[Integral / Involved / Informed]

[Partner / Promoter / Passive]

[Promoter / Disengaged / Resistor]

1. 3. Include Stakeholder Groupings, for example Product or Sales (for internal) or Customers, Suppliers or Regulators (for external) – this will help with categorisation of Stakeholders and ongoing management

2. Identify your Stakeholder Universe:  Brainstorm with your team to identify your Stakeholder Universe, using the Internal / External and Stakeholder Groupings as prompts. 

3. Time to plot:  As a team start working through your Stakeholder Universe, positioning each Stakeholder in their current State of Engagement position on the radar and by Stakeholder Grouping. 

The Internal / External and Stakeholder Groupings  should be easy enough (you may need to add some more groupings or remove some – although an empty Stakeholder Grouping might mean your missing a Stakeholder!)

The State of Engagement position within the rings may be more contentious and spark discussions - dotmocracy or voting may need to come into play!

4. Are our Stakeholders where we want them to be?  This is the key question.  If not add an arrow pointing to where you ideally want your Stakeholders to be.  It might not be necessarily closer to the centre!

5. Last but not least: Where is the Sponsor?  Ideally they will be right at the centre of the Stakeholder Radar – but they might not be in engagement, mindset or support terms right now.  Plot their position now and start planning on how to bring them to the centre of your Stakeholder Radar.

6. OK 1 last thing. Are there any Stakeholders initially identified that haven’t been positioned on the Radar?  Leaving them on-the-outside is fine for now – but don’t forget about them, keep them on your radar so to speak.  Similarly, any empty areas on the Radar – doesn’t mean that there aren’t any Stakeholders it might mean you haven’t identified them yet!

Your Visual Agile Coach Stakeholder Radar is ready to help identify key stakeholders and categorise them, before the next phase of proactively engaging and improving stakeholder relationships (and yes, we have a template for that too!

Stakeholder Management Checklist

• All known Stakeholders identified and mapped
• All Stakeholders current position considered versus desired position
• A Stakeholder Management plan starting to form

Visual Agile Coaching Tips

• Create personas for the Stakeholders to bring to life, they can be generic i.e. Senior Manager, Customer, Sales-person
• Visualise the title of the rings, Partner / Advisor / Indifferent can all be illustrated to draw out the difference in mindset and emotion of each State of Engagement .
• Similar to personas for Stakeholders, each grouping can be illustrated with a  visual for: Marketing, Compliance, Risk, Operations etc.
• Make your Stakeholder Radar look like a real radar to grab attention and create a sense of importance to the criticality of Stakeholder Management.

Stakeholder Management Tips

• Don’t fire and forget (or just file away). Keep the Stakeholder Management Radar live and fluid, revisit and update on a regular basis as part of your Stakeholder Management plan.
• A RACI is a great place to start Stakeholder Management.  However, it can be 1-dimensional, not action orientated and once completed filed alongside the RAIDs log to be forgotten.  The Stakeholder Management Radar can help add extra dimensions and information to facilitate proactive Stakeholder Management.
• Don’t just look upwards in your organisation for Stakeholders. They can also be found sideways, downwards and outside of your organisation.  Bringing together a large group to brainstorm the Universe of Stakeholders  will help identify both obvious and less obvious or hidden Stakeholders.
• Don’t over complicate Stakeholder Management, in simple terms it is about bringing the right people together to achieve the best outcome for your project, assignment, team or mission.

Typically Stakeholder Management follows a path of firstly identifying your Stakeholders, planning how to manage Stakeholders and then the actual engagement of Stakeholders (an ongoing and fluid activity).