Stakeholder Analysis
Systematic identification of who cares about a project, how much they care, and how much power they have — to decide how much to involve each of them.
Explanation
Stakeholders divide into two classes:
- Primary stakeholders — benefit directly from the project’s success
- Secondary stakeholders — impacted indirectly
The three steps
- List all stakeholders the project impacts — team, sponsor, customers/users, vendors, regulators, adjacent teams, legal, leadership.
- Rate each one on interest and influence:
- Influence — how much power they have and how much their actions affect project outcome
- Interest — how much they’re affected by the project’s operations and outcomes
- Assess each stakeholder’s ability to participate and find ways to involve them.
The power/interest grid (Mendelow)
A 2×2 maps stakeholders to engagement strategy:
| Low Interest | High Interest | |
|---|---|---|
| High Power | Keep Satisfied | Manage Closely |
| Low Power | Monitor (minimum effort) | Keep Informed |
- Manage Closely (High Power, High Interest) — sponsor, key customer. Bring them into decisions, share deeply.
- Keep Satisfied (High Power, Low Interest) — senior leadership not directly involved. Don’t overload them; keep them happy with occasional updates.
- Keep Informed (Low Power, High Interest) — users, team members’ managers. Regular status updates.
- Monitor (Low Power, Low Interest) — peripheral parties. Minimum effort.
Stakeholder buy-in
The process of involving stakeholders in decision-making to reach broader consensus. The source treats this briefly; in practice, buy-in typically combines:
- Framing the project’s value in terms each stakeholder already cares about (see conger-influencing-steps)
- Involving Manage Closely stakeholders in the charter sign-off
- Sharing progress via the communication-plan at the frequency appropriate to each quadrant
Application
Run a stakeholder analysis at the start of course-2-project-initiation. It feeds directly into the raci-chart, the project-charter team section, and the communication-plan.
Connections
- raci-chart — operationalizes the analysis into concrete responsibility assignments
- communication-plan — uses the analysis to set cadence per stakeholder
- conger-influencing-steps — how to actually influence each one
- project-charter
Open Questions
- The source’s “Stakeholder buy-in” section is thin — just a one-line definition. A later source on stakeholder management (McKinsey-style Change Practice or Kotter’s 8 steps) would fill this out.
Source References
- google-project-management-course — contents of the three steps, primary/secondary split