Stakeholder Mapping - Mendelow’s Matrix

You may have a long list of stakeholders - people and organisations affected by your work. Some of these stakeholders may have the power to block or advance the value you deliver.

Some are simply interested in what you are doing.

Others may not care at all.

For example, a Product Owner will likely have high power over your work's priority and a high interest in it.

However, your family may be highly interested in how much time you spend at work but not have any power over it.

Exercise Guidelines

• In the "Stakeholder Mapping - Stakeholder List" frame, everyone adds a sticky note for each stakeholder involved with the work. Group or deduplicate as you go, so there is one set of sticky notes for all the stakeholders.

• As a group, take each of stakeholder sticky notes from the previous frame and place them on the "Stakeholder Mapping - Mendelow's Matrix" frame to classify them by their influence and interest in the work.

• Discuss the placement of the stakeholders, celebrate the differences and challenge the similarities.

• The outcome should be a consensus from the group to help define the engagement with each of your stakeholders.

Stakeholder Engagement Guidance

The position on the grid shows you the actions you could take with the engagement of each stakeholder.

High power, interested people

You must fully engage with these people and make significant efforts to help to deliver their outcomes.

High power, less interested people

Put enough work in with these people to keep them satisfied, but not so much that they become bored.

Low power, interested people

Keep them informed and talk to them to ensure no significant issues arise. In addition, these people can often be beneficial to the detail of your work.

Low power, less interested people

Monitor these people, but do not bore them with excessive communication.

The Stakeholder Power / Interest Grid of Mendellow (1991) inspired the adaptation of this Stakeholder Mapping MIRO exercise.