Stakeholder Map Template

About the Stakeholder Map Template

A Stakeholder Map Template is where you can map a group of people by their power and interest. It’s also a good way to quickly see how they can influence your project or have an interest in your product or idea.

Unlike the Stakeholder Analysis Template, which helps you plan, manage, and understand how to engage and communicate with all the key people who could impact your project, the Stakeholder Map Template only maps out the hierarchies inside of your organization.

What is stakeholder mapping?

Stakeholder mapping is a way of organizing all of the people who have an interest in your product, project, or idea in a single visual space. This allows you to easily see who can influence your project and how each person is related to the other.

Widely used in project management, stakeholder mapping is typically performed at the beginning of a project. Doing it early on will help prevent miscommunication, ensure all groups are aligned on the objectives, and set expectations about outcomes and results.

Why is stakeholder mapping so important?

Imagine starting a new project and wanting it to be as successful as possible. You should start asking these questions: Who should you involve? Who should you keep updated? Who is likely to have questions or objections?

That’s when stakeholder mapping comes in quite handy from the start, so you can manage stakeholders and assertively communicate with them to move your project forward.

Here are three benefits of stakeholder mapping:

Define your projects well

Stakeholders aren’t just your allies – they can also deliver insights and advice that help you shape your project. When you involve a diverse group of stakeholders from the start, they will help you create the best outline and plan for your project that will set it up for success.

Create a shared understanding from early on

Once you understand your stakeholders and who they are, you can communicate early and often develop a shared understanding of your project. If they grasp the benefits, they are more likely to support you down the line.

Secure resources

Often, stakeholders are the ones who hold the purse strings or have the necessary influence for getting you the resources you need. A stakeholder map will help you identify these individuals more quickly.

Stakeholder Map examples

You can use a Stakeholder Map Template to understand the key players who influence your project. Here are three examples of who you might involve in different projects.

Product launch (software)

As part of the software product development process, you may involve several stakeholders such as:

• Product manager

• Developers

• Marketers

• Executive sponsor

• Designers

It’s essential to know how different teams inside your organization have dependencies with one another and at which stage of your product launch you will need to communicate with them. For example, it’s critical to have buy-in from an executive sponsor early, but this person doesn’t need to know all the details involved in product development like a product manager would.

Mapping out these stakeholders helps you accelerate processes and project progress once everyone is aligned.

Public sector project

If you’re working in the public sector, you could have a broad range of stakeholders to work with, including internal and external players:

• Business groups

• Elected representatives

• Local councils

• Courts

• Trade unions

• The media

Here it’s important to know how to prioritize internal and external stakeholders. And, it’s crucial to deliver a clear message, so you get buy-in at an early stage and your project off the ground. Learn more about how to master the practice in the complete stakeholder mapping guide.