Project stakeholder: Definition, analysis & mapping

Imagine your project is like an Oscar-winning movie. When you accept the award, who would you thank for helping you get there?

In project management, these are your project stakeholders. They are anyone with a stake in your project who has helped you along the way. Stakeholders can be the people doing the work, those approving it, or those who will benefit from it. All of them matter.

Surprisingly, figuring out who your project stakeholders are can be even tougher than writing an Oscar speech. A stakeholder analysis map helps with this. It lets you identify and manage your stakeholders more easily. In this article, we’ll show you how to create one and boost your project’s impact.

What is a project stakeholder?

A project stakeholder is any individual, group, or organization that can affect or be affected by a project's decisions, activities, or outcomes; in short, anyone with a vested interest in your project's success.

Project stakeholders can include:

• Team members who do the day-to-day work

• Managers and executives who approve budgets and timelines

• Customers or end-users who will use the final product

• Vendors and suppliers who provide resources

• External partners who collaborate on specific aspects

Knowing who your project stakeholders are is the first step to managing them well. Once you know who has influence and who will be affected, you can adjust your communication and engagement to fit their needs.

What is stakeholder analysis?

Stakeholder analysis is a process for finding and understanding the people, groups, or organizations who care about your project’s outcome. These stakeholders can shape your project’s success or be affected by it.

This process helps project managers:

• Understand stakeholder needs: Identify expectations and potential impact early

• Develop engagement strategies: Tailor communication to each stakeholder group

• Foster collaboration: Align the project with stakeholder expectations while minimizing risks

Importance of stakeholder analysis

Doing a stakeholder analysis is key to any project’s success, no matter how big or small. It helps project managers understand the different relationships, interests, and influences involved.

A well-executed stakeholder analysis enables you to:

• Anticipate challenges: Address potential roadblocks before they derail your project

• Build alliances: Secure the support and resources needed to achieve project goals

• Establish clear communication: Promote transparency and accountability throughout the project lifecycle

Benefits of stakeholder analysis

Good stakeholders bring a lot to your project. During the project planning phase, your stakeholders guide you in determining where the project should go. Internal stakeholders can support you in developing a budget or resource management plan for the project.

Knowing who your external stakeholders are can help you set your project scope and project objectives. Once the project gets underway, good project stakeholders can drum up support, help when things go wrong, and keep your team motivated.

When you clearly understand your stakeholders, it’s easier to get their support and reach your project goals. A stakeholder analysis can help you:

• Gain more support and resources

• Increase project visibility, especially to executive stakeholders

• Prevent costly roadblocks later in the project cycle

• Communicate through the right channels at the right time

• Share the right level of information with your stakeholders

If you do a thorough stakeholder analysis early in your planning, you’ll enjoy these benefits throughout your project.

Identifying and categorizing project stakeholders

In a broad sense, almost everyone can be affected by the outcome of your project. But in project management, your project stakeholders are specifically those involved in your project's decision-making process.

These might include executives who approve deliverables, team members who do the work, or members of your target audience who will be most affected by your decisions. You can identify project stakeholders by asking one simple question: "Will the work I'm doing affect that person?" If the answer is yes, they're likely a project stakeholder.

Key stakeholders are the people who influence your project’s outcome. Knowing who they are helps you build better relationships and get support from those who matter most.

Internal vs external stakeholders

There are two main types of project stakeholders: internal and external. Internal stakeholders work inside your company. External stakeholders are people or groups outside your organization.

• Internal Stakeholders: Project manager

• External Stakeholders: Customers

• Internal Stakeholders: Project team members

• External Stakeholders: Contractors and subcontractors

• Internal Stakeholders: Project portfolio manager and/or program manager

• External Stakeholders: Investors

• Internal Stakeholders: Project sponsor

• External Stakeholders: Suppliers

• Internal Stakeholders: Executive leaders

• External Stakeholders: End-users

• Internal Stakeholders: Cross-functional internal teams

• External Stakeholders: External partners

Stakeholder mapping techniques

Stakeholder mapping helps you find out who your stakeholders are and how much they can affect your project. It looks at two things: their impact and their interest. A stakeholder map shows who has high or low impact and interest in your work.

This way, you can communicate with each stakeholder in the way that suits them best.

Stakeholder analysis matrix

The stakeholder analysis matrix is a useful tool for sorting stakeholders by how much influence and interest they have in your project. It usually has four sections:

• High power, high interest: These are key players who need close management and regular updates. Working closely with them is vital for your project’s success.

• High power, low interest: These stakeholders have a lot of influence but are less involved. Keep them satisfied and updated on important changes to keep their support.

• Low power, high interest: These people care about the project but have little decision-making power. Keep them informed and listen to their concerns to create a positive environment.

• Low power, low interest: These stakeholders are not directly involved. Keep an eye on their attitudes and check in from time to time, since their influence or interest could change.

How to conduct a stakeholder analysis in 4 steps

Finding and managing your project stakeholders helps set you up for success. When you involve key stakeholders, they can give you support that’s crucial throughout the project.

If you don’t have supportive stakeholders, you might end up setting expectations halfway through the project, which can create risks. Here are four steps to build a strong stakeholder analysis map.

Step 1: Identify all relevant stakeholders

Before you can manage stakeholder expectations, you first need to know who your project stakeholders are. Make sure to account for both internal and external stakeholders. To figure out who your project stakeholders are, ask yourself:

• Who cares about this project?

• Who will this project have an impact on?

• Who can influence this project?

• Who can approve/reject this project?

If you need help tracking your stakeholders, consider creating a RACI chart or stakeholder register to track who everyone is, why they matter, and what their impact on the project will be.

Before moving to the next step, do a final check. Ask yourself:

• Are there any other internal stakeholders I should be aware of, like resource managers or project portfolio managers?

• Have I included all key project leaders and managers?

• Are there any external stakeholders I'm missing who might affect the project's outcome?

Step 2: Analyze stakeholder influence-interest levels

High stakeholder engagement is critical for project success. Create a stakeholder map that outlines each stakeholder's influence and interest level using a power-interest grid to visualize your four main stakeholder groups.

The four main stakeholder groups are:

1. High influence and high interest. These are likely your project approvers and sponsors. Externally, these may also be key partners or customers. Make sure you check in with these stakeholders regularly and align your expectations.

2. High influence and low interest. These people can block or support your project, but they probably aren't interested in doing so. Make sure these stakeholders are aware of the basics of your project and keep them informed at a high level.

3. Low influence and high interest. You likely don't need approval from this group of stakeholders, especially on early project details. Throughout the project, keep these project stakeholders informed.

4. Low influence and low interest. These are secondary stakeholders. Depending on the size and complexity of your work, you might want to loop them in semi-regularly on project status reports, or not loop them in at all until the end.

By mapping your stakeholders this way, you create a clear plan for engaging them. You can then focus your communication and efforts where they matter most.

Step 3: Understand stakeholder needs

Some stakeholders might not agree with every part of your project. As the project manager, it’s your job to understand their views and find solutions that keep the project on track. You don’t have to do everything they ask, but you should listen and understand their needs.

A so-called "difficult stakeholder" is often just someone with different priorities. Sometimes, your work might disrupt theirs. Try to see things from their point of view to find solutions that work for everyone.

When in doubt, put yourself in the other person's shoes. Ask yourself:

• What do they need?

• What level of communication do they want?

• What's the most effective communication strategy?

• Are there any influencers or influences among these stakeholders?

• How can you accurately identify stakeholders'interests?

Consider holding a brainstorming session with your project team to gather their input and ensure no key stakeholder needs are overlooked.

Step 4: Develop a stakeholder communication plan

Once you've identified your stakeholders and thought about their needs, create a stakeholder communication plan and invite them to your project planning sessions and kickoff meeting. Key stakeholders should also sign off on your project charter, project plan, project objectives, and project scope.

As your project gets underway, make sure to update any relevant stakeholders on changes and progress. Documenting your processes early reduces the risk of any miscommunication down the road.

While it’s good to involve different stakeholders, always focus on your key stakeholders first. You don’t need approval from everyone. If you’re unsure, check your stakeholder analysis map to see who should be included.

Meet often with stakeholders who have high power and high interest to talk about progress and challenges. For others, send regular updates with milestones, issues, and next steps.

It’s a good idea to send updates every two weeks, or even more often for complex projects.

A work management tool can make stakeholder communication easier. With one central place to track tasks, share updates, and store documents, everyone can see how the project is going.

This is especially helpful for keeping low-interest stakeholders informed without coordinating multiple meetings or sending one-off emails. Look for a tool that enables you to set granular privacy settings based on each stakeholder's level of interest.

Stakeholder analysis example

To illustrate the stakeholder analysis process, let's consider a software development project:

• Identify stakeholders: Start by listing everyone who has a stake in the project. In this case, that could be the project manager, development team, QA team, end-users, senior management, and outside vendors.

• Categorize stakeholders: Next, sort them by their power and interest using a stakeholder analysis matrix or power/interest grid. For example:

  • High power, high interest: Project manager, senior management

  • High power, low interest: External vendors

  • Low power, high interest: Development team, QA team, end-users

  • Low power, low interest: Other departments within the organization

• Develop communication strategies: After sorting stakeholders, the project manager creates specific ways to communicate with each group. For example:

  • Project manager and senior management: Schedule regular progress updates and involve them in key decision-making processes.

  • External vendors: Provide periodic status reports and manage contracts effectively.

  • Development and QA teams: Conduct daily stand-ups, facilitate technical discussions, and organize feedback sessions to keep them engaged and informed.

  • End-users: Involve them in user acceptance testing, gather their feedback, and provide necessary training to ensure they are prepared for the project's outcome.

By tailoring communicatioBy adjusting communication and engagement for each stakeholder group, the project manager can manage expectations, build trust, and keep the project on track. analysis pitfalls

There’s no perfect way to communicate with stakeholders. Here are some common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Lack of stakeholder boundaries

• Problem: Overeager project stakeholders are causing scope creep.

• Solution: Implement a change control process.

Sometimes, overeager project stakeholders can have a negative impact. You've spent a lot of time planning your project and figuring out your deliverables, but if too many stakeholders have ideas for new deliverables, updated timelines, or adjusted budgets, your project could quickly veer off course.

The best way to set boundaries with stakeholders is to use a change control process. This process has four main steps:

• Project stakeholders submit a change request.

• Key stakeholders review the request.

• Approve, reject, or defer the change.

• Adjust the project scope or objectives accordingly.

Failing to prioritize key project stakeholders

• Problem: During the initial stakeholder identification phase, you forgot to include a stakeholder with a strong interest in this initiative.

• Solution: Involve your project team during the stakeholder identification phase.

It’s easy to forget a cross-functional stakeholder or leave someone off your list by mistake. These things happen, but try to avoid them, especially for stakeholders with a lot of influence or interest.

To prevent this, involve your project team when identifying stakeholders. Hold a team brainstorming session to list and sort each stakeholder so no one is missed.

Bringing stakeholders in too late

• Problem: You already kicked off your project and then started your stakeholder analysis.

• Solution: Next time, create a stakeholder analysis map up front.

This one is obvious, but it's worth including. If you do forget a stakeholder, use that as a learning opportunity for your next project. For example, if you forgot to do your stakeholder analysis map until after the project kickoff, make a note to yourself to do it the other way around next time.

Bring clarity to your stakeholder management

To keep your project running smoothly, make sure your stakeholders’ expectations match your project deliverables. In short, aim for clear communication throughout your project.

The best way to do that is with a work management tool like Asana. Work management tools help you coordinate people and work across all levels of your organization.

Ready to streamline your stakeholder communication and keep everyone aligned? Get started with Asana today and see how easy it can be to manage your stakeholders effectively. To learn more, read our introduction to work management.

Frequently asked questions about stakeholder analysis