Involve Your Key Stakeholders

Get support and alignment for your innovation project

By involving your key stakeholders you can get the support you need for a successful outcome in the organizational context of your project. This method helps you understand the roles and relationships of people involved in a project. It uses two tools, the Stakeholder Map and Stakeholder Matrix, to clearly show everyone’s motivations and concerns. This approach makes it easier to work with these stakeholders effectively.

GOAL

Align and engage key stakeholders

PARTICIPANTS

Department Leads (Business, IT)

TIME NEEDED

60-90 minutes

PHASE

Explore

Before You Start

Align with your Corporate Strategy
To make sure that your business area and innovation project are selected according to your company’s strategic goals and objectives, we recommend you create a Strategy Map with the following method:

Align with the Corporate Strategy

Materials you will need

Templates for Download

Download All Templates

Templates for Virtual Collaboration

Steps

  • 10 minutes

Capture all relevant players in your project context

On individual post-it notes, capture all of the relevant stakeholders that may be affected by or cause impact in the opportunity/use case. Discuss with your team to make sure you have an exhaustive list. Think about: Whom are users affected by it? Who has an influence on your use cases? Who is interested in its success?

See Completed Example

Think about both internal and external stakeholders.

  • 20 minutes

Place the roles you listed on the Stakeholder Map

Place stakeholders on your stakeholder map appropriately, visually displaying their relation to the problem. Place the core stakeholders at the inner circle, and the secondary stakeholders at the outer circle. Place the least relevant stakeholders at the tertiary circle.

Core stakeholders are people who have high stakes in the failure and success of your project.

  • 30 minutes

Analyze interests and concerns with the Stakeholder Matrix

In this round, you will switch from the stakeholder map to the Stakeholder Matrix. While analyzing the stakeholders, think about their interests and concerns regarding the project. Transfer all the core stakeholders from your map to the Stakeholder Matrix. Under the interests column, write down the motivations, and incentives that are on the line for each role. For concerns, write down factors that prevent them to support the project.

Focus on the core stakeholders first. Bring secondary stakeholders only if they have a critical relationship with one of the core stakeholders.

  • 30 minutes

Strategize how to involve them in the project

For each stakeholder, write down how you might engage them with your project. You can use our engagement types scale: key player, keep satisfied, keep informed, and minimal effort. Articulate how you would go about the engagement type you selected for each stakeholder. Finally, add which project-related artifacts (such as roadmap, solution concept) would be relevant for that stakeholder as a contributor or participant.

See the Completed Example

You are done!

Throughout the project, refer back to the Stakeholder Matrix often to ensure you are maintaining contact with all relevant parties. Add to the matrix as needed, if the focus of the project shifts or a new stakeholder is identified. Follow the next methods in the Recommended Path to continue setting up your innovation project.