Stakeholder Mapping Explained - SmartDraw's Guide to Stakeholder Maps

With SmartDraw, You Can Create Many Different Types of Diagrams, Charts, and Visuals

What is a Stakeholder Map?

A stakeholder map is a visual tool to help product managers understand the relative influence and power of key individuals and organizations before embarking on a new project. In some cases, product managers will need to know who has decision-making authority and, in others, they may need to know who to contact for specific expertise or resources. Stakeholder maps also help define the level of expected involvement and engagement from the listed stakeholders. A good stakeholder map can help product managers get buy-in from key partners, avoid surprise roadblocks, and improve communications as a project progresses.

What are the 4 Steps to Stakeholder Mapping?

Identify Stakeholders - List all relevant internal and external stakeholders. This may include key customers, executives and other managers on internal teams, suppliers, vendors, investors, regulatory agencies, and more.
Analyze Influence and Interest - Evaluate whether the stakeholder will be actively engaged in the project or just needs to remain informed. Some stakeholders will have more impact or add more value to the project. These stakeholders will need to be in regular meetings and asked for feedback frequently. Getting high influence stakeholders on board will help give your project momentum. You'll also want to uncover and address conflicts or concerns early with them. Other stakeholders will have lower influence on the project's success or failure. These stakeholders will probably be happy with occasional reports and updates.
Prioritize and Visualize - Visualize the data you collected in your analysis by adding the stakeholders to your stakeholder map based on their influence/power and interest/availability in the project.
Plan and Communicate - Once you mapped out everyone's level of interest and influence, it will be easier to come up with a successful communication plan. You'll know who to invite to key meetings and who to copy in on key reports.

Benefits of Stakeholder Maps

Being able to visualize the relationship between your project and the relevant stakeholders can provide many advantages. Stakeholder mapping can help you:

Visualize complex relationships at a glance
Identify the most influential stakeholders
Classify stakeholders according to their interest in a project
Promote effective communication between project managers and stakeholders
Minimize the risk of surprise objections and conflicts
Increase the chance of your project's success

How to Make a Stakeholder Map with SmartDraw?

Step 1: Start with a stakeholder map template
Begin by selecting one of our stakeholder map templates and adjust the axis and category labels of the stakeholder map matrix to fit the needs of your project.

Step 2: Add relevant stakeholders
Drag and drop sticky notes from the left panel into your document and label each one to represent each stakeholder that will be relevant to the project. You can add them directly into the matrix or off to the side in your work area if you are not sure hows to categorize them yet.

Step 3: Prioritize stakeholders
Arrange stakeholders in your matrix based on your analysis of the stakeholder's influence and interest in the project

Keep satisfied (high influence, low interest)
Actively engaged (high influence, high interest)
Keep informed (low influence, high interest)
Monitor (low influence, low interest)

Add, remove, or move around sticky notes representing stakeholders and SmartDraw's containers will automatically adjust so you can keep working without any manual repositioning.