Stakeholder Mapping is a graphical illustration of how your stakeholders and how they feel towards a project or program. With this tool, you are able to identify those whom you will need to influence and what kind of action you need to take.

This tool is best used early in your project by simply identifying the key stakeholder groups early and map their dispositions at the outset.You can then revisit the map in later stages as you evaluate efforts to improve positive attitudes and engage stakeholders.

Here’s how to create a Stakeholder Map –

1. Draw two axes, where the X axis represents the spectrum of dispositions toward your change project; from DERAILER at one extreme to SUPPORTER at the other. The Y axis, meanwhile, represents the spectrum of involvement from high at the top to none at the bottom.

2. Note that the Y axis intercepts at the mid-point of the X axis. This represents a position on the X axis equivalent to a neutral disposition – neither for, nor against, the project or activity.

3. Identify your stakeholders, determining their location on the map by rating their relative disposition towards your project and the degree to which they are actively involved in it.

4. Typically you can think of stakeholders as “anyone who has a stake in the initiative”. A more workable definition might be “anyone who can make, or break, your project”.

5. Stakeholders can be segmented into four major groups – Sponsors, Teams, Reference Groups and Users.

6. Note that in addition to the disposition of each stakeholder, you can the degree to which each can influence the project –reflected in the size of the circle used to denote that stakeholder.

7. The last step in the mapping exercise is to add the relationships that exist between stakeholders, reflected by lines, with arrows pointing which relationship has influence over, and the thickness representing the strength of that relationship.

8. Note that relationship can be negative as well as positive. The assumption can be that all relationships are positive ones. If you think it is relevant, you might want to illustrate a negative relationship by a broken line or in a different color.

9. To shift dispositions to a more favorable situation, exploit the relationship that exists, say, between a strong supporter of your project and someone else who remains skeptical or even cynical.

Here’s an example of how a Stakeholder Map might look like –