Stakeholder and Stakeholder Analysis

A stakeholder is a person or group that can influence a project or is affected by its outcome: sponsor, operators, customers, IT, works council, sales. The stakeholder analysis captures them systematically and maps them along two axes.

• Power / influence — how strongly can this person advance or obstruct the project? Formal decision authority or informal standing
• Interest / concern — how much does the outcome change their daily work or their goals?

Both axes form the power-interest grid with four quadrants and one strategy each: high/high manage closely, high/low keep satisfied, low/high keep informed, low/low monitor. In addition the current versus the desired attitude is recorded — supporter, neutral, opponent. The gap between the two is the actual work to be done.