Brainstorming a list of the various types of people involved in or impacted by a project you’re undertaking.
The best way to serve someone is to look at your services through the eyes of that person. But sometimes when you start on a new project, it isn’t clear who the “customer,” or the “owner,” or the “people working on the project” are.
Stakeholder Mapping is a brainstorming tool that helps your team identify who is impacted by your project, and groups these people into simple-to-understand roles.
- Post-Up
- Use the Post-Up play to collaboratively generate a list of people impacted by your project. Feel free to get very specific in this stage!
- Cloud Grouping
- Once your Post-Up is completed, use the Cloud Grouping play and move stakeholders with similar needs into groups. Toward the end of the grouping, it can be helpful to name the group using a different colored sticky note.
- Prioritize
- Move the different-colored sticky notes from step 2 to a new list. Ask various members of the group to arrange these by priority of which group is most impacted by the project. Discuss disagreements that arise, and use consensus tools to resolve disputes about priority.
What To Do Next
A Stakeholder Map is useful for quickly generating and prioritizing a list of people impacted by a project. However, it can be helpful to develop empathy for these stakeholders. Two useful plays for developing this empathy are the Empathy Map and the Persona.
