Dear all.
Yet another never ending week…
Most of you are probably familiar with stakeholder mapping as a technique to understand who influences a project or is being influenced by it.
We have used stakeholder maps for years now and we always found that highly impacted stakeholders with low power or influence – i.e. the internal or external customers – ended up in places on the map where they received little attention.
The ones impacting the projects by way of wielding executive power on the other hand usually ranked in the upper right quadrant.
As a result, the respective organization’s focus was often inwardly and upwardly skewed.
We wanted to foster different discussions. To achieve that, we separated the „impactors“ – the ones wielding the power – from the „impacted“ – the ones without direct power over (but possibly still highly interested in the outcomes of) a project.
The resulting „Impactors/Impacted“ map is fundamentally the „classic“ interest/power matrix mirrored at the x-axis. I.e. stakeholders highly interested and impacted do end up in the lower right corner of the diagram.
Using it has changed the discourse. Customers have gained in significance in our discussions. Managers sometimes appear both as „impactors“ as well as „impacted“, leading to a different appreciation of their information needs.
Here’s the link to the map (plus a useful article on stakeholder mapping for product managers):
How to Use the Impactors/Impacted Map – download link and how-to from our web site.
We still consider this map an experiment and would love feedback on it!
Have a great weekend!
Cheers,
Godehard