INITIATE PHASE

Stakeholder mapping

Create a visual representation of all the people who can influence a project and how they’re connected. This can help you involve and get buy-in from the right people during the service design process.

How to use this method

With your core team and the template provided, follow these steps:

1. Brainstorm

As a team, identify all potential stakeholders of your project — one per virtual or paper sticky note. These could be staff members, organizational units, or any other people who have a stake in or will be impacted by the project’s success. Try to be as granular and as comprehensive as possible.

2. Group ideas

Start to pull out patterns among the stakeholders you’ve identified. Group people who belong in the same category, then decide on a name for that category (for example, “organization leadership”).

3. Map relationships

With your project in the center, define the relationships between the stakeholders around it. Get more granular as you get farther from the center.

4. Prioritize

To define how you’ll collaborate and communicate with stakeholders moving forward, use the prioritization matrix. Mapping according to power and interest, you’ll get a sense of who to engage on a spectrum from low to high touch.