Stakeholder Mapping for CSR

Most Projects Fail to Deliver Full Value… Because Stakeholder Management Is an Afterthought. ~ Conflicting priorities stall critical decisions. ~ Misaligned expectations derail project timelines. ~ Key sponsors disengage, leaving teams without support. And yet, when these challenges arise, most teams focus on “more updates” or “more stakeholder meetings.” But the real issue isn’t the frequency of communication – It’s ineffective stakeholder management. Here’s what I consistently see in projects: → Too Many Decision-Makers – Multiple stakeholders with conflicting goals slow down consensus and project momentum. → Competing Priorities – What’s urgent for one stakeholder may be irrelevant for another, creating constant friction. → Limited Resources – Tight budgets and stretched teams make balancing stakeholder demands increasingly difficult. These challenges lead to delays, frustration, and loss of stakeholder trust. What’s the solution? A structured and strategic stakeholder management approach, not just ad hoc engagement. Here’s how I help organisations elevate their stakeholder management: 1. Clarify Expectations Early → Align all stakeholders on shared goals, roles, and success metrics upfront. 2. Strategic Stakeholder Mapping → Using tools like the Power-Interest Matrix to categorise stakeholders and tailor engagement accordingly. 3. Targeted Communication Strategies → Communicating the right information, to the right people, at the right time. 4. Action-Oriented Engagement Plans → Prioritising critical stakeholders and focusing efforts where they create the most impact. When organisations manage stakeholders effectively, the outcomes speak for themselves: → Faster decision-making: Streamlined discussions and fewer bottlenecks.  → Stronger stakeholder alignment: Reduced conflicts and enhanced project cohesion.  → Higher project success rates: Deliverables that meet or exceed expectations.  → Improved stakeholder relationships: Greater trust and long-term collaboration. Stakeholder management isn’t a soft skill – it’s a business-critical strategy. Are competing priorities slowing your projects down? Let’s address it. Drop me a message and let’s explore how structured stakeholder engagement can drive project success and stakeholder buy-in. —- 📌 Want to become the best LEADERSHIP version of yourself in the next 30 days? 🧑💻Book 1:1 Growth Strategy call with me: https://lnkd.in/gVjPzbcU #Leadership #Strategy #Projects #Success #Growth

Struggling with stakeholder buy-in? I have a template that can help. The Power-Interest matrix maps key stakeholders into 4 personas: 🔴 The ARCHITECTS (high power, high interest) These are people with a lot of power who are very involved in research (e.g., product managers, design leaders) 🟢 The OBSERVERS (high power, low interest) Someone with a lot of power, but an arms-length distance from your work (e.g., Head of Product., C-suite) 🟡 The EXPLORERS (low power, high interest) They’re super interested in your work, but don’t have a lot of influence in the org (fellow UXRs, designers) 🔵 The CASUAL OBSERVERS (low power, low interest) Someone without a lot of influence or interest in research (think other team members like sales, marketing) To make getting buy-in easier, you need to understand each stakeholder persona, and talk to them accordingly. ARCHITECTS need most attention. They need close management with regular updates + involvement. OBSERVERS only care about business outcomes. They prefer concise reports & summaries that are action-oriented, without jargon. For CASUAL OBSERVERS, you can loop them in on big breakthroughs + findings that matter to their work. EXPLORERS are fans of research. Keep them informed through shared repositories & weekly syncs. For a detailed analysis of each stakeholder and how to engage with them better, go here: https://bit.ly/4b0wGSC If you want to skip the reading, just use my FREE Stakeholder Persona Mapping Figjam template: https://bit.ly/4b4JN5A Which type of stakeholders have you struggled with the most? Please share wisdom in the comments! 👇 #uxresearch #stakeholdermanagement

You can’t call it partnership if stakeholders only hear from you once before launch. True engagement isn’t a courtesy email. It’s about making stakeholders 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 from day one to follow-through. 4 shifts that make the difference: 1. Map before you move Not all stakeholders need the same level of attention. Use mapping tools to identify who has influence, what they care about, and how they prefer to engage. 2. Align objectives early Don’t wait until the end to prove impact. Bring stakeholders into planning to set KPIs, success metrics, and business outcomes together. 3. Keep communication alive Use clear, jargon-free updates. Share progress, invite feedback, and celebrate wins. Trust grows when stakeholders feel part of the journey. 4. Champion transfer, not just learning Make managers and sponsors active player, e.g. mentors, accountability partners, and reinforcement leaders. Because learning in the classroom means nothing if it doesn’t show up on the job. When engagement is tailored this way, L&D stops being a service provider… and starts being a strategic driver of business results. A question for you: What’s worked best in your experience: mapping, alignment, communication, or transfer support? _____________ High functioning ≠ high capacity. I consult with L&D teams to turn busyness into business impact.

When I started my career as a Business Analyst in the UK, I thought competence was all that mattered. If I did excellent work, people would notice. Guess what? Ladies and gentlemen... I was wrong 🤭 Because they didn’t. I noticed something.... l'll obsess over perfect documentation. Wireframes, workflows, and requirements polished to perfection. But when it came time for approval? ...Crickets... Suddenly, everyone had “feedback.” Delays. Confusion. Rewrites. The project will be delayed and almost die. 😓 That’s when I realised: Projects don’t fail because of poor requirements. They fail because of poor relationships. No one tells you how to manage: - Power plays - Hidden agendas - Conflicting personalities - People who say “yes” in the meeting and block you afterwards So I created The Stakeholder Survival Guide to help you navigate the mess behind the meetings. Here’s what I wish someone told me sooner 👇 1️⃣ Identify the real players Don’t just list job titles. Find the influencers the people who quietly sway decisions. → The senior dev everyone listens to. → The finance analyst who controls the budget. → The exec’s “trusted voice.” In every organisation, there’s an invisible hierarchy you can’t find on an org chart. 2️⃣ Map Power vs Interest Use this grid to keep your sanity: → High Power + High Interest → Manage Closely → High Power + Low Interest → Keep Satisfied → Low Power + High Interest → Keep Informed → Low Power + Low Interest → Monitor If someone moves boxes, your project direction just changed. 3️⃣ Know what drives them Ask: → What does success mean to them? → What do they fear losing? → How are they measured? Align your outcomes to their goals and you’ll get support on autopilot. 4️⃣ Speak their language ↳ Execs → short, strategic updates. 3in5 (3 updates in 5mins) ↳ Teams → clear and detailed. ↳ End users → focus on benefits, not process. When English isn’t necessarily your first language, you learn fast that how you say things often matters more than what you say. It’s the same in stakeholder management. 5️⃣ Handle conflict early → Small tension ignored becomes project cancer. → Spot misalignment fast. → Use data + shared goals to cool things down. → And always document agreements memory fades fast. 6️⃣ Re-map Every Quarter Stakeholders evolve. Interests shift. That supportive sponsor might get promoted or bored. Don’t get blindsided. Refresh your map regularly. Keep this in mind: Stakeholder management isn’t about keeping everyone happy. It’s about making sure the right people are heard at the right time so your project doesn’t die an untimely death What’s one brutal lesson you learned about managing stakeholders? ♻️ Repost to save another BA or PM from stakeholder nightmares. ➕ Follow Patrick Giwa, PhD for more practical playbooks like this.

Consultants do this automatically. Enablement teams rarely do. And it's costing us. 👇 When I think about how I approach my work, I view our team as internal consultants to the revenue organization. And one of the first things any good consultant does when they walk into an engagement is map the room. Not just who's in it. But who's with you, who's against you, and how much it matters. That's what a Stakeholder Sentiment Analysis does. And it's one of the most underused tools in the enablement toolkit. Here's the framework: Every stakeholder in your world falls into one of three sentiment categories: 🟢 Champion -- Enthusiastically advocates for your work. Influences others positively. Part of the solution. They don't just support you -- they defend you in rooms you're not in. 🟡 Neutral -- Neither champions nor detracts. Could be disengaged, undecided, or genuinely hard to read. Don't mistake silence for alignment. 🔴 Detractor -- Actively blocks progress or undermines adoption. Negative multiplier effect. Part of the problem without offering solutions. But sentiment alone isn't enough. You have to pair it with sphere of influence. A detractor with low influence is very different from a detractor with high influence. A champion with limited reach can't carry your program the way a champion with org-wide influence can. That's why the real power is in the 9-box grid. Champion + High Influence? That's your program's biggest asset. Detractor + High Influence? That's your most urgent relationship to invest in. Here's how to use it: 1️⃣ Map every key stakeholder into the grid honestly -- not aspirationally 2️⃣ Identify your highest leverage relationships (Champion + High Influence first) 3️⃣ Build a deliberate plan to move Neutrals toward Champion 4️⃣ Invest in understanding what Detractors need to feel heard -- sometimes a detractor is just someone who hasn't been brought along yet One more thing worth naming: The loudest voice in the room isn't always the most important one. A Detractor with Low Influence can feel urgent because they're vocal -- they push back in meetings, complain to peers, create noise. But noise isn't the same as risk. Before you spend political capital trying to win over a Detractor -- check their sphere of influence first. Sometimes the most strategic move is to acknowledge, document and move on. Save your energy for the relationships that actually determine whether your program lives or dies. As innate people pleasers, its important we remind ourselves: the squeaky wheel doesn't always need the grease. It just needs to know it's been heard. 🎯 What's the most surprising stakeholder shift you've ever experienced -- someone who went from detractor to champion or vice versa? Drop it below. 👇 #enablemententhusiast #salesenablement #enablement #stakeholdermanagement #influencewithoutauthority 💛

Your VP approved it. Your budget's secured. Your team's ready. Six months later, nothing's moved and you’re answering pointed questions. Here’s why that’s happening. The org chart shows formal authority but hides the informal networks that determine what gets done. Use these three questions to reveal who actually controls your project: (1): 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀? Not who makes the call, but who do they check with first? What you didn't know: Your VP approves your projects, but they always defer to their Director. (2): 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱? Not who signs off, but who decides what actually gets prioritized and resourced? What you didn't know: Leadership green-lights your initiative, but someone three levels down quietly shelves it because "the team doesn't have bandwidth right now." (3): 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀? Not who attends the meetings, but who prepares the briefings and sets the agenda? What you didn't know: Your sponsor's Chief of Staff summarizes all project updates. If they're skeptical about your approach, leadership only hears concerns, never your wins. Formal approval runs through leadership, but actual work flows through invisible networks. Good stakeholder mapping reveals both structures. The gap between formal authority and informal power is where your project lives or dies. Ask these questions before your next project kickoff. The 30 minutes you spend mapping informal power will save you months of unexplained delays.

You may think that you're managing your stakeholders. But, in reality, your stakeholders are probably managing you. Here’s the problem: Instead of leading these relationships with intent, many leaders get stuck reacting to shifting priorities, hidden agendas, and endless demands. And when stakeholder relationships are chaotic, results suffer. The best leaders don’t just deal with their stakeholders, they cultivate them. They create alignment, eliminate friction, and turn influence into a competitive advantage. Framework: The Stakeholder Mastery Playbook 1️⃣ Map the Players – Identify who is most influential to your success, and consider where they sit on the spectrum of support vs. resistance. 2️⃣ Build Trust (Before You Need It) – Your credibility isn’t built in moments of crisis. It’s built in the consistency of small, reliable actions over time. 3️⃣ Control the Narrative – Don’t wait for misalignment to creep in. Set expectations early, sync communication, and ensure your stakeholders see the bigger picture. 4️⃣ Master Escalation – Insecure leaders escalate prematurely. The best leaders escalate strategically, proposing solutions for a range of potential outcomes How This Plays Out in the Real World: A leadership team I worked with had a fractured relationship with one of their key suppliers. The situation deteriorated until the late deliveries, quality problems, and rising contract management costs made the situation untenable. Instead of becoming even more adversarial, the team mapped the key engagement points and created a strategy for influencing the critical decision makers. Within a matter of months, they had rebuilt enough trust to resolve most of the operational issues, saving millions of dollars in lost revenue and unforeseen costs. Your Move: Take 10 minutes today. List your top 5 most influential stakeholders. Who are your strongest allies? Which stakeholders pose the greatest risk to your success? Then pick one action to strengthen a critical relationship this week. The leaders who master this before they hit a crisis are the ones who accelerate their careers the fastest.

Here's a puzzle that keeps me up at night: Why do initiatives with clear benefits face so much internal pushback? Take #CMS #SDOH Data Collection Requirements: Leadership perspective: This is obviously the right thing to do. Better population health, targeted interventions, improved outcomes. IT perspective: System overhauls, tight deadlines, compliance risks. Finance perspective: Significant upfront costs, unclear reimbursement. Nursing perspective: More documentation, workflow disruptions, patient discomfort. Provider perspective: Additional training, compliance burden, workflow changes. Same initiative. Completely different realities. We often champion initiatives based on their end-state benefits while health system teams experience implementation pain. When nurses resist SDOH screening, we see "resistance to change." They see "more work, same pay." Organizations that map stakeholder impacts before announcing initiatives see dramatically smoother implementations. They build support strategies, and not just communication strategies. Before the next major initiative: 1. Map the real experience and don't just present the benefits - understand who faces immediate pain vs. long-term gain. The groups experiencing Year 1 losses need different support than those seeing eventual wins. 2. Sequence the conversations and stop giving everyone the same "population health" message. IT directors needs resource planning. Nurses need workflow solutions and support (can we remove something else if adding this on?). CFOs need ROI timelines. 3. Plan for stakeholder-specific support. IT teams need dedicated implementation resources. Clinical staff need workflow optimization, not just training. Finance teams need milestone-based ROI demonstrations. Front-line staff need to understand "what's in it for me." 4. Reframe resistance as predictable dynamics when your nurses push back on SDOH screening, it's not resistance to change - it's a predictable response to increased workload without clear benefit. Plan for it. Want to map your next initiative before resistance emerges? Try my custom version of Andrew Tsang's Healthcare Seesaw - and see exactly how your "obviously good" idea affects each stakeholder group. I've attached screenshots of #TEFCA and #SDOH. https://lnkd.in/g2yHtpA8 What "obviously good" initiative surprised you with unexpected pushback? #ChangeManagement #StakeholderStrategy #HealthcareStrategy #DigitalTransformation #healthcare #clinicalinformatics #informatics

Having the wrong stakeholders will definitely kill your project. When your main contact is too low in the organization? You watch your work get filtered through layers of hierarchy before reaching the real decision-maker. Most agencies have rigor around account management (selling new projects) and product delivery… …but not around true partnership. The solution is not complicated, but it requires structure. 💡 First, we use RACI charts to map every stakeholder's role precisely: - R (Responsible): Who handles the day-to-day decisions? - A (Approver): Who makes the final call? (usually the CEO or senior leader) - C (Considered): Who needs to be consulted? - I (Informed): Who just needs updates on outcomes? Then, we put a ton of structure around engaging these different tiers to ensure we are not wasting time. Understanding an approver's vacation schedule in March might seem trivial… but it prevents project slowdowns in July. And here is what most people miss: The agenda and note-taking are the unsung heroes of successful project management. They help us capture everything about our stakeholders' mindset and write the history of the project. Not just their project goals, but the full picture: - How are they looking at the bigger picture? - What other dynamics are happening in their business? - What decisions need to be made? - Who is accountable by when? When we document and understand these details, we can present work in the exact context they need for success. By engaging proper stakeholders at all levels directly, everything runs smoother. We use engagement mapping to make this happen: - Creative directors talk to creative directors - Marketing directors talk to project managers - Executive sponsors talk to C-level stakeholders Because if you are the CEO, you do not you need to be talking to someone with context of the project and the business. That is why we always try to present our work ourselves. So we can: - Hear the feedback directly - Address it immediately - Drive conversations forward - Ask follow up questions for context We are listening for different things than someone internally would. While big agencies might take clients to basketball games and focus on building friendships… We focus on what matters: Overdelivering every metric and keeping laser-focused on business objectives. Because true partnership is not about being friends. It is about delivering value in every single interaction.

One of the most underrated skills… Stakeholder management. Through my 20+ years in pharma and corporate healthcare, I quickly learned that clinical, commercial, and regulatory teams often play by different rulebooks. If you can’t align them, projects stall, partnerships fray, and patients wait longer for treatments. The good news? Stakeholder navigation is a skill you can build. Here’s how: ✅1. 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐛𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 Before you make a request: • Identify their top 3 objectives. • Understand the metrics they’re held accountable for. • Note any hard constraints (budget, timelines, regulations). When you know what drives them, you can design proposals that speak their language and get faster buy-in. ✅2. 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 Commercial talks in market share. Clinical thinks in endpoints. Regulatory operates in the language of compliance and guidance. If you can reframe each goal in terms others care about, you turn competing priorities into shared wins. Build the bridge, they’ll walk across to meet you in the middle. ✅3. 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 • Tension is predictable. • Speed-to-market vs. thorough review. • Innovation vs. compliance. By flagging these trade-offs early, you prevent the “us vs. them” dynamic before it starts. Stakeholder navigation is the operating system for delivering results in complex, high-stakes environments. Master it, and you don’t just lead projects — you lead people toward the same finish line.