Where the stakeholder map came from
The word "stakeholder" entered strategy through R. Edward Freeman's 1984 book Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. He defined a stakeholder as "any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization's objectives"1. That definition is wide on purpose. It covers the people who can stop you and the people who will live with the result.
The grid is often credited to "Mendelow, 1991" as a power/interest matrix. Both parts are off. A. L. Mendelow's paper was given at the International Conference on Information Systems in 1981, and it paired a stakeholder's power with the dynamism of the environment: how fast and how unpredictably things change around them2. His question was how closely to watch each group, not how much each one cares.
The power/interest grid most people use today, with its four groups, is set out in Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann's 1998 book Making Strategy3. Their labels are worth knowing: players (high power, high interest), subjects (high interest, little power), context setters (high power, little interest) and the crowd (neither)3. The tool above uses the more common action labels: manage closely, keep informed, keep satisfied, monitor.
How to make a stakeholder map worth using
Treat it as a guess to test. Where you place someone is your belief about them, not a fact. Mark each placement with what it rests on: something they said, a budget they control, a vote they hold. Then check the shakiest ones by asking. A five-minute conversation often moves someone a whole box.
Name people, not job titles. "Department managers" hides the one manager whose team loses the most in the change. Split any group whose members would react differently.
Write down what each one wants. Power and interest say how much attention someone needs. They do not say what to talk about. Add one line per person: what they gain, what they fear, and what would change their mind.
Look for links between them. Stakeholders talk to each other. A low-power group can move a high-power one, as when staff complaints reach a board member. Ackermann and Eden argue that managing stakeholders means managing these links as well as the people4. Draw an arrow where one person influences another.
A thin map and a stronger one
This takes the HR system example shown above and rewrites two boxes. The company, the people and the facts are invented for illustration.
| Thin | Stronger | |
|---|---|---|
| Manage closely | Executive sponsor | COO (sponsor): wants payroll errors cut before the audit in May; will pull support if go-live slips past April |
| Keep informed | Department managers | Warehouse shift leads (6): lose paper timesheets, which they use to swap shifts; they brief 200 staff and the plant director listens to them |
The right column tells you what to say, by when, and why the warehouse leads may matter more than their box suggests.
People move, so re-map
A map is a picture of one day. Ronald Mitchell, Bradley Agle and Donna Wood, writing in the Academy of Management Review in 1997, argued that how much a stakeholder counts depends on three things, power, legitimacy and urgency, and that each one can be gained or lost5. A quiet group becomes urgent the week a decision lands on them. A powerful supporter changes jobs.
- Re-map at each milestone, such as a budget approval, a pilot or a launch, and whenever someone new joins or leaves.
- Watch for movers. The riskiest person is often someone moving from "monitor" toward "manage closely" without anyone noticing.
- Keep the old versions. Comparing this month's map with last quarter's shows who you won over and who you lost.
Turning the map into a communication plan
A map that sits in a folder changes nothing. John Bryson's 2004 review in Public Management Review treats stakeholder analysis, including the power versus interest grid, as a way to build enough support to adopt and carry out a plan, and to shape proposals people can accept6. The simplest way to do that is a plan with one row per person or group.
| Box | What they get | How often | From whom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manage closely | A say in decisions before they are final | Every week or two, in person | The project lead |
| Keep satisfied | A short summary, plus early word of anything that touches their area | Monthly, or at each milestone | The sponsor |
| Keep informed | What is changing for them, when, and where to raise concerns | Every two weeks | Their own manager |
| Monitor | General updates | At launch and major changes | A shared channel |
Add an owner and a date to each row, and a line for what you need back from them. For the weekly notes, the weekly update generator drafts a summary that leads with what changed. To settle who decides and who is only consulted, use a RACI matrix.
What a stakeholder map does not tell you
- Whether someone supports you. A high-power, high-interest person can be your champion or your biggest blocker. Mark each one for or against, since the grid does not.
- Who you missed. The map only holds the names you thought of. Ask each stakeholder, "Who else should I talk to?"
- Whether the plan is right. Winning people over to a weak plan is still a weak plan. The map helps you carry a decision, not make it.
When the stakeholders are the leadership team itself, the gaps are usually about priorities rather than messages. See leadership team alignment for that problem, and post-merger integration for the case where the whole cast changes at once.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a stakeholder map?
- A stakeholder map plots the people and groups affected by a project onto a power/interest grid, so you know how much attention each one needs and how to engage them.
- Why map stakeholders?
- Projects fail on politics as often as on execution. Mapping stakeholders helps you spend engagement effort where it matters and avoid being blindsided by someone powerful you ignored.
- Who created the power/interest grid?
- It is usually credited to "Mendelow, 1991," but A. L. Mendelow's paper was given in 1981 and paired a stakeholder's power with the dynamism of their environment, not their interest2. The power/interest grid most people use, with its four groups of players, subjects, context setters and crowd, is set out in Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann's 1998 book Making Strategy3. The idea of a stakeholder in strategy comes from R. Edward Freeman's 1984 book1.
- What are the four quadrants of a stakeholder map?
- High power and high interest: manage closely. High power and low interest: keep satisfied. Low power and high interest: keep informed. Low power and low interest: monitor. Eden and Ackermann call the same four groups players, context setters, subjects and the crowd3. The grid tells you how much attention each one needs, not whether they support you, so mark each person for or against as well.
- How often should you update a stakeholder map?
- At each milestone, such as a budget approval, a pilot or a launch, and whenever someone joins or leaves. Mitchell, Agle and Wood argued in 1997 that a stakeholder's power, legitimacy and urgency can each be gained or lost, so how much they count changes over time5. Keep old versions so you can see who moved.
- How do you turn a stakeholder map into a communication plan?
- Give each person or group one row: what they get from you, how often, from whom, and what you need back from them. Players get a say before decisions are final; the crowd gets general updates. John Bryson's 2004 review treats stakeholder analysis as a way to build enough support to adopt and carry out a plan6. Add an owner and a date to every row.
Sources
- R. Edward Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, Pitman, 1984; reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. doi.org
- A. L. Mendelow, "Environmental Scanning: The Impact of the Stakeholder Concept," Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), 1981. aisel.aisnet.org
- Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann, Making Strategy: The Journey of Strategic Management, SAGE, 1998, chapter "Stakeholder Analysis and Management." doi.org
- Fran Ackermann and Colin Eden, "Strategic Management of Stakeholders: Theory and Practice," Long Range Planning 44(3), 2011, pp. 179 to 196. doi.org
- Ronald K. Mitchell, Bradley R. Agle and Donna J. Wood, "Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of Who and What Really Counts," Academy of Management Review 22(4), 1997, pp. 853 to 886. doi.org
- John M. Bryson, "What to do when Stakeholders matter," Public Management Review 6(1), 2004, pp. 21 to 53. doi.org
Written by Tom Olajide, Founder. Last reviewed September 24, 2026.