Definition
Stakeholder lists, mapping, and personas help business analysts to analyse stakeholders and their characteristics. This analysis is essential to determine all possible that stakeholders are well understood.
The analysis thus ensures that decisions about engagement, collaboration, and communication with stakeholders represent the best choices for everyone and contribute to the success of the initiative.
Examples of stakeholders:
Client, domain expert, end-user, operational support, project manager, sponsor, tester, suppliers, regulators, etc.
Tip :
A stakeholder map is not the same as a flow chart! A stakeholder map looks at how stakeholders will be involved in the resulting solution. An organisational chart shows the people and how they fit into the common organisational structure and hierarchy.
Stakeholder analysis begins with stakeholder identification. It determines those who may be affected by an initiative or who share a common business need This involves noting, taking into account, and analysing the different characteristics of the stakeholders identified.
Common types of stakeholder characteristics.
- Level of authority in the field of change and in the organisation
- Attitude or interest in the change achieved
- Attitude towards the role and work of the Business Analyst
- Level of decision-making authority
It is essential to identify and analyse these types.
Why use stakeholder analysis?
Highlights
Identifies the specific people who need to be involved in requirements elicitation activities.
Helps business analysts to plan facilitation, communication, and collaboration activities that involve all stakeholder groups.
Facilitates understanding of changes in the affected groups over time.
Limitations
Business analysts who work with the same teams all the time are likely not to use the stakeholder management and analysis technique because they see minimal change in their respective groups.
The Business Analyst usually starts his/her stakeholder analysis by looking at the suggested scope of the solution and then analysing the impacted groups.
To carry out stakeholder analysis, business analysts use one or more techniques to establish a list of stakeholders and analyse them. The following tools can be used to carry out this work:
- List os stakeholders
- Stakeholder mapping
- RACI Matrix (Detailed in a separate article)
- User Personas
1. List of stakeholders
The stakeholder list is essential for the work of planning elicitation, collaboration, and communication activities.
It can thus become very long. As the analysis is carried out, the Business Analyst categorises and structures this list. It is essential to have a complete list to ensure that no important stakeholder or stakeholder group is overlooked, or critical requirements are missed. critical requirements.
- Objective:
- Identify, list, and comprehensively validate all stakeholders.
- Proposed activities:
- Organise stakeholder analysis workshops.
- List the departments, teams and then all the functions affected.
- Specify their role in the initiative if applicable.
- Describe their activities about the initiative.
- Has it validated by the various validators?
- Who provides the information and validates it ?
Project Manager, Programme Manager, Business & SME Leads, Organisational Change Manager (non-exhaustive, adapt to each initiative).
- Estimated time:
1 to 10 day(s) depending on the size and complexity of the initiative
- Tools to help you:
The organisation of online workshop Microsoft Teams, Klaxoon, MIRO, etc…
Stakeholder List Template:
Brainstorming and interviews are two useful techniques for generating a stakeholder list.
2. Stakeholder Mapping:
- Objective:
Stakeholder mapping is represented in the form of a diagram. It illustrates the relationship of the stakeholders with the solution and themselves. This relationship evolves over the course of the project with organisational, scope and other external changes. The stakeholder analysis is therefore iterative.
- Proposed activities:
- Review the list of stakeholders and roles made in the previous step.
- List the departments, teams and then all the functions affected.
- Specify their role in the initiative if applicable.
- Describe their activities about the initiative.
- Has it validated by the various validators?
- You can create personas to go further.
- Who validates and adjusts?
Project Manager, Programme Manager, Business & SME Leads, Organisational Change Manager (non-exhaustive, adapt to each initiative).
- Estimated time:
1 to 10 day(s) depending on the size and complexity of the initiative
- Tools to help you:
There are many forms of mapping, but the two most common are:
- Stakeholder matrix:
- Mapping stakeholders according to their level of influence on the initiative and the level of impact of the initiative on them. Each category gives rise to specific actions:
- Stakeholder matrix:
- High influence/High impact : Stakeholders play a major role in the change activity. The Business Analyst should focus on this group and involve them regularly.
- High Influence/Low Impact : These are the stakeholders whose needs must be met. The Business Analyst should involve and consult with them and do what he/she can to increase their level of interest in the change activity.
- Low influence/High impact : Stakeholders support the change activity and are potential goodwill ambassadors. The Business Analyst should engage this group for their input and show interest in their needs.
- Low Influence/Low Impact : Stakeholders can be kept informed through general communications. Further engagement may enable them to reach a quarter of the Goodwill Ambassadors, thus providing additional support for the activity.
- The onion diagram:
- Indicates the level of stakeholder involvement in the solution.
- Allows you to know if they will use the solution directly or if they are part of a process.
- Defines whether the stakeholders are internal or external to the organisation.
- The onion diagram:
3. RACI Matrix
You can find our article on the RACI Matrix!
4. Personas
A study is conducted to understand the user group. Then personas are created based on knowledge rather than opinion. Several elicitation techniques can be used to conduct this research, such as brainstorming, interviews, and surveys/questionnaires which represent common solutions.
- Objective
Personas are imaginary characters representing the different user groups of the future solution.
Their creation facilitates the development of product or service features through a thorough understanding of customer needs.
A persona therefore brings the user to life, which helps designers and solution developers to better understand the development of a product or service.
Each stakeholder group is represented by a persona.
The persona is usually characterised by the following information, chosen after a research phase on the different groups:
- First name
- Age
- Culture
- Role type
- Interests
- Barriers
- Habits
- Proposed Activities:
- Hold a brainstorming session on the characteristics of the personas.
- Create personas and present them.
- Use the persona to define the characteristics of a product or service.
- Who to brainstorm with and use personas with?
Project Manager, SMEs, Product Owner, Organisational Change Manager (non-exhaustive, adapt to each initiative).
- Estimated time :
- 1 to 4 days depending on the size and complexity of the initiative
- Tools to help you:
How to implement stakeholder analysis ?
To find out more, subscribe to the BA Toolkit.
In addition to the brief description of the method, you will have access to :
- an explanation of when and how to use it,
- a practical example,
- advice and recommendations for use,
- downloadable checklists and templates,
- references for further reading,
- …
