Project Management: Foundations to Practice · Stakeholder Identification and Engagement
Stakeholder Mapping
Not every stakeholder deserves the same attention. The power-interest grid gives a simple, decades-old tool for allocating engagement effort where it actually matters.
Once stakeholders are identified, they need to be prioritized, since not every stakeholder requires the same level of attention. The power-interest grid, commonly attributed to management researcher Aubrey Mendelow's 1991 work on stakeholder mapping, plots stakeholders along two axes: how much power or influence they hold over the project, and how much interest they have in its outcome [14].
Key Takeaways
- The power-interest grid, from Mendelow's 1991 work, plots stakeholders by their power over and interest in the project outcome.
- High power/high interest stakeholders need close management; high power/low interest need to be kept satisfied to avoid surprises.
- This mapping prevents both wasteful over-communication and dangerous under-communication with the wrong stakeholders.
- A stakeholder's position on the grid shifts over time, especially around milestones and scope changes, and should be revisited.