What are stakeholders and why are they important in UX | by Luísa Quinn | Nov, 2022

What, or more precisely, who are the often-mentioned Stakeholders? And why are they important in UX projects?

If you work in business, design, or marketing, you’ve probably heard this term: Stakeholders.

What exactly does the term mean?

In fact, Stakeholder is a term coined by the American philosopher Robert Edward Freeman in the 1980s.

Freeman created the interest group theory, which states that a company must take into account the interests of any individual or organization that has an impact on its actions.

Stakeholders (do not confuse them with steakholders) are usually defined as the interested parties in a project, organization, negotiation, etc.

Stakeholders can be inside or outside your organization and can include customers, employees, suppliers, investors, and the community in which you operate.

In today’s interpretation, an interested party is anyone who can influence or be affected by the activities of a company.

At the same time, and in short, a Stakeholder is any person or organization that has some connection with the product, service, project, or company.

A young guy who goes by the nickname ZacSweers and apparently also shares my sixth-grade humor has taken the pun to the next level and developed an extension for Google Chrome called “steakholder”.

What does it do?
It swaps the appearance of the word ‘stakeholder’ for ‘steak holder’ every time someone searches on Google.

The developer describes his inspiration for the tremendous invention on GitHub.

“Every time I see someone refer to “stakeholders”, I think I’ll take them more seriously if it’s about steak.”

Link to GitHub
Chrome extension that swaps stakeholder instances with steak containers.

Before you start planning, it is important to identify your stakeholders.

By identifying them and understanding their impact on your organization or project, you can focus your resources on the groups that matter most and how to build relationships with them.

Some stakeholders are internal, such as your team leader or other people involved in the project. Other stakeholders are external, such as end customers or suppliers who provide services for your project.

This method is used to assess the power (positive or negative) of stakeholders (influence/power) and measure the propensity for your project (interest).

Some of the stakeholders will have more influence on the project/business than others, and different strategies are needed to manage communication with them.

There are several common ways to map stakeholders, including the stakeholder power matrix and the interest group map, which will be referred to below.

The power and interest matrix is ​​one of the most widely used stakeholder classification methods. Mendelow, who came up with the older version, is often cited as the creator of this instrument.

Stakeholders should fall into one of the following four quadrants:

The Power and Interest matrix is ​​a method of classifying Stakeholders and is attributed to Aubrey L. Mendelow.

Following the framework, each stakeholder group will require a different stakeholder management strategy.

Interpret the results

Keep satisfied: The stakeholders that fall in the upper right quadrant are the most important, because they are directly connected to the project, and have high interest and power in it.

Keep close: Stakeholders found in the upper left quadrant are called latent. They may not be interested in your project now, but they can have a strong impact on it in the future.

Keep informed: Stakeholders who are interested in your project but have little power over it need to be informed and included. They should be invited to do research, copied in emails, and invited to create reviews.

Monitor: Stakeholders in the lower left quadrant will not be a valuable source of input or assistance in your work. But it is important to monitor them, as they may move to other quadrants as the project develops.

After performing the Stakeholder Analysis, the next step is to outline your communication strategy according to your work scenario, position, and moment of the project’s life cycle.

Below you will see a link to a template of a table like the one in the image below, which can be used as a guide to planning your relationship with each identified Stakeholder.

In the image, we can see in the first column the name of the Stakeholder, if the power according to the Matrix is ​​high or low, in the third column the same happens with the Interest. In the fourth column, there is the field “Current Attitude” marked as Neutral to identify that the relationship between both parties is neutral.

In the fifth column, the Desired attitude, we see the word “Positive”, marked, that is, the person who made the table planned his strategy in such a way that his relationship with Jane Smith, whose power is high and interest still layer within his project (it’s in the “Stay Updated” field of the Matrix), changes from Neutral to Positive.

Keep this in mind

The power and interest that stakeholders have in your project can change throughout the product/project/business life cycle.

Changes in leadership can result in dramatic shifts in perspective and interest in UX initiatives, causing stakeholders to move from one end of the grid to the other.
Therefore, stakeholder mapping is not a one-time activity.

Return to stakeholder maps regularly and update your strategies as the landscape changes.
You can use the NN Group’s Stakeholder Mapping Template to work out your strategies.

Also, read the NN Group’s Stakeholder Analysis for UX Projects article to deepen your knowledge.

Another interesting tool to help in the project management process, or to keep in mind if you want to study and better understand the topic, is the Stakeholder Map.

It provides a visual image of people and organizations with an interest in our project. This allows us to see who has the most influence over a decision, and how each stakeholder is connected to others.

In the image below you can see an example of a Stakeholder Map (Very simple and without connections), or stakeholders, usually found in a business or project scenario where there is a UX Design process.

It is important to remember that not all of these characters will always be part of the Stakeholder group of the project you are inserted into, since, depending on the size of the company, the workflow, and hierarchical organization, many of these positions can be. centralized in the same individual, team, or organization, and, depending on your position, you will not have direct access to certain groups of stakeholders.

Despite the fact that you do not maintain direct communication with some parties, it is important to know that they are part of the process so that you see your role within the entire production flow and understand your function, it helps you to better understand the scenario understand, make better decisions and also perform your role better.

Finally, you understood who the traditional stakeholders are, why they are important in the UX barbecue, and how to classify, map, and strategize to communicate with these interested interesting parties.

References

Nielsen Norman Group: Stakeholder Analysis for UX Projects
GitHub: https://github.com/ZacSweers/steakholder
Professor Eliseu Machado in an article by UFSC: https://mees.paginas.ufsc.br/files/2012/06/Teoria_do_Stakeholder_Prof_Eliseu_Machado_25_05_2012.pdf
Concept Draw: https://www.conceptdraw.com/