Create a Stakeholder Map

A stakeholder map is a network diagram showing all the people involved with or affected by the proposed software system. Stakeholder maps are ideal for visualizing relationships and interactions among people. They also give you a snapshot of what motivates different stakeholders. Use stakeholder maps to decide who the most important people are to talk to about their concerns.

Every time I create a stakeholder map, I’m surprised to see how many people I might touch with the software I build. There’s a partial stakeholder map for Project Lionheart.

There are several stakeholders not shown on this diagram for the sake of simplicity. Additional stakeholders include IT vendors we might have to collaborate with, the Chamber of Commerce (or other lobbying organizations), the deputy mayor, and various community groups who receive services from the city. The city departments stakeholder can be made more precise by dividing it into the board of education, parks and recreation, public works, sanitation, and so on. If these groups have a similar stake in the system, then they could be lumped together as shown. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to be as specific as possible.

Step back and look at the stakeholder map after you’ve created it. Who is paying for the software? Who is using it? Are there network hubs with many incoming or outgoing arrows? Are there stakeholders with potential conflicts of interest? These people are all excellent candidates for interviews and further research.

When I look at the Project Lionheart stakeholder map, I see a few interesting areas that we should investigate further.

1. Mayor van Damme hired us and we report to him, but the Office of Management and Budget receives policy direction from both the mayor and city council.
2. Our software will affect many city departments, but we won’t be able to talk to all of them. We should identify a few representative stakeholders and carefully validate our findings with the larger group.
3. Some local businesses rely on lawyers to navigate the Request for Proposal process. Different interaction patterns for the potential software might exist, which could influence the architecture.
4. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sits at the center of several key user interactions, but they aren’t paying the bills. We should talk to the OMB directly. It’s possible that the mayor and city council have budgeted for a system that does not solve the OMB’s real problems.

You can build a stakeholder map by yourself, but it’s more fun to create them in groups. The steps for this activity are outlined in Activity 10, ​Stakeholder Map​.

Get Your Hands Dirty: Create a Stakeholder Map

Pick an open source project you use or contribute to and create a stakeholder map for it. Take a picture of it and share it on this book’s forum.^[4] Here are some things to think about:

• Is there an organization that oversees or funds the project? Are there subgroups within the organization who might have different vested interests?

• Who are the biggest contributors to the project?

• How is the project licensed? Who benefits from the choice of license?

• Who uses the project? What problems are they trying to solve?