Stakeholder mapping: the power–interest grid

Sort the people around a project by how much sway they hold and how much they care — then spend your attention where it counts.

The idea

Not everyone around a project needs the same amount of your time. Two questions sort them fast: how much power do they have to help or block you, and how much interest do they have in the outcome? Cross those and you get four groups, each with its own way to engage. The catch: the grid only maps people you already see — the quietest, most affected group often never makes it onto the board, and neglect there turns into opposition later.

Interactive · map the stakeholders

Pick up a stakeholder (click or drag), then drop it into a quadrant. Click a placed chip to move it again.

interest → higher

power → higher

low interesthigh interest

Start by placing the CFO. Where does someone who controls the budget and follows every detail belong?

Run the timeline: what happens to the group you neglect

Watch the frontline employees over eight weeks. Their fate depends on where you placed them.

Week

Engagement path

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Opposition

How it works

Rate each stakeholder on two axes, then read off the quadrant. The strategy — and how often you reach out — follows from the box, not from how loud the person is.

Quadrant	Power / interest	Strategy &
Manage closely	High / high	Your core partners. Involve them in decisions; two-way contact, roughly weekly.
Keep satisfied	High / low	Enough to stay onside without becoming noise. Short summaries at milestones.
Keep informed	Low / high	Give them a clear channel and regular updates. This is where quiet opposition is prevented.
Monitor	Low / low	Minimum effort. Watch in case their stake grows and they move up the grid.

Placement is a judgement, not a fact, and it moves. A regulator sits in keep satisfied until an incident spikes their interest — then they jump to manage closely overnight. Re-map at each phase.

When to use it

Kicking off a project or change — before you write the comms plan, so effort is aimed, not sprayed.
When you’re outnumbered — many stakeholders, limited time; the grid tells you what to drop.
When something’s stuck — a re-map often reveals a high-power person you’ve been under-serving.
The trade-off: it’s a snapshot of visible players. It says nothing about who’s absent, and it flattens people into a box — pair it with a “who’s missing?” pass and revisit it as the project moves.

Watch out for

Confusing loud with powerful. The person emailing hourly may have little real authority; the quiet exec who signs off has all of it. Rate power by their ability to help or block, not by volume.
Ignoring the keep-informed box. Low-power, high-interest groups can’t stop you today — so plans skip them. Left uninformed, they organize, and then they can.
Treating placement as permanent. Interest spikes with events. A dormant stakeholder can become your most active one after a single bad headline.
Mapping only who’s in the room. Contractors, disabled users, night-shift and regional staff are affected but unrepresented. If they’re not on your grid, ask why.
Over-managing the top box. Flooding “keep satisfied” high-power people with detail annoys them and burns your credibility. Match the cadence to their interest.

Worked example

You’re asked, “How would you roll out a new expense tool across the company?” Start by mapping: the CFO controls the budget and follows the detail — manage closely, weekly. The CEO and IT security lead can make or break go-live but only engage at gates — keep satisfied with milestone summaries. The finance ops team and every frontline employee who files an expense are low-power but high-interest — keep informed with a clear channel and a short weekly note. Then the tell that lands the answer: “The group I’d guard against neglecting is the frontline staff. They can’t block the launch on day one, so plans forget them — but ignore them for six weeks and confusion becomes a petition. A one-hour weekly update is far cheaper than a paused launch.” Naming the invisible risk is what separates a mid answer from a senior one.

Check yourself

1. A regulator can shut your project down, but only reads your quarterly summary. Which quadrant?

2. The warehouse night crew will use the tool daily but has no seat in planning. Where do they belong?

Map the visible players, then ask who’s missing. Both steps matter.