Stakeholder Analysis

What is it?

A stakeholder analysis is a technique you can use to identify and assess the importance of key people, groups of people, or institutions that may significantly influence the success of your activity or project. You can use this technique alone or with your team members.

Who uses it?
Members of your quality improvement team.

Why use it?
Use a stakeholder analysis to:

• identify people, groups, and institutions that will influence your initiative (either positively or negatively)
• anticipate the kind of influence, positive or negative, these groups will have on your initiative
• develop strategies to get the most effective support possible for your initiative and reduce any obstacles to successful implementation of your program.

When to use it?

Conduct a stakeholder analysis in the early stages of planning a quality improvement initiative.
How to use it:

Develop a Stakeholder Analysis Matrix like the one below:

1. Organize group brainstorming. Identify all the people, groups, and institutions that will affect or be affected by your initiative and list them in the column under "Stakeholder."

2. Once you have a list of all potential stakeholders, review the list and identify the specific interests these stakeholders have in your project. Consider issues like: the project's benefit(s) to the stakeholder; the changes that the project might require the stakeholder to make; and the project activities that might cause damage or conflict for the stakeholder. Record these under the column "Stakeholder Interest(s) in the Project."

3. Now review each stakeholder listed in column one. Ask the question: how important are the stakeholder's interests to the success of the proposed project? Consider:

• The role the key stakeholder must play for the project to be successful, and the likelihood that the stakeholder will play this role
• The likelihood and impact of a stakeholder's negative response to the project

4. Assign A for extremely important, B for fairly important, and C for not very important. Record these letters in the column entitled "Assessment of Impact."

5. The final step is to consider the kinds of things that you could do to get stakeholder support and reduce opposition. Consider how you might approach each of the stakeholders. What kind of information will they need? How important is it to involve the stakeholder in the planning process? Are there other groups or individuals that might influence the stakeholder to support your initiative? Record your strategies for obtaining support or reducing obstacles to your project in the last column in the matrix.