ABSTRACT
Stakeholders are anyone with a stake or interest in a person's change. The most obvious stakeholders are those affected by the change - end users or customers. Once stakeholders are identified, the person needs to understand how important they are in relation to the change. Mapping stakeholders onto an interest/influence matrix will help to understand how much power each individual or group holds and how much interest they have in the change. Top right quadrant: this is where the most powerful stakeholders should be sitting. Top left quadrant: Stakeholders who sit here can be dangerous because of the influence they command within the organisation. Bottom right quadrant: their low influence means that they have very little power to help or hinder the change, but their high interest means that they can be very time consuming to deal with. Bottom left quadrant: There is very little to do with these stakeholders unless one has enough resource to engage with them.
