Stakeholder analysis classifies the people around a project by how much power and how much interest each has. Done once at the start it is decoration; kept current it decides who you talk to and how often.
Stakeholder analysis is the step where you work out who is affected by a piece of work, how much influence each of them has over whether it succeeds, and how much they care. The output is not a diagram — it is a communication plan, and if it does not change who you speak to next week, you have drawn a picture rather than done an analysis.
It is worth distinguishing from a stakeholder register, which is the list itself: names, roles, contact details, interest. The register records who they are. The analysis judges what each of them can do to you, and that judgement is what determines your effort.
The common form is a two-by-two grid — power on one axis, interest on the other, sometimes called the Mendelow matrix. Four quadrants, four different treatments.
Power is not the same as seniority, which is where most first attempts go wrong. The person who administers the system you are replacing may have no title and complete practical veto: they know the exceptions nobody documented, and if they decline to help the project slows to nothing.
The grid is a starting point and it flattens some things worth keeping. Two additions repay the effort. One is attitude: supportive, neutral or opposed, which is orthogonal to power and interest — a high-power supporter and a high-power opponent both sit in the same box and need entirely different handling. The other is relationships between stakeholders: who listens to whom. Influence often travels sideways, and the fastest route to a sceptical executive is frequently a peer rather than a report.
That is also the honest limit of any stakeholder map. It records a judgement about people, made by one person, at one moment. Treat it as a working hypothesis rather than an assessment, keep it out of general circulation, and rewrite it when someone surprises you.
Almost every stakeholder analysis is done once, during initiation, and never touched again. This is the single reason the technique has a reputation for being busywork. Stakeholders change as work progresses: the finance director who was indifferent during design becomes highly interested the moment the invoice arrives, and the team lead who was engaged loses interest once their part ships.
Reviewing it at each phase boundary takes ten minutes and is the difference between a live tool and a document in the project folder.
Ettex Board works for this because the output is actions rather than a document: each high-power relationship becomes a recurring card with an owner, so keep closely informed turns into a scheduled conversation on the same board as the rest of the work. The classification itself can live on the card.
There is no stakeholder matrix view and no automatic diagram — the grid is something you draw or describe in a card, not a feature. Given how sensitive the underlying judgements are, that suits most teams better than a chart anyone can open.
Identifying everyone affected by a piece of work and classifying them by influence over the outcome and interest in it, in order to decide how much communication each needs.
The register lists who they are. The analysis judges what each can do to the work, and sets the treatment accordingly.
A two-by-two matrix, also called the Mendelow matrix, giving four treatments: manage closely, keep satisfied, keep informed, monitor.
No. Power is the practical ability to stop or delay the work, which often sits with people who have no formal authority over it.
At every phase boundary. Interest shifts as the work reaches different parts of the organisation.
Generally no. It contains judgements about individuals and is best kept to the people who act on it.
Rate power by who can actually stop the work, add attitude to the grid, and rewrite the whole thing at each phase boundary. If it does not change your calendar, it was not an analysis.
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