Definition

A stakeholder is a formal or informal group of persons who:

• Share some identifiable interest in common
• Provide something of importance to the organization
• Expect something in return

Use

Stakeholder analysis is a tool that can be used to assist in decision-making situations where various stakeholders have competing interests, resources are limited, and stakeholder needs must be appropriately balanced.

This tool can be used for many types of decisions at all levels within an organization.

Steps

• Identify the specific stakeholder groups and sub-groups involved in the current decision. example
• Determine what they provide to the organization.
• Ascertain what the stakeholder group desires from the organization and how strong their desires are. It may be necessary to prioritize if a given stakeholder has more than one expectation.
• Prioritize stakeholders based on the importance to the organization of what they provide.
• Balance competing demands in reaching a decision.

• Those prioritized higher based on what they provide the organization get more of what they want.
• May need to consider "strength" of desires of various stakeholder groups.
• If group is needed at all, may need to give it something, even if a low priority stakeholder.

Note

The above presents a simplified view of stakeholder analysis. In practice, and depending on the organization, its culture, and the particular decision, this analysis can be considerably more complex.