Use case
Stakeholder map
A stakeholder map shows the people and organisations with a stake in a decision and how they are connected. The usual power-interest grid rates each stakeholder alone; a network map adds who influences whom, which is how a quiet stakeholder with the right tie ends up deciding the outcome.
Updated · Netgraf
Why map stakeholders as a network
The grid tells you whom to manage. The network tells you how to reach them: who has the decision maker's ear, which allies are already talking to each other, and which opponent sits between two groups you need. Betweenness finds those brokers; communities find the coalitions.
How to build one
- Put the decision or project at the centre as an organisation, then add the decision makers tied to it.
- Add every stakeholder with their role as the subtitle ("Head of Procurement", "Local residents' group").
- Draw ties that carry influence, and pick a kind: business for formal lines, social for informal ones, conflict for opposition.
- Mark direction where influence runs one way, such as "reports to" or "funds".
- Add a confidence level to ties you have heard about but not seen: confirmed, reported or rumored.
- Open Insights and size the map by Holding it together to see the brokers.
Record the date on ties that change, such as a board seat or a contract, and the timeline will replay how the coalition formed. Use the tour to walk a colleague through the map in the order that makes the argument.