What is Stakeholder Analysis, and why do Business Analysts (BAs) perform it?
I. What is stakeholder analysis
Business Analysis is an essential and challenging task in project development. Stakeholder analysis is the process of identifying list stakeholder and their role in a project.
Stakeholder analysis is identifying list stakeholder joins in a project and assessing their participation, interest, and influence. From there Business Analysts plan effective engagement and communication for each stakeholder group.
Stakeholders are those individuals or groups who have a significant interest, influence, or impact on the outcome of a project or a change initiative. They may be internal or external to the organization, and they may have different perspectives, expectations, and needs.
II. Why do Business Analysts need stakeholder analysis?
Understanding the list of stakeholders is essential for a Business Analyst (BA) because stakeholders are critical to the success of any project. Here’s why it’s important:
Identify requirements clearly and exactly
Stakeholder requirements is one of four type requirements that Business Analysts must analyze. Stakeholders provide the information and insights needed to define the project requirements.
Different stakeholders have unique needs and expectations, which the BA must consider to ensure the solution meets business objectives.
Ensure Stakeholder Alignment
Projects often involve conflicting stakeholder priorities. Business Analyst helps align these by facilitating discussions and trade-offs. This help misalignment can lead to delays, rework, or failed projects.
Drive Decision-Making
Projects often involve conflicting stakeholder priorities. Business Analyst helps align these by facilitating discussions and trade-offs. If you can not identify key stakeholder, you can miss requirements and people decision making, and maybe your project can be failed.
Drive Decision-Making
Stakeholders influence key decisions, such as approving requirements, budget allocation, or implementation strategies.
Knowing the right stakeholders ensures decisions are informed and timely.
Risk management
Stakeholders often raise operational risks or challenges early on. Engaging them helps identify potential bottlenecks and ensures the BA can deliver solutions with minimal risk. If you miss stakeholder, you miss requirement and your project can be failed.
Facilitate Communication
Stakeholder analysis helps understand the roles and characteristics of stakeholders to make communication easier. And you can elicitation and analysis requirement favorable.
Enhance Project Success
Projects fail when stakeholder needs are overlooked. By involving them, the BA ensures that the solution delivers value for stakeholder.
III. How to Analysis Stakeholder
To ensure stakeholder alignment, a Business Analyst (BA) must carefully analyze stakeholders and manage their interests, expectations, and contributions. Here's a step-by-step guide to stakeholder analysis with a focus on alignment:
1. Identify Stakeholders
Action: Create a comprehensive list of stakeholders, including:
Internal stakeholders (e.g., executives, team members, project sponsors).
External stakeholders (e.g., regulators, suppliers, customers).
In below, I recommend list stakeholders you frequent work on project.
Tools: Use brainstorming by mind map tools organizational charts, or stakeholder registers.
2. Classify and Prioritize Stakeholders
Once you have fully listed all stakeholders, next step Business Analyst can use frameworks to prioritize stakeholders based on their influence and interest:
Power/Interest Grid:
High Power + High Interest: Key Players (focus efforts here).
High Power + Low Interest: Keep Satisfied.
Low Power + High Interest: Keep Informed.
Low Power + Low Interest: Monitor only.
RACI Matrix: Define who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.
3. Understand Stakeholder Needs and Expectations
This task is very important to help Business Analysts communicate with Stakeholders. You can use some techniques for elicitation requirements.
Action: Conduct interviews, surveys, or workshops to gather insights on:
Their objectives and pain points.
What success looks like for them.
Outcome: Document stakeholder requirements and expectations clearly.
4. Analyze Conflicts and Dependencies
Analyzing conflicts and dependencies among stakeholders is crucial for ensuring a project's success because these factors can significantly impact project outcomes.
Action: Identify overlapping or conflicting goals between stakeholders.
Outcome: Highlight potential areas of misalignment.
Solution: Facilitate discussions to resolve conflicts and align priorities.
If you skip this step, you will have difficulty resolving stakeholder disagreements.
5. Engage Stakeholders Proactively
Action: Develop a stakeholder engagement strategy:
Regular status meetings for key players.
Tailored communication for different stakeholder groups.
Outcome: Build trust and maintain alignment throughout the project.
IV. A list of stakeholders is usually included in the project
Generic Stakeholder BA usually works on a project, you can use the checklist stakeholder when analysis.
As a Business Analyst (BA), identifying and engaging with stakeholders is critical to the success of a project. Stakeholders are individuals or groups who have an interest in or are affected by the project, and they can influence its outcome. Below is a categorized list of common stakeholders a Business Analyst might work with:
1. Internal Stakeholders
a. Executive and Management Team
Project Sponsor: Provides funding and overall support for the project.
C-Level Executives: CEO, CFO, CTO, COO, CMO, CIO... who set strategic direction and priorities.
Department Heads/Managers: Represent their departments and ensure their needs are met (e.g., marketing, sales, finance).
b. Project Team
Product Owners/Product manager: Define product vision and priorities, especially in Agile environments.
Project Managers: Oversee the project's scope, timeline, and budget.
Developers/Technical Team: Build and implement solutions based on requirements.
Quality Assurance (QA)/Testers: Ensure the solution meets the defined requirements.
UI/UX Designers: Focus on user experience and interface design.
Data Analysts: Provide insights through data modeling or analysis.
c. End Users (Internal)
Employees who will use the system or solution (e.g., call center agents, sales teams, HR staff).
2. External Stakeholders
External Stakeholders who is not member your company and and have an impact on your project.
a. Customers/Clients
Primary Users: People who directly interact with the product or service (e.g., customers of a mobile app or software).
Decision Makers: Individuals in client organizations who approve solutions or contracts.
b. Vendors/Third-Party Partners
Technology Providers: Suppliers of tools, software, or platforms integrated into the solution.
Consultants: External advisors providing domain expertise.
Service Providers: Companies offering maintenance, hosting, or outsourced services.
c. Regulators and Compliance Authorities
Government Agencies: Set legal and regulatory requirements.
Auditors: Ensure compliance with standards like GDPR, SOX, or PCI-DSS, ISO…
3. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
Professionals with specialized knowledge about specific processes, domains, or technologies. Examples:
Finance SME: For accounting and budgeting systems.
Legal SME: For contract management and compliance.
Industry Specialists: Provide market insights or technical knowledge.
Banking SME
Fintech SME
These people help you more domain knowledge when you analysis requirement and suggest solution.
4. Sponsors and Investors
Stakeholders Providing Funding: Such as venture capitalists, investors, or internal finance teams with a vested interest in project ROI.
5. Support and Operations Teams
Customer Support Teams: Represent customer feedback and challenges.
Operations/IT Support: Ensure system uptime and manage infrastructure.
There are many other stakeholders that may appear depending on the complexity of your project. But i think this checklist stakeholders above can help you when analysis requirement.
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