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Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder management is about identifying, understanding, and engaging the people or groups that are affected by your project or have an influence on it. For example, when you design an interactive installation for a museum, your stakeholders might include the director, curators, visitors, and your project team. Each of them has different needs and expectations, and the success of your work depends on how well you align with all of them.

Why is this relevant to you? Because your projects will rarely exist in isolation. In practice, the success of your work depends not only on the technical quality but also on how well you engage with the people involved. By managing stakeholders effectively, you ensure that your solutions are meaningful, supported, and more likely to be adopted.

Starting Points

  • Map your stakeholders: list who is directly or indirectly involved in or impacted by your project.
  • Classify stakeholders: distinguish between primary (most directly affected) and secondary stakeholders.
  • Explore communication tools such as stakeholder maps, empathy maps, or RACI matrices.

Key Points

  • You clearly identify who your stakeholders are and why they matter.
  • You regularly check in with stakeholders to confirm that your project still meets their needs and expectations.
  • You balance conflicting interests by making your reasoning transparent and documenting your decisions.
  • You reflect on your own role: how do you build trust and maintain professional communication?