Use this free Stakeholder Analysis Template for Excel to manage your projects better.
Download Excel File
Use our free stakeholder analysis template for Excel to help you identify and manage the stakeholders in your project. It features all the details you need to understand and communicate better with your stakeholders.
Stakeholders have a vested interest in the project. Knowing what their expectations are is the first step towards managing them. If project stakeholders aren’t happy, then the project isn’t a success. That’s why you need a stakeholder management plan. To create one, you can use our stakeholder analysis template along with stakeholder management templates like the stakeholder map template, RACI matrix template and stakeholder communication plan template so you don’t miss anything.
Project stakeholder analysis is the process of identifying individuals who have a vested interest in a project with a stakeholder analysis matrix. The analysis then collects the key stakeholders by group, which is determined by their level of participation, interest and power or influence in the project.
Stakeholder management it’s an important part of project management because stakeholders are involved in the project and have important roles. Project stakeholders can be either internal or external. They can have conflicting interests or interests that change throughout the project, so you’ll need a stakeholder communication plan to keep them informed. Some stakeholders are more important during different phases of the project.
Part of the stakeholder analysis process is not just defining who they are, but finding out what their responsibilities are and how to communicate with them on the progress of the project. Some key stakeholders will need to be updated more frequently than others. Some want to be contacted by email, text or phone, while others ask for in-person presentations.
Our Excel stakeholder analysis template helps understand and map your strategy for dealing with project stakeholders. It begins by identifying the stakeholders, which kicks off the stakeholder mapping process. From there, you can determine how to deal with them. This starts the important stakeholder management process of winning their approval and support, which is key to any successful project.
To manage your project stakeholders you’ll need to identify them and understand their interests, power and responsibilities. Our RACI matrix template can help you define their roles and responsibilities. There can be stakeholders across your organization, from engineering to sales and marketing, so the more you have them on your side, the better for the overall project. Using a stakeholder analysis template helps ensure you’re doing that correctly.
When your stakeholder analysis process is complete, you have to start managing stakeholders. Project management software, like ProjectManager, can help set expectations and foster effective communication. ProjectManager has the stakeholder management features you need to manage your projects.
Easily share project plans and schedules with your key stakeholders, with read-only admin settings so no one can mistakenly change important dates. One-click reports keep project stakeholders updated on progress. Filter project variance, task and time reports and easily share them. By setting up automated notifications, you’re alerted by email and in-app when to meet with stakeholders.
Our stakeholder analysis template for Excel is used before the execution phase of a project, usually when the project is being prepared.
While for some projects the stakeholder analysis is done once, often it is better to revisit the process. Stakeholders’ attitudes can change throughout a project, especially a longer, more complex one, and it benefits the project manager to check in with stakeholders regularly.
However you decide to proceed, it’s important to remember that stakeholder analysis is the basis of your stakeholder management plan, which is project-long. Our stakeholder analysis template is a great aid to refer to for guidance at any time in the project.
As we said before, you should use other project management templates to go with your stakeholder analysis template for a more holistic stakeholder management overview.
The project manager is tasked with identifying and interviewing all the key stakeholders in the project.
The project manager is responsible for using the stakeholder analysis template because he is the person with whom the buck stops. Project managers are responsible for managing every part of the project, from the schedule and tasks to resources and the stakeholders.
Stakeholder analysis is the foundation of your stakeholder management plan. Our free stakeholder analysis template for Excel gets you started on the right foot. Just follow these steps:
The first part of the stakeholder analysis matrix is just detailing the project. Here’s where you’ll name the project and describe what it entails. Then, there’s a space to identify the project manager for the project.
The basic information column is where you list all the stakeholders involved with the project. You can add one per row, with their title, email and influence or power. In the influence column, we have provided a dropdown menu to distinguish whether their influence is high, medium or low, which is the degree of power they have to help or hinder the project. This will help you determine how you manage stakeholder requirements.
The next section is where you can identify your key stakeholders and their relationship to the project and fill out details such as priority, determined by their power, which is another dropdown menu to make it easier to set up.
Next is a space to identify project stakeholders that have subject matter expertise (SME) and relevant skills if there’s a need to seek help or answer questions. Next to that is a column to determine who is a decision-maker. Both of these columns have dropdown menus of yes or no.
The last set of columns in this section outlines communications. We have set up a dropdown menu for the frequency of updates, such as daily, weekly or monthly. Then there’s a column for how the project stakeholders prefer to be contacted.
The final section is the commitment level, which allows the project manager to assess each stakeholder’s commitment to various aspects of the project.
The dropdown menu here offers two selections, C or their current level of commitment and R for the required level of commitment. This helps project managers identify where the stakeholder is (and where they should be) for the project to move forward.
There is also a column for notes where you can add anything that isn’t already in the stakeholder analysis matrix. This stakeholder analysis template is an Excel document, so you can customize it to fit the nomenclature of your organization.
Once you’ve completed your stakeholder analysis template, ProjectManager can help you manage both your stakeholders and your project. ProjectManager is an award-winning project management tool that organizes tasks and teams to work more efficiently.
Project management software is a much better tool for project managers than stakeholder analysis templates. You can plan and schedule your projects, resources and costs all in one place.
Project stakeholders want to know that the project is proceeding as planned. To keep them updated, we have one-click reports. Stakeholders don’t need to get detailed reports like the ones you’d share with your team. They’re interested in broad strokes. Our reports can be filtered to show just the data they want to see and get information of time, tasks, costs and more at a glance.
Reports can be easily shared, too, so you can update them how they want. Share a PDF as an email attachment or even print out the report if your project stakeholders prefer it that way. You can also set up email reminders so you never forget to update your stakeholders.
Stakeholders will love how our tool can control every aspect of the project by monitoring performance and balancing workload to keep teams working productively.
Using a stakeholder analysis template is the cornerstone of your stakeholder management plan, but it’s only one of the dozens of free Excel project management templates available on our site. Here are some that can help you manage your stakeholders.
After you identify your stakeholders the next step is to define their roles and responsibilities. The free RACI matrix template for Excel does that by placing them on the diagram according to the RACI acronym or who is responsible, accountable, consulted or informed.
Communications are the backbone of any project and need to be defined, which includes the objectives and channels for communicating with stakeholders. The free communication plan template helps you structure your communications so that all the info goes to the right people.
If you don’t have stakeholder management software that generates status and many other reports fast and easily, you’ll want to get our free status report template. Status reports are a tool to communicate with stakeholders on the current state of the project and is an essential document.
Hopefully, these templates put your stakeholder management on the path to success.
ProjectManager is a cloud-based tool that gives you real-time data for better decision-making. Use it to plan, schedule, monitor, report and stay connected with stakeholders to deliver the project on time and within budget. Join organizations such as NASA, Bank of America and Ralph Lauren who all use our tool to manage their projects. Take our free 30-day trial today.
Deliver faster, collaborate better, innovate more effectively — without the high prices and months-long implementation and extensive training required by other products.
