Creating a Stakeholder Engagement Plan

The Tool: The Stakeholder Engagement Matrix

The Purpose: To organize and communicate stakeholder responsibilities for your learning project

Use Case: Building this chart as part of your scoping process helps you plan your communication strategy and identify the approvals needed for final deliverables.

Instructions

1. Open this template, a modified Stakeholder Engagement Assessment from the Project Management Institute 

2. Start by identifying your stakeholders.

   • Who is asking for this project? What is their role in the project? In the organization?

3. Next, estimate each person’s level of engagement in the project, and outline a plan to address your stakeholders. Ask:

   • Is anyone resistant to this project? How can I improve their buy-in?

   • Who is ultimately responsible for reviewing the learning deliverables? What will their approval process look like?

   • What is your communication strategy with these stakeholders? How often and through which channels will you provide updates?

   • If you can’t answer these questions, you need more information. 

4. Consider the outcome of this matrix as you write up your Instructional Design Project Brief 

Pros

Mapping your stakeholders helps you identify critical approvals and the people who need to fully support the project for you to achieve the desired outcomes.

Cons

Anyone who has ever worked with stakeholders knows that their level of engagement on paper can be very different from what you experience in reality. Learning projects gain and lose stakeholder support as organizational priorities shift, and the level of communication you prepared for in your project brief may differ significantly from what happens during actual project execution. Prepare to update your plan accordingly.

Takeaways

As L&D professionals, we are often expected to manage our stakeholders without being given the official authority to do so. This is where our people management skills and ability to lead through influence can really shine, allowing us to deliver the best outcomes for our learners.