But first, I will raise a point that is always controversial: everything is politics.

“A wise prince should follow similar methods and never remain idle in peaceful times, but industriously make good use of them.”

The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli

Politics have always existed, exist today, and will continue to exist everywhere — and companies are no different. Dealing with politics and building relationships with different areas is crucial, and perhaps one of the most important factors for the success of any initiative, regardless of its size. That said, I will start by talking about how to identify the stakeholders involved, whether directly or indirectly, in our project, program, or product.

Identifying the stakeholders

In this part of the process, our goal is to identify all stakeholders and groups involved — or at least the most important ones. The idea is to research the people or groups that can positively or negatively impact our project, program, or product. Below, I list the groups and people that, in general, tend to have the greatest impact on an initiative.

• Sponsor
• Steering Committee
• PMO
• Project Manager
• Technical team
• Financial area
• Customers
• Potential customers
• Suppliers
• Regulatory entities

Having a clear view of these groups is a good starting point to understand the impact that each one can have on our initiative, as well as the impact that the initiative will have on them. Remember: impact is always a two-way street. It goes from the initiative to the stakeholders and from the stakeholders back to the initiative.

After this initial identification, we can move on to the analysis:

Stakeholder analysis

Stakeholder analysis consists of classifying each group or person according to their requirements, expectations, influence, and possible impact on the initiative. This validation and classification can be done through interviews, surveys, historical data, market references, or internal company information. I also wrote an article about market analysis, which can be useful in the stakeholder context: “How to create a market analysis and avoid surprises in your product launch.”

Based on the information collected through these processes, we can classify our stakeholders and define their priorities, considering their influence on the initiative, whether positive or negative. Here, I will explain a little more about the stakeholder matrix, also known as the Mendelow matrix:

Stakeholder matrix

In this matrix, we use the x-axis to represent interest and the y-axis to represent power. This creates four different quadrants:

• 1st quadrant: low interest, high power
• 2nd quadrant: high interest, high power
• 3rd quadrant: low interest, low power
• 4th quadrant: high interest, low power

By placing our stakeholders in each quadrant, we gain a clearer understanding of their interest in the initiative and can already start thinking about how to maintain their engagement. For example:

Communication plan

Once we have our analysis, we return to our initial list. The purpose now is to add more information about each stakeholder, such as their position in the company, level of influence, power, support, resistance, and expected involvement. The image below shows a more complete version of our stakeholder list.

From this list, it is worth thinking about three important questions:

• How will I inform them about what is happening?
• How will I convince them, if necessary?
• How will I keep them engaged?

How will I inform what is happening?

The first question is relatively simple: we need to choose the channels through which we will inform each quadrant of the stakeholder matrix, decide what information will be shared, and define why that information matters. Too little information can reduce engagement. Too much information can create confusion or make the message harder to understand. A simple structure I use is:

• Executives: progress percentage, milestones achieved, and the most relevant risks based on probability and impact
• Managers: progress percentage, milestones achieved, impacts of the initiative on other areas of the company, and all relevant risks involved
• Technical teams: next activities, roadmap direction, negotiations with executives, and possible changes
• Customers and potential customers: milestones delivered and new functionalities created
• Suppliers: progress percentage and estimates of when their work will be needed

This is exactly where project data becomes extremely valuable. If you have reliable information about schedule, cost, risks, team performance, and delivery progress, your communication with stakeholders becomes more objective and less dependent on opinion. A platform like Saint Jude can help create this visibility by turning board data into reports, risks, cost indicators, schedule indicators, and delivery insights that can support conversations with sponsors, PMOs, managers, and technical teams.

Here, I will leave a piece of the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, which illustrates well my perspective regarding the information available:

“All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.”

1 Corinthians 6:12

And what is the reason for all this effort? To clearly understand who can help, who can get in the way, and who is simply impacted by the development of our initiative. Finally, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, everything is politics.

“He who strives to resolve difficulties resolves them before they arise. He who overcomes his enemies, triumphs before his threats are realized.”

Sun Tzu – The Art of War

Regarding the next points — how will I convince them, if necessary, and how will I keep them engaged — I will go deeper into perception and politics.

How to earn power and be terribly convincing

As mentioned before, I will now talk a little more about perception, politics, and, by politics, I mean how people behave and make decisions in their day-to-day work. Here, I will use Maslow’s pyramid as a starting point, connecting stakeholders’ actions to their expectations, fears, ambitions, and motivations.

Beyond the pyramid, which I use frequently, I will add here a simplified explanation of how I deal with each of its points:

Physiological and safety

We are at the base of the pyramid, which means survival. Here, we find the stakeholders who may be impacted in their jobs, their teams, or the scope of their work. The effort here is to put out the fire, explain the positive impact on the company, and help them reposition themselves. Sometimes, creating another project that relocates their activities and keeps them employed can be a good starting point for engagement.

“Men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.”

The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli

Self-esteem and self-actualization

At this point, we find the stakeholders who will gain something from the initiative. Here, I enter a very delicate matter in the art of persuasion: whether the initiative will positively impact them financially or improve the respect they receive from others. In the future, this respect may also translate into financial gains. And when I say money, I mean salaries, bonuses, promotions, profit sharing, and career opportunities.

“For whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition.”

The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli

Finally, I will briefly touch on risk management and problem-solving. My understanding is that every human interaction is subject to risks. To map and manage these risks, I usually use the following tools:

• Cause and effect diagram
• The 5 whys

However, I will leave this subject for another article: “How to find the problems that are delaying my project.”

Here again, Saint Jude can support the discussion by helping leaders identify risks earlier, especially when delays, cost overruns, poor task clarity, team inefficiency, or sprint deviations start appearing in the data. Instead of discovering the problem only when the stakeholder is already angry, the leader can use evidence to start the conversation earlier and propose mitigation actions.

I arrive at the end of this article. Here, you learned how I use tools to identify, analyze, and plan stakeholder engagement. I also shared some ideas on how to earn more influence, improve communication, and support better decision-making.

Do you want to continue this conversation? Do you agree with my methods and tools? Like the article, comment on LinkedIn, or share it on your social media.

See you soon!

Erik Scaranello