The first step will be identifying the stakeholders. The larger the organization and project, the more stakeholders there may be, and the harder they may be to find. A great suggestion is starting from a responsibility assignment matrix, also known as an RACI chart, which is a project management tool to identify who should be responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed:
You can use different formats to build your RACI chart, such as a spreadsheet (probably the easiest format). On the racichart.org page, you can download their template. This is an example of how this would be filled:
You can also add the tasks in detail or adapt the idea to other formats, such as a spreadsheet, for example:
Another option suggested by the website mindtools.com is a matrix to classify the stakeholders regarding their power over the work that you are doing, and their interest in this work. In other words, it is a graphical tool used in this task is a map with two axes: power (vertical) and interest (horizontal). The purpose of this tool is to identify stakeholders to determine what strategies will be used to manage them. For example, imagine a project redesigning an e-commerce platform, who could be the stakeholders? Add the stakeholders to the map according to the parameters of the analysis that you already did, as in this diagram:
The first step is to look at the Manage Closely box and define who are the people who have high power and high interest in the project. These are the people we must manage closely and that usually involve sponsors, top management, directors, and so on. That is, people who need to be always talking, identifying resistances, and engaging, in order to keep ourselves on the same page regarding expectations and needs for the project's completion.
The second step is to look at the Keep Satisfied chart and identify who has high power and low interest. In this framework, we can include those people who will not participate so actively in the meetings, conversations, and definitions of the project, but must be engaged and satisfied with their definitions and progress, as they have the power to decide whether or not to go forward. We must take special care of them so that there are no unexpected obstacles in the future that might impact delivery.
The third step is to look at the Keep Informed chart, where people with high interest and low power will be. We include in this table the final clients, users, people who will use what is being built in their project and who have the power to influence the stakeholders of the preceding table (Manage Closely).
If something is not agreed and these people are not informed about what is being done in the project, the moment they use it they may be dissatisfied and may communicate this dissatisfication to the members of the preceding table, negatively influencing the future of the product.
Impacting this picture negatively can deconstruct all the good planning done with the Manage Closely table, which can lead to the loss of both frames at once.
The last step is to identify people with low power and low interest who will be in the Monitor box. These people may exhibit some discomfort and resistance and will need to be monitored, but they will not possibly cause a major problem to the project.
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Now that you have the stakeholders mapped, you should organize interviewing them. Keep in mind that stakeholders can reveal assumptions and knowledge gaps, technical requirements or restrictions, and tacit business/content requirements that can be essential for the project. A document by Oracle about stakeholders interviews focused on UX suggests that we should keep in mind that stakeholders are not substitutes for primary user research, but we should not rule out the importance of talking with them. These interviews will help us to frame our questions for users.
Besides previously knowing each of the stakeholders who will be interviewed, you should prepare a script to guide you. At the very least, have a list of topics to discuss and at the most, have a specific list of questions. It is important to keep in mind that you must be prepared, but it should still feel like a conversation. Consider sending questions or topics in advance. It is important to make the stakeholder more comfortable about the process and allow them to prepare a little. You can use the interview checklist suggested by Kim Goodwin, the author of designing for the Digital Age. The UXApprentice website also has prepared suggestions for questions to ask in the stakeholder interview, which you can find here: uxapprentice.com/resources/stakeholder-interview-template/.
Try to plan at least 45 minutes for each interview. A good suggestion from Ten Guidelines for Stakehol...
