Guideline: Stakeholder Management

Introduction

Stakeholder Management is an important discipline that successful architecture practitioners can use to win support from others. It helps them ensure that their projects succeed where others fail.

The benefits of successful Stakeholder Management are that:

The most powerful stakeholders can be identified early and their input can then be used to shape the architecture; this ensures their support and improves the quality of the models produced.
Support from the more powerful stakeholders will help the engagement win more resource, thus making the architecture engagement more likely to succeed.
By communicating with stakeholders early and frequently, the architecture team can ensure that they fully understand the architecture process, and the benefits of enterprise architecture; this means they can support the architecture team more actively when necessary.
The architecture engagement team can more effectively anticipate likely reactions to the architecture models and reports, and can build into the plan the actions that will be needed to capitalize on positive reaction whilst avoiding or addressing any negative reactions.

It is essential in any initiative to identify the individuals and groups within the organization who will contribute to the development of the architecture, identify those that will gain and those that will lose from its introduction, and then develop a strategy for dealing with them.

Approach to Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder analysis should be used during Phase A (Architecture Vision) to identify the key players in the engagement, and also be updated throughout each phase; different stakeholders may be uncovered as the engagement progresses through into Opportunities & Solutions, Migration Planning, and Architecture Change Management.

Complex architectures are extremely hard to manage, not only in terms of the architecture development process itself, but also in terms of obtaining agreement from the large numbers of stakeholders touched by it.

For example, just as a building architect will create wiring diagrams, floor plans, and elevations to describe different facets of a building to its different stakeholders (electricians, owners, planning officials), so an enterprise architect must create different views of the business, information system, and technology architecture for the stakeholders who have concerns related to these aspects.

TOGAF specifically identifies this issue throughout the ADM through the following concepts (as defined in Architectural Artifacts):

Stakeholders
Concerns
Views
Viewpoints

Steps in the Stakeholder Management Process

The following sections detail recommended Stakeholder Management activity.

Identify Stakeholders

Identify the key stakeholders of the enterprise architecture.

The first task is to brainstorm who the main enterprise architecture stakeholders are. As part of this, think of all the people who are affected by it, who have influence or power over it, or have an interest in its successful or unsuccessful conclusion.

It might include senior executives, project organization roles, client organization roles, system developers, alliance partners, suppliers, IT operations, customers, etc.

When identifying stakeholders there is a danger of concentrating too heavily on the formal structure of an organization as the basis for identification. Informal stakeholder groups may be just as powerful and influential as the formal ones.

Most individuals will belong to more than one stakeholder group, and these groups tend to arise as a result of specific events.

Look at who is impacted by the enterprise architecture project:

Who gains and who loses from this change?
Who controls change management of processes?
Who designs new systems?
Who will make the decisions?
Who procures IT systems and who decides what to buy?
Who controls resources?
Who has specialist skills the project needs?
Who has influence?

In particular, influencers need to be identified. These will be well respected and moving up, participate in important meetings and committees (look at meeting minutes), know what's going on in the company, be valued by their peers and superiors, and not necessarily be in any formal position of power.

Although stakeholders may be both organizations and people, ultimately the enterprise architecture team will need to communicate with people. It is the correct individual stakeholders within a stakeholder organization that need to be formally identified.

It is possible to distinguish five broad categories of stakeholder, as shown below:

Figure: Categories of Stakeholder

Consider both the Visible team - those obviously associated with the project/change - and the Invisible team - those who must make a real contribution to the project/change for it to be successful but who are not obviously associated with it (e.g., providers of support services).

Classify Stakeholder Positions

Develop a good understanding of the most important stakeholders and record this analysis for reference and refresh during the project. An example stakeholder analysis is shown below:

		Ability to	Current	Required
Stakeholder		Disrupt	Under-	Under-	Current	Required	Required
Group	Stakeholder	Change	standing	standing	Commitment	Commitment	Support
CIO	John Smith	H	M	H	L	M	H
CFO	Jeff Brown	M	M	M	L	M	M

Table: Example Stakeholder Analysis

It is also important to assess the readiness of each stakeholder to behave in a supportive manner (i.e., demonstrate commitment to the enterprise architecture initiative).

This can be done by asking a series of questions:

Is that person ready to change direction and begin moving towards the Target Architecture? If so, how ready?
Is that person capable of being a credible advocate or agent of the proposed enterprise architecture initiative? If so, how capable?
How involved is the individual in the enterprise architecture initiative? Are they simply an interested observer, or do they need to be involved in the details?
Has that person made a contractual commitment to the development of the enterprise architecture, and its role in the governance of the development of the organization?

Then, for each person whose commitment is critical to ensure success, make a judgment as to their current level of commitment and the desired future level of commitment.

Determine Stakeholder Management Approach

The previous steps identified a long list of people and organizations that are affected by the enterprise architecture project.

Some of these may have the power either to block or advance. Some may be interested in what the enterprise architecture initiative is doing; others may not care. This step enables the team to easily see which stakeholders are expected to be blockers or critics, and which stakeholders are likely to be advocates and supporters of the initiative.

Work out stakeholder power, influence, and interest, so as to focus the enterprise architecture engagement on the key individuals. These can be mapped onto a power/interest matrix, which also indicates the strategy to adopt for engaging with them. Stakeholder Power Grid shows an example power grid matrix.

Figure: Stakeholder Power Grid

Tailor Engagement Deliverables

Identify viewpoints, matrices, and views that the architecture engagement needs to produce and validate with each stakeholder group to deliver an effective architecture model.

It is important to pay particular attention to stakeholder interests by defining specific viewpoints, matrices, and views of the enterprise architecture model. This enables the architecture to be communicated to, and understood by, all the stakeholders, and enables them to verify that the enterprise architecture initiative will address their concerns.

Template Stakeholder Map

The following table provides an example stakeholder map for a TOGAF architecture project.

			Relevant
Stakeholder	Involvement	Class	Viewpoints
CxO (Corporate Functions); e.g., CEO, CFO, CIO, COO	This stakeholder group is interested in the high-level drivers, goals, and objectives of the organization, and how these are translated into an effective process and IT architecture to advance the business.	KEEP SATISFIED	Business Footprint Goal/Objective/ Service Model Organization Chart
Program Management Office (Corporate Functions); e.g., Project Portfolio Managers	This stakeholder group is interested in prioritizing, funding, and aligning change activity. An understanding of project content and technical dependencies between projects adds a further dimension of richness to portfolio management decision-making.	KEEP SATISFIED	Roadmaps Business Footprint Application Communication Functional Decomposition
Procurement (Corporate Functions); e.g., Acquirers	Major concerns for these stakeholders are understanding what building blocks of the architecture can be bought, and what constraints (or rules) exist that are relevant to the purchase. The acquirer will shop with multiple vendors looking for the best cost solution while adhering to the constraints (or rules) applied by the architecture, such as standards. The key concern is to make purchasing decisions that fit the architecture, and thereby to reduce the risk of added costs arising from non-compliant components.	KEY PLAYERS	Cost View Standards View
Human Resources (HR) (Corporate Functions); e.g., HR Managers, Training & Development Managers	Key features of the enterprise architecture are the roles and Actors that support the functions, applications, and technology of the organization. HR are important stakeholders in ensuring that the correct roles and actors are represented.	KEEP INFORMED	Organization Chart Organization/Actor/ Location
Enterprise Security (Corporate Functions); e.g., Corporate Risk Management, Security Officers, IT Security Managers	Major concerns for this group are understanding how to ensure that the information, data, and systems of the organization are available to only those that have permission, and how to protect the information, data, and systems from unauthorized tampering.	KEY PLAYERS	Data Security View Networked Computing Hardware View Communications View
QA/Standards Group (Corporate Functions); e.g., Data Owners, Process Owners, Technical Standards Bodies	Major concerns for this group are ensuring the consistent governance of the organization's business, data, application, and technology assets.	KEY PLAYERS	Standards Guidelines Specifications Standards View Application Portfolio Technology Portfolio Technology Standards
Executive (End User Organization); e.g., Business Unit Directors, Business Unit CxOs, Business Unit Head of IT/Architecture	This stakeholder group is interested in the high-level drivers, goals, and objectives of the organization, and how these are translated into an effective process and IT architecture to advance the business.	KEEP SATISFIED	Business Footprint Goal/Objective/ Service Model Organization Chart
Line Management (End User Organization); e.g., Senior Business Managers, Operations Regional Managers, IT Managers	This stakeholder is interested in the top-level functions and processes of the organization, and how the key applications of the IT estate support these processes.	KEY PLAYERS	Organization/Actor/ Location Goal/Objective/ Service Model Cost View Application & User Location View
Business Domain Experts (End User Organization); e.g., Business Process Experts, Business/Process Analyst, Process Architect, Process Designer, Functional Managers, Business Analyst	This stakeholder is interested in the functional aspects of processes and systems. This can cover the human actors involved in the system, the user processes involved in the system, the functions required to support the processes, and the information required to flow in support of the processes.	KEY PLAYERS	Process Flow Use-case Service/Information Events Functional Decomposition Application - Application Communication View Data Entity/Business Function Matrix
IT Service Management (Systems Operations); e.g., Service Delivery Manager	Major concerns for this group are ensuring that IT services provided to the organization meet the service levels required by that organization to succeed in business.	KEEP INFORMED	Standards View Enterprise Manageability View
IT Operations - Applications (System Operations); e.g., Application Architecture, System & Software Engineers	Major concerns for these stakeholders are: Development Approach, Software Modularity and Re-use, Portability Migration, and Interoperability.	KEY PLAYERS	Process - System Realization View Application - Data View Application Migration Cost View Software Engineering View Platform Decomposition View Networked Computing - Hardware View Software Distribution View Data Entities to Application Systems View
IT Operations - Infrastructure (System Operations); e.g., Infrastructure Architect, Wintel support, Mid-range support, Operational DBA, Service Desk	Infrastructure stakeholders are typically concerned with location, modifiability, re-usability, and availability of all components of the system. In general these stakeholders are concerned with ensuring that the appropriate components are developed and deployed within the system in an optimal manner.	KEY PLAYERS	Platform Decomposition View Standards View Enterprise Manageability View Networked Computing - Hardware View Processing View Environments & Locations View
IT Operations - Data/Voice Communications (System Operations); e.g., Network Management	Communications engineers are typically concerned with location, modifiability, re-usability, and availability of communications and networking services. In general these stakeholders are concerned with ensuring that the appropriate communications and networking services are developed and deployed within the system in an optimal manner.	KEY PLAYERS	Communications View
Executive (Project Organization); e.g., Sponsor, Program Manager	This stakeholder group is interested in on-time, on-budget delivery of a change initiative that will realize expected benefits for the organization.	KEEP INFORMED	Architecture Requirements Architecture Principles Architecture Vision Functional Decomposition Application & User Location View
Line Management (Project Organization); e.g., Project Manager	This stakeholder group is responsible for operationally achieving on-time, on-budget delivery of a change initiative with an agreed scope.	KEEP INFORMED	Application - Application Communication View Functional Decomposition Environments & Locations View
Business Process/Functional Expert (Project Organization); e.g., Financials FICO Functional Consultant, HR Functional Consultant	This stakeholder group will elaborate the functional requirements of a change initiative based on experience and interaction with business domain experts in the end-user organization.	KEY PLAYERS	Process Flow Use-case Service/Information Events Functional Decomposition Application - Application Communication View
Product Specialist (Project Organization); e.g., Portal Product Specialist	This stakeholder group is responsible for specifying technology product designs in order to meet project requirements and comply with the Architecture Vision of the solution. In a packages and packaged services environment, product expertise can be used to identify product capabilities that can be readily leveraged and can provide guidance on strategies for product customization.	KEY PLAYERS	Software Engineering View Application - Data View
Technical Specialist (Project Organization); e.g., Application Architect	This stakeholder group is responsible for specifying technology product designs in order to meet project requirements and comply with the Architecture Vision of the solution.	KEY PLAYERS	Software Engineering View Platform Decomposition View Process System Realization View Application - Data View Application Migration Cost View
Regulatory Bodies (Outside Services); e.g., Financial Regulator, Industry Regulator	The main concerns of this group are that they can receive the information they need in order to regulate the client organization, and that their information requirements are being understood and properly satisfied. They are specifically interested in reporting processes, and the data and applications used to provide regulatory return information.	KEEP SATISFIED	Business Footprint Application - Application Communication View
Suppliers (Outside Services); e.g., Alliance Partners, Key Suppliers	The main concerns of this group are that the information exchange requirements that they have are met in order that agreed service contracts with the client organizations can be fulfilled.	KEEP SATISFIED	Business Footprint Service-Information View Application - Application Communication View