11 minutes

Your stakeholder-engagement map

Turn a list of names into a set of relationships with a depth, an owner, a cost and a date, for one decision you are working on now.

What you’ll be able to do

Complete a stakeholder-engagement map for one real decision, naming for every relationship its depth, its owner, the reciprocity it requires, and when it will be reviewed.
Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the most useful thing to say?
Draft a stakeholder-engagement map for one decision for your work, including the decision and what is genuinely open, who is affected and who is missing, depth of partnership and who holds the final call.

Map the decision, not the division

Most stakeholder maps are directories. They list the organizations a division knows, sorted by type, with contact details and a note about who spoke to them last. A directory is useful for finding a phone number and useless for planning a decision, because it says nothing about what any relationship is for.

A map that helps is built around one decision. It asks who this decision affects, who is missing from the conversation, how deep each relationship should be, who holds it, what it costs, and when it gets reviewed. Built that way it is short. Most decisions have five or six relationships that genuinely matter, and a map with six honest lines is worth more than a list of thirty-one names.

The hardest column is the one for who is missing, and it is the reason to do this at all. Absences are patterned. The groups that fall off our maps are the ones furthest from our vocabulary, our hours, our buildings and our languages: families in counties a long drive from any meeting, people who use interpreters, people who left the service and therefore stopped appearing on any list we keep, organizations with nobody paid to read state notices. They are also, routinely, the people the decision affects most.

A stakeholder-engagement map for one decision

One page that turns a list of names into a set of relationships somebody owns.

The decision and what is genuinely open Redesign of the service description and the notice families receive. Open: wording, reading level, format, what is explained first, how questions get answered. Constrained: which languages come first, subject to what translation and review can be finished in time. Fixed: eligibility criteria set in rule, and the date the notice must be issued.

Who is affected and who is missing Affected: families using the service; adults using it directly; county lead workers; two provider associations; one culturally specific organization in the metro. Missing: families in the northwest of the state, anyone who left the service in the past twelve months, and everyone who uses an interpreter.

Depth of partnership and who holds the final call Self-advocates and family advisors: collaborating on the wording, with the program manager holding the final call. Counties and provider associations: consulted. Plain-language and interpreter reviewers: involved, with their changes accepted unless there is a recorded reason not to.

Reciprocity: lead time, cost and compensation Materials three weeks ahead as plain text. Sessions offered in two formats and at two times. Advisors paid at the rate the division uses, arranged by contracting colleagues before the first invitation. Travel, care and support costs covered. Budget line named: program redesign, community review.

Report-back, owner and the next review point Every contribution answered with what changed or why it did not, in writing within one month. Owner: program manager, with the administrative specialist holding the schedule. Map reviewed with the advisors at the agreed point, starting with the missing groups.

Copy the five fields, fill them in for one decision you are working on now, and keep the completed map with the project file rather than in your own notes.

Browse and download only. Staff notes are not typed or saved on this page.

Lines people forget

People who left the service. They are on no current list, and they know something nobody still enrolled can tell you.
Anyone who uses an interpreter, who is filtered out by every arrangement that assumes English and speed.
Direct support professionals and county lead workers, who see the daily consequence of a policy written two levels above them.
Administrative and support staff inside our own division, who hold the lists and see every commitment that quietly disappears between meetings.
Small culturally specific organizations with nobody assigned to state relationships. Reaching them takes a phone call, not a notice.
The organization that sent a long response last time and never heard back. Start there, and start by saying what happened to it.

The five columns

What is this decision, and what is open?

Name the decision in one sentence, then write three short lists: genuinely open, constrained and by what, already fixed. Everything else in the map depends on this part being honest.

Who is affected, and who is missing?

List the groups the decision lands on, then the ones you cannot currently reach through any list you hold. The second list is the one that matters.

What depth, and who decides?

Informed, consulted, involved, collaborating, or sharing the decision — one of those per relationship, plus the name of the person who holds the final call.

What does reciprocity require?

Lead time, materials people can use, compensation and cost coverage with a named budget, a clear role, and a stated date for the report-back.

Who owns it, and when is it reviewed?

A named person for each line and a review point. A line missing either one is a good intention, and it will read as one to whoever inherits the file.

Keep the map where the work is

What you can change

You control whether the map lives with the project file or in your own notes, and whether the people named in it ever see the lines about them.

What to watch for

Do not build the map, use it once and leave it in a personal folder. The relationships outlast the project, and the next staff member inherits them without any of the understanding behind them.

Your next step

Put the completed map in the project file, share the relevant lines with the partners named in them, and set the review point before you close the document.

Which line from a stakeholder-engagement map can actually be acted on?

Family members: important stakeholders, engage throughout the project.

Families using the service: collaborating on the notice wording, with the program manager holding the final call. Materials three weeks ahead as plain text; advisors paid through the route contracting colleagues set up before the first invitation; written report-back within one month. Owner: program manager. Reviewed at the agreed point.

Families and self-advocates: consult as needed, subject to time and available resources.

Try a situation

A program manager builds a stakeholder-engagement map for a service redesign. It lists thirty-one organizations and individuals across five categories, with contact details and a short note on each. There is no column for what each relationship is for, no name appears beside any line, and no dates are set. The manager asks you to look it over before it goes into the project file.

What is the most useful thing to say?

It is thorough. Suggest adding the two or three organizations missing from the list, then put it in the file.

Ask what each relationship is for, at what depth, who owns it, what it costs and when it is reviewed — and add a line for who is missing and why. Then cut the map down to the decision actually in front of you.

Recommend sorting the thirty-one entries by category and priority so the program knows which relationships matter most.

Carry this forward

Map a decision, not a division. A map of everyone the division knows is a directory. A map of one decision tells you who should be in it, at what depth, and by when.
The most useful column is the one for who is missing. Absences are patterned: the people furthest from our vocabulary, our hours, our buildings and our languages fall off the map most often, and they are usually the ones the decision affects most.
Every line needs a named owner and a date, or the map becomes a description of good intentions.
Keep the map with the project file rather than in a personal folder. The next person to hold this work inherits the relationships either way; the map decides whether they inherit the understanding too.

A scenario about a map that lists everyone and commits to nothing, a completed stakeholder-engagement map you can copy into your own work, flashcards on the five columns, and a knowledge check on what makes a map line usable.

Fill the map in for one decision you are working on now, start with the missing-groups line, and keep it with the project file rather than in your own notes.

Your next step

Which decision will you map first, and who will ask you what the missing-groups line said?

Name the decision and the day you will fill the map in

Name the colleague or supervisor who will ask you what you found

Write down now who you expect the missing-groups line to name, then check whether you were right

Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.

Mark this lesson complete

Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.