The Stakeholder Map Tool enables users to visualize and then monitor the effectiveness of managing stakeholders around an opportunity, project or business issue. For ISO 27001, we have included a pre-built Stakeholder Map to help you manage Interested Parties as per 4.2.

The map can be used to understand where to focus efforts according to stakeholders’ power, interest, and support levels. This understanding ensures effective engagement of stakeholders leading to optimal resource management and greater probability of project success. It is also crucial to understand whether a stakeholder is supporting or sabotaging your project, therefore the map has a happiness indicator to give an overview of issues at a glance.

Using the Tool, you are able to enter details about each stakeholder then plot their position on an interactive graph. Regular reviews are supported and trends are measured. The map can be shared to help teams consider consistent treatment of key messages and hot topics across all stakeholders. This reduces risks of ill-informed team members compromising project success.

Key Features of Stakeholder Maps

• Captures stakeholder information which can be plotted and compared against other stakeholders
• Maps can be shared across ISMS.online members
• Information can be exported to MS Word or Excel
• Stakeholders information can be updated and positions plotted over time
• Trends can be observed and managed
• Historical data is accessible through the table showing all updates associated with each stakeholder

Finding the Stakeholder Map

You will find your ISMS Interested Parties tool listed inside the 'Tools' tab of the 'ISO 27001:2013 Policies and Controls' Project.

 You can favourite it on your home page by selecting the star on the far right.

Getting the best from Stakeholder Maps

• Have a session with your team to brainstorm potential stakeholders and their ‘stake’ or interest. (Don’t forget we have given you a bank of suggested ISMS Interested Parties that can be drawn down from).
• Timing and style of stakeholder communication are crucial; leave it too late with high powered stakeholders or fail to engage with them personally in important decisions and they will end up ‘being red’ (unhappy).
• If you or your team don’t know a stakeholder well, or one is unhappy, then consider if an advocate (someone high powered and green) is likely to know them better and help manage them on your behalf.
• Stakeholders with low power and high interest are likely to be a source of future delivery and need to be kept motivated. Carefully consider how and when you keep them informed; communicate too late and you risk major disruption. Generally speaking sooner is better than later.

Creating new instances of the Stakeholder Map

You can find the Stakeholder Map on your Tools screen, accessible via Work > Tools on the main menu. Pictured below is the Stakeholder Map icon, you can choose to view a previous map, where you can edit and delete past maps as well as view them. For this guide, you will create a new Stakeholder Map.

Creating the map

1. Give your map an appropriate name for future reference
2. To insert your first stakeholder, enter their name/the parties general name and fill in the fields pictured below
3. Select the power and interest level of the stakeholder
4. From the drop-down menu select the stakeholder’s support level for the initiative or activity, happy, neutral or unhappy
5. Select a member of the team to manage the relationship
6. Selecting a reminder date will send an email notification and add to the responsible team member’s to-do list for the chosen date to review the stakeholder
7. Selecting a reminder date will send an email notification and add to the responsible team member’s to-do list for the chosen date to review the stakeholder
8. Barriers to address: Describe the interests and requirements of the interested parties and what might need to be considered in order to maintain the relationship
9. Key messages and Advocate relationships are also free text boxes, all text entered (once saved) will appear with the stakeholder, so include all relevant information 
   • Key messages: Describing how this interested party relates to your ISMS, including relevant clauses from your Policies and Controls Project. 
   • Advocate relationships: This field can be used to refer to specific individuals or groups within a larger entity and can also be used to detail your interaction with the interested party.
10. Click ‘Save’ to add the Stakeholder to the map 

Stakeholder Map

    Pictured on the next page is an example Stakeholder Map with six stakeholders. The colour of the stakeholder’s icon represents its ‘happiness’.

For example, we can see from looking at the map that Stakeholder A has high interest and power, and is happy. Whereas Stakeholder E also has relatively high interest and power but is unhappy. Hovering over a Stakeholder’s icon will display their name, and clicking on their icon will open their Stakeholder details, here you can edit their details and set a reminder to their responsible team member.

Stakeholder List

    Below the Stakeholder Map is the table pictured above. Here, you can filter the view of your Stakeholders simply by clicking the category. For example, the table below is filtered by Interest, and you can see the Stakeholders are displayed in order of the lowest to the highest Interest. You can also access the Stakeholder details from here, by clicking on the Stakeholder’s name in blue.

Sharing the Stakeholder Map with your Team?

1. Click on the ‘Team’ icon at the top right of the page.
2. Type the name of the Team member you wish to share the Tool with (this person must be an existing ISMS.online user). and click Add when their name appears at the side.