Which ITK Stakeholder tool should I use and when?

by | Aug 2, 2021

Venn Diagram with two circles. Left circle is labeled Identification and right circle is labeled Assessment. In the left circle, two tools are listed: Stakeholder Identification Canvas and Community Map. In the intersection of the two circles, two tools are listed: Stakeholder Power Categories and Stakeholder Map & Matrix. In the right circle, one tool is listed: Quickstart Stakeholder Engagement Canvas. Below the venn diagram is an arrow running from left to right, which is labeled “Scope of ITK Tool.” The left-most part of the arrow is labeled “All Stakeholders” and the right-most part of the arrow is labeled “Individual Stakeholder.”

Tips on selecting from the 5 different ITK stakeholder tools

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Planning for stakeholders falls into three general steps:

  1. Identifying who is a relevant stakeholder;
  2. Assessing which stakeholders to engage with; and
  3. Assessing the optimal engagement approach.

The Innovation Toolkit now has 5 stakeholder-related tools, which serve different purposes and are complementary with each other. These tools are best used early in the effort, but they can be revisited whenever the effort needs to interact or collaborate with the people involved, interested, or impacted by the effort.

Here are some quick tips for when to use each stakeholder tool.

ITK Tool What is it Scope of Tool When to use it Why use it

Stakeholder Identification Canvas

 

 Ideate a more comprehensive & representative set of relevant stakeholders to your effort (Ideally) All stakeholders Step #1 – Identifying who is a relevant stakeholder The embedded equity lens helps broaden the team’s perspective to consider stakeholders beyond the default set

Community Map

 

 A fast way to capture and prioritize stakeholders (Ideally) All stakeholders Step #1 – Identifying who is a relevant stakeholder Can be conducted very quickly because of the simple and intuitive categories (which can be tailored to the team’s effort)
Stakeholder Power Categories Quickly categorize and assess which stakeholders to engage Multiple stakeholders Step #2 – Assessing which stakeholders to engage with The embedded equity lens highlights impacted stakeholders and how to elevate their roles on the effort

Stakeholder Map & Matrix

 

 Look across multiple stakeholders and categorize them according to key variables (e.g., interest, influence, impact) Multiple stakeholders Step #2 – Assessing which stakeholders to engage with Can assess and compare multiple stakeholders at the same time

Quickstart Stakeholder Engagement Canvas

 

 A quick way to begin developing a plan for effectively engaging a stakeholder Individual stakeholder Step #3 – Assessing the optimal engagement approach The embedded equity lens helps the team explore four additional considerations beyond the default to help create more equity-informed engagements

While there are many stakeholder-related methods and tools on the market, our goal with these ITK stakeholder tools is to help teams quickly get started or unstuck when thinking through how to include relevant stakeholders for their effort. We encourage teams to use the ITK tools in combination with other market tools to successfully identify, assess, and plan engagements with stakeholders.

Let us know how it goes in the comments below!