Skill v1.0.0

version: "1.0.0" name: stakeholder-map description: "Build a stakeholder map using a power/interest grid, identify communication strategies per quadrant, and generate a communication plan. Use when managing stakeholders, preparing for a launch, aligning cross-functional teams, or planning stakeholder engagement." when_to_use: | Use when a decision or launch needs people outside your direct control to say yes (or to not say no) — pricing changes, launches, cross-functional rollouts, anything that touches legal/finance/support. The map tells you who to involve, how often, and in what tone. Primarily for the stakeholder-comms agent; pairs with pre-mortem (who could kill this), skeptical-triage (whose objections are real), and circles-method (the Identify step). allowed-tools: Read, Write

Provenance. Vendored from phuryn/pm-skills@stakeholder-map (MIT, Paweł Huryn / Product Compass — github.com/phuryn/pm-skills). Adapted into great-pm 2026-05-29 with attribution. Host agent: stakeholder-comms.

Stakeholder Mapping & Communication Plan

Map stakeholders on a Power × Interest grid and create a tailored communication plan for each group.

Context

You are helping build a stakeholder map for $ARGUMENTS.

If the user provides files (org charts, project briefs, team rosters), read them first. If they describe the product or initiative, use that context to infer likely stakeholders.

Instructions

1. Identify stakeholders: List all relevant individuals and groups — executives, engineering leads, designers, marketing, sales, support, legal, finance, external partners, and end users.

1. Classify each stakeholder on two dimensions:

• Power (High/Low): Their ability to influence decisions, resources, or outcomes
• Interest (High/Low): How much the project directly affects them or how engaged they are

1. Place stakeholders in the Power × Interest grid:

1. For each quadrant, recommend:

• Communication frequency (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly)
• Communication format (1:1, email, Slack, meeting, dashboard)
• Key messages and framing
• Potential risks if this stakeholder is neglected

1. Create a communication plan table:

1. Flag potential conflicts: Identify stakeholders with competing interests and suggest alignment strategies.

Think step by step. Save the stakeholder map as a markdown document.

The anti-stakeholder prompt (do this before the grid)

Before mapping helpers, run the inversion: Who could kill this — and what do they need to not kill it? Most launch failures are not caused by the people you forgot to inform; they are caused by one person with veto power whose specific objection you never surfaced. For each potential blocker write:

• Their veto lever (legal hold, budget freeze, security sign-off, exec "not now").
• The exact concern behind it (not "legal is slow" — what are they protecting against?).
• The smallest thing that turns the veto into a yes (a data-residency answer, a rollback plan, a one-line carve-out).

A blocker you have pre-empted is worth more than ten supporters you have updated.

Stakeholders move — re-map at every gate

Quadrant placement is not static. Interest spikes the moment a team is affected: a finance lead who was Low Interest in discovery becomes High Interest the week pricing changes hit their forecast. Re-run the grid at every stage gate (strategy → spec → launch). A stakeholder who slid from "Monitor" to "Manage Closely" without you noticing is how a launch gets blocked at the last meeting.

Worked example — Acme pricing change (Indian consumer fintech)

Context. Acme.ai is moving its July 1 alpha from "free for everyone" to a ₹0 free tier + ₹149/mo Pro tier (auto-categorization beyond 100 txns/mo, multi-account sync). Eight stakeholders must align for this to land. Founder is solo on product; the rest are part-time, advisory, or external.

Step 1 — Identify & classify.

Step 2 — Anti-stakeholder pass (the part the thin version skipped).

• Legal advisor is the real veto. Concern: charging Indian consumers via

recurring auto-debit triggers RBI e-mandate rules (₹15,000 cap, 24h pre-debit notification, AFA). The veto turns to yes when billing uses a compliant Razorpay e-mandate flow with the pre-debit notice wired in. Surface this in week 1, not at the launch review.

• Existing 40 alpha users can't veto, but a "you said it was free" backlash

in the WhatsApp community poisons the word-of-mouth channel. Mitigation: grandfather them onto Pro free for 6 months, announced before the paywall ships.

Step 3 — Communication plan (excerpt).

The payoff: the map reframed the launch from "build a paywall" to "get the legal e-mandate answer and protect the alpha cohort" — the two things that actually decide whether July 1 lands.

When NOT to use this skill

• Solo founder, no external decision-makers. If you own every lever and no

one can block or needs informing, a stakeholder map is ceremony. Use a pre-mortem instead to find what (not who) kills the plan.

• The decision is already made and uncontested. Mapping to "socialize" a

done deal is theater. Just send the announcement.

• Pre-PMF discovery. When you're still finding the problem, there are no

stakes to land yet — talk to users (user-research), don't map politics.

• As a substitute for actually talking to the blocker. The map points you

at the conversation; it is not the conversation. A beautiful grid with no outreach behind it has changed nothing.

Pitfalls / failure modes

1. "Everyone is High Power / High Interest." The most common trap. If every

stakeholder lands in Manage Closely, you've built a to-do list, not a map. The grid only helps if it discriminates — force-rank power and interest so most people fall into Keep Informed / Monitor. If you can't say who is Low Power, you don't yet understand the org.

1. Treating the org chart as the stakeholder list. Title ≠ influence. A

staff engineer or a respected support lead can hold more launch-blocking power than a VP who never opens the channel. Map actual influence on this decision, not reporting lines.

1. Ignoring blockers because they're "Low Interest." A legal or security

reviewer is Low Interest right up until the moment they read the spec — then they're a High-Power veto. Run the anti-stakeholder prompt so blockers don't hide in the Keep Satisfied quadrant.

1. Static map / map-once-and-forget. Quadrants shift as the project

progresses (see "Stakeholders move"). A map made at kickoff and never revisited is stale by the launch gate.

1. Communication plan with no owner or trigger. "Keep Informed — weekly" with

nobody assigned and no calendar hold means it won't happen. Each row needs an owner and a concrete cadence, or it's a wish.

1. Confusing "informed" with "bought in." Sending updates is not the same as

securing a yes. High-Power stakeholders in Manage Closely need their input solicited early, not their inbox filled after decisions are locked.

Relationship to other great-pm skills

• `pre-mortem` — the forward-looking sibling. The stakeholders who cause

failure in a pre-mortem are exactly the blockers your anti-stakeholder pass should have caught. Run both: map the people, pre-mortem the plan.

• `skeptical-triage` — when a stakeholder objects, triage whether the

objection is a real risk or noise before you spend political capital on it.

• `circles-method` — stakeholder identification is the practical engine for

the Identify step (who has the need, who else is affected).

• `launch-readiness` — the stakeholder communication plan is an input to the

launch checklist; blockers must be cleared before the launch gate.

Further Reading

• The Product Management Frameworks Compendium + Templates
• Team Topologies: A Handbook to Set and Scale Product Teams