Understand Stakeholders and Audiences
Stakeholders and Audiences both help you understand who is affected by change, but they serve different purposes. Stakeholders are individual people who need to be understood and managed according to their influence, impact and engagement position. Audiences are groups of impacted people that can be assessed and targeted at scale.
Use Stakeholders for person-by-person engagement and behavioural insight. Use Audiences to organise larger groups for communications, learning, readiness and other change interventions.
Stakeholders
Within a project, open Change and select Stakeholders.
Figure 1. Stakeholders within Navigation
1 | Stakeholders. | Open the Stakeholders sub-section within Change. |
Review Stakeholder reporting
The Stakeholders reporting view summarises key stakeholder information across the project. Use the reporting tabs to review commitment, sentiment and receptiveness, alongside the total number of key stakeholders and the completeness of stakeholder data.
Figure 2. Stakeholders reporting view
To work with the underlying stakeholder records, click View Data in the top right-hand corner of the reporting view. This opens the Stakeholders data grid.
Use the Stakeholders data grid
The Stakeholders data grid shows individual people and combines their organisational information with stakeholder-specific measures. This is where you can identify key stakeholders and maintain the indicators used to understand and prioritise engagement.
Figure 3. Stakeholders data grid
1 | Stakeholders. | Confirms that you are viewing the Stakeholders data grid. |
2 | Key Stakeholder. | Identify whether an individual should be treated as a key stakeholder for the Project. |
3 | Stakeholder measures. | Review Influence, Impact, Sentiment, Commitment and Receptiveness to understand each stakeholder's position and engagement needs. |
Audiences
Within a project, open Change and select Audiences.
Figure 4. Audiences within Navigation
1 | Audiences. | Open the Audiences sub-section within Change. |
Review Audience reporting
The Audiences reporting view provides a visual map of the audiences in the project. Use it to understand how audience groups compare and which groups may require greater attention.
Figure 5. Audiences reporting view
To work with the underlying audience records, click View Data in the top right-hand corner of the reporting view. This opens the Audiences data grid.
Use the Audiences data grid
The Audiences data grid shows each audience as a group rather than an individual person. It brings together audience-level scoring, the number of people in each group, and the impacts and actions associated with that audience.
Figure 6. Audiences data grid
1 | Audiences. | Confirms that you are viewing the Audiences data grid. |
2 | Impact, Size and Influence. | Use these scores to understand the scale and priority of each audience. |
3 | People Count. | Review the number of people contained within each audience. |
4 | Impacts and Actions From Impacts. | Review the impacts linked to an audience and the actions associated with those impacts. |
Use Stakeholders and Audiences together
Stakeholders and Audiences provide complementary views of the people affected by change. Stakeholders help you manage important individuals in detail, while Audiences help you organise impacted populations into groups that can be targeted and measured at scale.
Keep stakeholder measures and audience membership up to date as the project develops. This helps ensure that reporting, engagement priorities and downstream change activity continue to reflect the current position.
Next steps
For related guidance, continue with the Help Centre articles on 'Set up your Core Data', 'Log the Impacts of your change', 'Create a Learning Curriculum' and 'Diagnostics and Readiness'.