Stakeholder analysis template

What is a stakeholder analysis template?

If you’ve ever wondered how to identify and engage the right people for your project or account, our stakeholder analysis template offers a visual framework. It’s ideal for project management, account management, campaign planning, product launches, or any initiative where identifying and prioritizing stakeholder needs is essential.

By mapping influence (Y-axis) against interest and availability (X-axis), you can produce a visual analysis that helps teams identify project stakeholders early, reduce miscommunication, and accelerate alignment. 

The stakeholder analysis template helps you:

• Identify key project stakeholders quickly and comprehensively

• Prioritize stakeholder needs so communication and engagement are focused

• Follow steps for a comprehensive stakeholder analysis from brainstorming to ongoing reviews

How to use the stakeholder analysis template

Step 1: Brainstorm your stakeholder list

List every individual or group with a stake in your project. This is the first step in how to identify key project stakeholders. Turn on Private Mode so contributors can add names without influence or bias.

Tip: Use the two-way sync Salesforce integration to import Salesforce contacts as profile cards, create stakeholder maps, and sync updates between Mural and Salesforce. Paste a link to a person’s Linkedin profile to generate a profile card that includes a photo, name, and role.

Step 2: Assess influence

Rate each stakeholder’s decision-making power or ability to impact project outcomes. Use sticky notes or color coding for an engaging, visual stakeholder analysis. If you wish, make it fun with gifs, emojis, and icons!

Step 3: Assess interest and availability

Consider each stakeholder’s time, capacity, and willingness to contribute. Move stakeholders horizontally by relative interest and availability. Tags in your collaborative stakeholder template help track availability and constraints.

Step 4: Map stakeholders on the grid

Each stakeholder will end up in one of four quadrants: Keep informed, Recruit to help, Keep satisfied, or Actively engage. This step completes the core of the stakeholder analysis process.

Step 5: Prioritize needs and define engagement strategies

Build on the template to prioritize stakeholder needs and set engagement strategies, including communication frequency, content, and approach for each group. Build your engagement plan with care so it’s clear how you’ll work with your stakeholders. 

Step 6: Revisit and update regularly

After you wrap up the steps for a comprehensive stakeholder analysis, make sure to review placements and strategies throughout the project lifecycle. 

When to use the stakeholder analysis template

Example 1: Strategic account planning

Before kicking off a major enterprise deal, use the stakeholder analysis template to map the entire buying committee. Import Salesforce contacts as profile cards to include details from LinkedIn, then place each contact based on their influence and engagement level.

Now your account team knows exactly who to actively engage, who to keep satisfied, and who to recruit as internal champions. For sales teams, this means fewer surprise blockers, faster consensus among decision-makers, and a shorter sales cycle that improves close rates.

Example 2: Onboarding a new client

At the start of a complex customer onboarding, use the template to identify every client contact involved, from decision-makers to daily users. Tag roles for quick visibility, and align your communication plan around availability and influence.

Prioritize training sessions and personalize communications for each group. (The one-quarter roadmap is great for planning.) For customer success teams, this leads to faster adoption, stronger client relationships, and smoother onboarding that reduces churn risk.

Example 3: Coordinating a product launch

During a new product release, make sure engineering, design, QA, and marketing are aligned with external vendor timelines. Map each team member’s influence and availability so priorities are clear and collaborations happen at the right stage.

This helps R&D maintain speed to iteration, reduce misaligned work, and ensure no critical contributors are overlooked. For R&D teams, this equates to fewer delays, better-quality releases, and a product launch that hits market expectations on time.

Tips for running a stakeholder analysis session

• Keep the collaborative stakeholder template visible so everyone can refer to it during discussion.

• Use Private Mode to encourage candid contributions, and the Summon feature to keep people on track.

• Ask each participant for their approach to how to identify key project stakeholders to uncover different viewpoints.

• Synthesize or summarize notes quickly using Mural AI. 

• Consider whether async collaboration or sync meetings are best when using Mural as an online stakeholder analysis tool.

Related templates

• RACI chart template

• Project kickoff template

• Change plan template

• Stakeholder mapping template

• Visualize account stakeholders