How to Build Your Own Stakeholder Register – Quickly & Easily

A stakeholder register identifies and tracks all individuals, groups, or organizations affected by or with influence over a project.

It’s a living record with all the information you need to help you manage effective engagement throughout the project lifecycle.

So, how do you make one?

This video is safe for viewing in the workplace.

This is learning, so, sit back and enjoy

Build Your Own Stakeholder Register

There are still plenty of Project Professionals who don’t have access to a sophisticated, pre-built project management tool. Yet they are leading projects that could benefit greatly from having a single consolidated document with all their information about the project’s stakeholders.

While we could use database tools here, for many of us, the obvious solution is a spreadsheet. So, let me take you through the steps I used to create mine.

The Structure of a Spreadsheet Stakeholder Register

I use Excel and started by creating six tabs. There are 4 primary sections:

1. Identification        
   Basic details to identify and contact the stakeholder.
2. Analysis    
   Evaluation of the stakeholder’s power, interest, and impact.
3. Engagement Plan  
   Strategy for how to engage and move stakeholders to the desired state.
4. Monitoring
   Tracking actual engagement activities and feedback.

In addition, there are two supporting sections:

1. Guidance
2. References
   Many of the tables have drop-down menus. The references tab contains editable lists that will drive those dropdowns.

The Stakeholder Identification tab of your Stakeholder Register

I made the decision to split my register into two parts, for individuals and stakeholder groups. You may prefer to combine them on one table.

As you can see, these tables contain all the information you’ll want to keep about each stakeholder. There may be other things you want to add, or information I collect, which you won’t need.

The ‘Category’ column is the first of a number of columns in the register, where I have created a dropdown list of categories. These are stored in editable tables in the references tab. In the video, I demonstrate how to add the list to the dropdowns.

On this table, I have separated out information about the stakeholder, about their contact details, about communicating with them, and (as always) I have left space for extra notes.

This tab contains the Master List of stakeholders and stakeholder IDs, which are read by the tables in the other tabs.

The Stakeholder Analysis tab of your Stakeholder Register

This spreadsheet contains our assessments of different aspects of each stakeholder. First, we assess influence, power, interest, and impact – and also give a priority score. My preference is for a simple High, Medium, and low scoring, but you may prefer something different.

Then, it records narrative assessments of attitudes (or level of support), the stakeholder’s requirements, their concerns, expectations, and needs. Finally, I set out a recommended strategy, which will be one of:

• Monitor & Outvote
• Inform & Coach
• Enrol & Employ
• Woo & Win
• Observe & Characterize

The Stakeholder Engagement tab of your Stakeholder Register

This starts with the strategic intent.

Then we have the logistics. The depth of engagement, communication method, and frequency, along with start and end dates.

Then, there’s tactical information: key messages responsible owner and resources, and success measures.

Finally, there is a simple section on status (started, delayed, in progress, or complete) and the next planned engagement date.

The Stakeholder Engagement Monitoring tab of your Stakeholder Register

This is where we record:

• The results of the engagement
• Follow-up actions
• Next actions
• And measures of how well the stakeholder engagement is going.

This is an easy spreadsheet to build (it took me a couple of hours, including planning and thinking through what I wanted on each tab. It will be far quicker to reproduce it, after which, you can start work adapting it to your own needs by:

• Removing
• Renaming
• Or adding

Columns and dropdowns.

Project Management Templates and Checklists

You can get it as part of my Project Management Templates Kit. This has over 70 downloadable and editable project management templates, in 10 sections. And, you can get my Project Management Checklists. But, for the best value, get both kits together with a discount of over 30%.

• Project Management Templates Kit
• Project Management Checklists
• Project Manager’s Productivity Bundle

What Kit does a Project Manager Need?

I asked Project Managers in a couple of forums what material things they need to have to do their job as a Project Manager. They responded magnificently. I compiled their answers into a Kit list. I added my own. 

Check out the Kit a Project Manager needs

Note that the links are affiliated.

Learn Still More

For more great Project Management videos, please subscribe to the OnlinePMCourses YouTube channel.

If you want basic Management Courses – free training hosted on YouTube, with 2 new management lessons a week, check out our sister channel, Management Courses.

For more of our Project Management videos in themed collections, join our Free Academy of Project Management.

For more of our videos in themed collections, join our Free Academy of Project Management.