Finding Your Stakeholders
Farah, Weftwise's operations manager, asks Ishaan for "a warehouse performance dashboard". He could build exactly what she describes and still fail: if the founder decides warehouse budgets from monthly cost figures and the shift leads need today's backlog on their phones, a dashboard designed for Farah alone serves nobody well. Before building, find everyone the work touches.
The rule
Find who asks, who decides, who uses, who supplies and who feels it.
A stakeholder is anyone who affects the work or is affected by it. For BI requests, five roles cover almost everyone:
| Role | Question | For Farah's dashboard |
|---|---|---|
| Requester | Who asked? | Farah, operations manager |
| Decider | Who makes the decision this informs? | Meera, who approves hiring and courier contracts |
| Users | Who will open it every week or day? | Farah and the two shift leads in Jaipur and Kolkata |
| Suppliers | Whose systems and people provide the data? | Kabir, the data engineer who loads the courier feed; the warehouse scanning system |
| Affected | Whose work or life changes because of it? | Packers, whose speed will be visible; customers |
One person can hold several roles. Farah is requester and user. The roles still matter because each asks for something different: deciders want summaries and costs, users want detail and speed, suppliers can tell you where the data is weak, and affected people can tell you why a number looks odd on the warehouse floor.
Stakeholders also differ in power (can they change or stop the work?) and interest (do they care about it?). A simple grid tells you how to treat each group:
- High power, high interest (Meera, Farah): work closely and agree definitions with them.
- High power, low interest (Dev in finance, who cares about staffing cost but will rarely open the dashboard): keep satisfied with short briefings.
- Low power, high interest (shift leads, packers): keep informed and invite them to test early versions.
- Low power, low interest: a light check-in is enough.
The shortcut
Walk through five doors, in order: asks, decides, uses, supplies, feels. At each door, write at least one name. An empty door is a warning sign.
Asks
Farah. Note her words, but do not stop here.
The trap is building only for the requester. The requester's words are the start of the brief, not the whole of it.
Drills
Answer fast — trust the rule.
Meera will decide from the dashboard whether to hire two more packers for Kolkata. For this dashboard she is the…
Courier delivery dates on the dashboard look wrong. Whom should Ishaan contact first?
Packing speed per packer will appear on the dashboard. Why involve the packers?
Dev in finance cares about staffing cost but will rarely open the dashboard. How should Ishaan treat him?
Remember
- Find who asks, who decides, who uses, who supplies and who feels it.
- Walk the five doors in order; an empty door is a warning sign.
- Trap: building only for the requester.