Knowing your stakeholders is an important place to start if you want your organization to experiment and validate.

Who are those stakeholders? Do you have a relationship with them? Are they positive about your experiments? What are their interests? It is essential to map this out.

Three weeks ago, I attended the Professional Advisory course at De Baak. The analysis explained in this article is one of the many things I learned.

Force field analysis

Conducting a force field analysis will give you a clear picture of which stakeholders are essential to establishing an experimentation culture. It helps you see who is blocking change, who is in favor and who can help you.

Step 1. Me

Grab a piece of paper and a pen, or just open Slides or a design tool. Then write ‘I’ in the middle of the page.

Step 2. Your stakeholders

Write down the names of your stakeholders. Then use a solid line to indicate that you have a relationship with that stakeholder and use a dotted line if there is no relationship.

For those with a solid line, indicate whether that person is for or against experiments:

• Add a + if that person is in favor;
• Add a - if that person is against it;
• And a +/- if that person is neutral about the change.

Important: Do not list departments or job titles. Write the real name of the persons.

In this example, I have a relationship with three stakeholders in favor of experimentation, Joost and Shirley are neutral and Ronald can be challenging. With Pim and Desiree, I have yet to build relationships. 

Step 3. Stakeholder relationships.

In this step you do the same as in step 2, but now for the (most important) stakeholders. This can be useful to see which stakeholders can connect you with others or help you with stakeholders who are against change.

In this case, you can use a dotted line if you don't know the relationship.

In this example, Tom can help me get in touch with both Desiree and Pim. Anouk can help me with Ronald, but I have doubts about her relationship with Joost. Finally, Lotte could possibly help me convince Shirley.

Step 4. Identify the most critical stakeholders

The most critical stakeholders are given priority. This importance may be based on their position within the company, someone with a lot of influence or a key player for experiments.

Indicate by numbers the three most critical stakeholders.

Based on this example, Anouk could help with Ronald. Tom is someone with good connections. He can also help me get closer to Desiree.

Step 5. Empathize with your stakeholders

The fifth and final step is to sympathize with your key stakeholders. Try to fully understand their situation:

• What are their interests?
• How do they see you?
• What do they expect from you?
• How do they want to be involved in the change process?
• Why are they for/against experiments?
• What keeps them from experimenting more?
• What are their current goals and obstacles?

With this information, you can make a plan to get as many stakeholders for experiments as possible.

Work together to adopt experiments

If you want your organization to change and adopt a culture of experimentation and validation, it's not going to work if you try to do it on your own. For that, you also need your stakeholders. So make time to get to know them by starting with a force field analysis. Then with the information you get, create a plan to create a win-win situation, starting with the most critical stakeholders. 

Discover how to keep their interest while allowing them to contribute to a culture of experimentation.

Good luck with that! And if you have any questions, Then do not hesitate to ask them.