4 Steps to create Stake holder mapping and Validate it

If I am a product designer, how exactly I need to do a stakeholder mapping, right? And also how do I know whether what I did is correct or not? And how should I make sure this in lines with the requirement of the industry as well as the problem statement, what I'm working on and how to really keep it at a template. All these things are going to be answered in this podcast, guys. Okay, with that we'll just jump jump into Design for Change podcast with Jagdish. Welcome guys, welcome, welcome. Thank you for staying tuning in with me in Design for Change podcast. Thank you so much. And I'm really happy that more than five countries have our podcast channel has reached. And thank you for this great support and keep listening and learning in my podcast and I'll be participating posting lot many contents. Guys. Thank you so much. And today we are going to understand stakeholder mapping, right before even going into the mapping how to do it. First of all, let us understand why it is important, okay? And this podcast is going to give you the parameters, what you can noted down. And the second is this is going to explain about the considerations what you can have for creating a stakeholder mapping and also how you can validate that, right? That's where people get a big problem. They have their assumptions and they have their own research done in online, offline, this, YouTube, all these things is there, but how do you really validate? And the fourth important aspect is I'm going to be giving you an action plan, guys. Okay, See this is a format of template what I'm giving you. But again this also comes from your creativity, your perspective and how you're tweaking your problem statement accordingly. Okay, so this is a four aspect which we're going to see today. Okay, now let's start with the first aspect. Why is understanding stakeholder mapping is important? I'll tell you guys, you need to have relevance in your project. That's the very first thing. If you wanted to really draw a pattern on what is the research you're doing and whom you wanted to talk to. First of all, stakeholders is the people who are affected directly and indirectly for your project, right? You need to know how you can choose them. You need to know the parameters on what basis I can able to check that out. The first parameter is relevance. You need to know how much they are relevant to your project. Like let's say if you're doing a project related to what you call animal husbandry. Okay? If you're doing a project related to preserving animal wildlife, you need to find the exact department guy or the team who's working on it. Let it be government, let it be NGOs, let it be private zoos. Make sure you choose that relevancy. Okay? Okay. Do not do some kind of a. I'll send a form to my friend. He will fill that. He is my stakeholder. That's a kind of amateur do. Okay. We are all very professional designers. We need to approach this professional design touch. It's not like I'll go to a big design college degree and then only I'll do this process. No, that's not the case. Okay. The second important aspect is how much they are influenced, how much they have an impact. See, choosing the relevant stakeholder is very crucial. That is why you need to check this influence and all. You need to know how much influence they have. Let's say if they have a Facebook, let's say if they have, they are leading the government organization or whatever. Try to understand the impact what they've did. The better you will be able to choose your stakeholder who is more influenced and more impactful, the better information you will get for driving your project. This is a very key thing. People don't take care of this. That is why they get substandard inputs from the market research or whatever they do and they deliver a substandard solution. The third important thing is diversity and perspective. See, you need to talk to different, diverse people. Like let's say if you are doing a project related to something like a mental health, okay, it's not always required to go and talk to a psychiatrist. You need to talk to people who have come out of that psychiatrist problem. Also you need to talk to people who have a, what you call a kind of a problem where they have started approaching this, encountering. Encountering this problem. They will have a different notion. People who are suffering in that. They will have different notion. People have come out of it. They will have different notion. People who are treating this as a doctors and psychiatrists, they will have different notions. So having a diversity in various perspective from a different background, let's say you can go for defense, you can go for military, you can go for aerospace. See, all these people are affected with sometimes mental disorder problems, right? So I'm taking an example of mental disorder. But the thing is you can do for any kind of a problem statement what you're working on. So what happens is when you go for a different, different field, you get to have a different, different perspective and ethnography. Right? That will add a great advantage, guys. And the fourth Is expertise and knowledge. See how you are really building that, right? You need to find that expertise and then you have to build that expertise around it and get the knowledge from them. Then only the relevant information will be useful for you. See, I'll repeat the important parameters, relevancy of the stakeholder, influence and the impact, how much they can create, the diversity and the perspectives they bring in and the expert knowledge, what they have. This is the very first important thing which is parameters for choosing the stakeholder. The second is consideration. What you need to consider after you choose from these people. See, you need to check whether they align with your goals properly or not. That's the first thing. The second thing is you need to engage potentially with them. Whether they are open to share, whether they are not open, whether they are hesitant. Try to understand that not all people will be sharing information. Yeah, they might be knowledgeable and they might be experts in their field. You need to know how to choose that, right? Who is engaging in how much level. Based on that, you drive your research accordingly. Third is the accessibility. Can you reach them physically? Can you reach them over a call? Can you reach them over a zoom call? Or can you just get a survey and fill this thing? So think about the possibilities and accessibility for reaching these people. See guys, in this world of pandemic after pandemic, the way in which people started doing research has really turned up. Different way people started becoming lazy. Also, some people becoming very proactive. Also let me tell you, becoming proactive is a relevant thing. Now you need to smartly leverage this situation to connect with people globally, to connect with people who are actually having a different country, different background, different ethnography and then you get more connections, right? So and the fourth thing, what you can do is make sure that ethically it is okay. Some people will not be bound to give you a lot of information for confidentiality, patent and all these reasons. So choose that ethical reason carefully. Before you talk to a stakeholder. Sometimes the stakeholder itself will tell, hey, I cannot disclose this information. Leave that person, it's fine. Some people will volunteer, but you need to cross check whether that person is going to information, going to give that information what you require, but it is not going to affect later any confidentiality or legal or ethical issues. See, these are all some of those what you call a good ways and a healthy way to really choose stakeholders and make sure these considerations are aligning. See, I'll tell you the considerations again, aligning the goals with your projects. That stakeholder, how much engaging is how much accessible he is. And what is the legal and other ethical complications? Okay, this is the second part of the podcast. The third part is validation. See, after you choose your stakeholders, after you consider this particular parameters, then you need to validate also. See, now you check the reality how much the stakeholders can add value to your project. That's the very first thing. Checking the reality and relevance. Second, confirmation and influence. See, you need to confirm whatever they have decided. Whatever you have collected information, make sure it is confirming with your research properly. Then and only you can find out that stakeholder is relevant or not. Guys, stakeholder is not like, just like that. I'll choose one person. He will become a stakeholder. Hey my friend, I've sent a Google form. He's very close to me. Hey, my professor. I know this professor. He's been my guide professor. So he is the stakeholder. You should not assume like that. You need to really think how this is going to impact because the decision making largely impacts, right? And then third is get feedback from people. This is a way to validate it. Guys. See you need to ask your seniors, the juniors sometimes. Yeah, it's good to talk to juniors also they will have different perspective. Talk to peers, talk to your mentors, talk to anybody who has did this kind of a similar project before. Then what will happen is you will get a validation. See, you're not only mapping the stakeholders, you're also validating them. This is the third part. Third part of the podcast, the fourth part is taking action and making sure you are doing all these things in a proper way. Right. Earlier we saw about the parameters, the considerations for stakeholder and third is how we can validate it whether what we did is correct or not. Now we are going to take action plan. See guys, in all my podcast I tell if you are not taking action, it is not going to have any impact in your career, in your design or whatever it is. Okay? So listen very carefully and take notes. Also, action plan is something like continuation to this podcast. Okay, the first action point, what you can do is you can identify the relevant stakeholders first. Second, research it out about them. Third, categorize them on what category you wanted to interview them on what category you wanted to go a field study on what category the stakeholders will fall direct stakeholder or indirect stakeholder or whatever, tertiary stakeholder and make sure their engagement is good and make sure that analysis, what you what they're saying should be properly done then and only that analysis will become input for your project. With that only you can synthesize more creative ideas. More creative ways, more creative directions and strategy for your project and then utilize that properly. See, identifying, researching, categorizing, engaging, analyzing, synthesizing, utilizing. If you do this action step only, guys, whatever you collected so far, information from the stakeholder and who is the stakeholder and all, it will make complete sense for your project. Okay, again, this is not also 100% template, I would say have it as a reference, but based on the problem statement, based on the nature, based on the reality of your timeline and the budget and the resources you have, this will all change a lot. You need to be having that kind of openness also. Okay, so this is what is the four things, guys, the parameters, the consideration, the validation and the action plan and template. So finally, to close this podcast, let me give you a golden tip. Guys, please document whatever you do. That's the first thing. Second is be open and adaptable. Do not be very rigid. Hey, I will only talk to doctors. They are more knowledgeable in that. Let me tell you, in hospital projects mostly people who are working in ward people are working in nurse people are working as a sweeper. You know, they'll give you more precise, detailed information than doctors sometimes. So be open, be more flexible to learn from the patterns. And third is keep on updating. It's not a one time process. You need to understand and update your process also continuously. And the ability to choose whatever stakeholders you wanted to do and prioritize them and sequencing them is a key factor which is going to uniquely determine your design output. Guys, okay, I'll tell you once more time this last point. The golden tip is you need to know how you can prioritize the stakeholders, how you can sequence them. Let's say, okay, this stakeholder will talk first, this stakeholder, I'll talk second, then I'll sequence it. Okay, talking to this recorder is the highest priority. Then there's a second priority, third priority. See guys, priority and sequencing. If you're not doing in stakeholder mapping, what will happen is you will do a Khichdi project. You'll do a complete kitchen analysis. Even you won't be able to find an insight out of it. All these things why we are doing, we need to take them some insight and move the project to a further steps to ideate, brainstorm and move ahead. Right? That is why the golden tip is prioritize and sequence your information and the stakeholder so that you can document it, you can adopt it, you can update it. Okay, so thank you so much guys. I hope this podcast would have given you some value and clarity. And if you wanted to take my mentorship support also in helping and guiding all the things. See guys, I use my students a proper kind of a template and I make them first explore and then follow this template. Okay. It's not like, hey, you follow the template and fill it in view, then that becomes like a school or college, right? This is a very creative education. Particularly design can only be learned when you do it. I give them this template after they explore and come back based on their problem statement. And then they. And then I give them feedback and then they iterate and then they make a realist plan. You know, this is what I do in my program. If you wanted to really get help of me, jump in. I'll be happy to help you. And I also help only few students, not many of them. Thank you so much guys for listening to me in this podcast. Thank you so much. If you feel like giving me a feedback, you can drop an email to me. I've given that also. And you can answer this question. What do you think about this podcast? It's really interesting. I'll be exchanging you some gifts and also I'll be connecting with you guys. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye Bye. Hey.