Woven matrix by plusea on flickr.
Last week I facilitated an internal planning meeting for a team who were getting their heads round stakeholder engagement for a project. They are committed to involving the right people in decisions and getting feedback on emerging options from a wider group of stakeholders. But 174 stakeholders - how were we to prioritise?
We used the classic stakeholder two-by-two matrix to do some mapping. We asked:
which stakeholders have the potential to be highly influential in relation to the project?
which stakeholders are likely to be highly impacted by the project?
There's more on this tool and the implications of the mapping here.
There are other two-by-two matrices for other purposes.
Organisations wanting to prioritise sustainability issues often use a 'materiality matrix' which has axes for
how important do stakeholders think this issue is?
how 'material' is it to the organisation (e.g. financially, or in relation to success/failure of its mission)?
There's a great summary article by Mia Overall here.
And the well-known time management matrix which advises categorising your 'to do' list by urgency and importance. (Doing the mapping is a procrastinator's dream, like creating a revision timetable.) Depending on where an action is mapped, you either do it, delegate it, plan it or delete it.
SWOT analysis is also a two-by-two, but the axes are not always made clear when the tool is introduced. They are: positive/negative, and internal/external, giving you
Strengths (internal, positive)
Weaknesses (internal, negative)
Opportunities (external, positive)
Threats (external, negative)
This image of a SWOT matrix is a worksheet from the 2017 edition of Change Management for Sustainable Development. (All the worksheets from that book are available here.)
DIY Matrix
It's easy to make your own matrix to analyse a set of options, ideas or items. Here are some tips and considerations:
You need to decide on two distinct spectra (spectrums?) or binary categories to be the two axes.
The two axes should be quite different to each other, so that it is possible to imagine items/stakeholders/options/ideas for all four areas of the matrix.
With a spectrum, the items can be mapped continuously along the axis (higher to lower influence, for example). With a binary category (internal/external), the items are placed in the appropriate box but exactly where in the box is not significant.
Once the items have been mapped, consider the implications. What does the location of a particular item tell you about how to deal with it? In stakeholder mapping, for example, if a stakeholder is in the 'high/high' area of the map, you need to involve them in the decision-making, whereas if they are in 'low/low' you just need to keep them informed.
Some tools are used to map an existing long list of items or options (e.g. stakeholder mapping or time management). Others are used as a prompt or checklist, to ensure you consider all aspects of a situation (e.g. SWOT).
Share your favourites
If you have a favourite matrix, or have used one you came up with yourself, do let me know.
Making the Path by Walking
This post was first published in the January 2022 Making the Path by Walking newsletter. Scroll right down to subscribe.