Stakeholder Onion Diagram: A Practical Guide

STAKEHOLDER ONION DIAGRAM - Includes Free Template

Knowledge Area: Business Analysis Planning & Monitoring
Applicable Task: Conduct Stakeholder Analysis
Useful When: Identifying stakeholders involved in your project. Helps the BA determine which stakeholders will directly interact with a system or process and those outside the organization.

I’ll use the customer ordering system example. The Stakeholder onion diagram would look like this:

Stakeholder Onion Diagram of a Customer Ordering System

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

To develop a Stakeholder Onion Diagram, identify the following categories of stakeholders:

Layer 1: Stakeholders closely involved in the creation of the product, which could be a new system or a new process. Stakeholders may include the project manager, software developer, business analyst, etc

Layer 2: Stakeholders whose work changes when the solution is defined. For example, end users.

Layer 3: Sponsors, executives and subject matter experts who interact closely with the system

Layer 4: External Stakeholders such as customers, regulators, government, suppliers and the like.

An editable template of the stakeholder diagram can be downloaded here.