A stakeholder engagement framework for your digital project, in one worked example

One decision, traced end to end

The framework article describes 4 artefacts: the map, the engagement strategy, the communications plan and the measurement plan. This page runs one realistic decision through all 4, from the first conversation to the number that tells you whether it worked.

The example is a composite of real projects, with the details changed. The decision is deliberately ordinary, because ordinary decisions are the ones digital projects get wrong: not the launch date, not the platform choice, but the small change that alters somebody’s weekly work.

The project and the decision

A mid-size manufacturer is rebuilding its website. Most of the content migrates without argument. The decision that matters is the product price list. Today it is a PDF, updated monthly by the sales team. The rebuild proposes replacing it with a live database feed.

Four groups feel that decision. The sales team maintains the PDF and fields price queries. Distributors download it weekly and re-key the prices into their own systems. IT security has to approve any new data feed. Customers just need to find current prices easily.

The map for this decision

Stakeholder	What they can decide or stop	Engagement level
Sales director	Whether the team feeds the database or quietly keeps the shadow PDF	Involve
Distributors, through account managers	Whether they adopt the feed or carry on re-keying	Consult
IT security	Whether the feed can exist, and in what form	Collaborate on the design
Customers	Nothing here; they need the outcome to work	Inform
Sponsor, the marketing director	The decision itself, and the budget	Decision-maker, with the delivery lead running the process

The levels come from the IAP2 spectrum, and the working roles each row implies are set out in the guide to stakeholder engagement roles. The map itself and its columns are described in what a stakeholder engagement framework is.

What the conversations changed

The involvement session with sales ran in month 1, before the data work started. Their real objection was not the work of updating a database. It was the week-one customer query with no fallback if the feed looked wrong. The decision changed: the PDF survives as an auto-generated export for 6 months after launch, so the fallback exists from day one.

The consultation with distributors was 2 calls by account managers plus one email to the 20 largest accounts. Their problem was re-keying, which a public feed of list prices does not solve. The data spec changed: the feed includes each distributor’s own price tier, not the list price.

The collaboration with IT security traded speed for approval: a nightly pull from the ERP rather than a live API, which passed review in a week instead of a quarter.

Customers were informed, and nothing more. The price page and its FAQ were updated, and no consultation was staged that could not change anything. Inform is a legitimate level; pretending it is participation is the failure.

The sponsor attended the sales session personally. One appearance did more for that relationship than a month of status reports, which matches the research: PMI’s ‘Pulse of the Profession’ in-depth report on executive sponsor engagement found that organisations with actively engaged sponsors on more than 80% of their projects report 40% more successful projects than organisations below that threshold.

The communications that served it

3 items carried the decision, each with its audience and its feedback route: the monthly project update to all staff, with replies to the delivery lead; the distributor email naming the consult window and the change it produced; and the cutover FAQ for customers. The feedback route is the part most plans omit, and the argument for it is in stakeholder engagement versus a communication plan.

Measuring this one decision

The measurement plan shrinks to fit a single decision. Of the 5 stakeholder inputs recorded, 3 changed the plan, 1 was declined with a stated reason, and 1 had already been decided and was logged as such. That ratio is the honest measure of this decision’s engagement, and it feeds the wider numbers described in measuring stakeholder communication.

Run it on your decision

Your project has an equivalent of the price list: the decision that changes someone’s weekly work without changing the Gantt chart. Take one page and answer 4 things. Who could stop it, and what level of engagement does each of them get. Who owns each conversation. What feedback route exists, and which decisions it can still reach.

Trace your next decision

Name the decision. List the people who could stop it. Book the 2 conversations that need to happen before the decision date, and go to them before the decision is made. Afterwards, write down what changed, including anything that did not. A record where nothing changed is a finding about the engagement, not proof that the plan was right.