Empathy mapping technique for project stakeholder management

The reciprocal relationship between a project’s stakeholders and the project team is foundational to a project’s success. A stakeholder with a supportive attitude, or who at least believes that they have been treated properly, can enhance project management and increase the information available to the project team. The attitudes and resultant actions stakeholders take towards the project emanate from their perception of how it will impact upon their interests. Their perception is composed of thoughts and feelings, not simply facts. Facts may not actually feature in those thoughts and feelings at all.

The empathy mapping technique supports the project team in developing an empathic stakeholder strategy. It enables the team to step into a stakeholder’s shoes, exploring how they navigate their world as the project intersects with it. It captures stakeholder thoughts and feelings in a visual format that can function as a reflective and collaborative exercise for a project team, or formal stakeholder engagement session. This information can come from the experience of the team, existing organisational knowledge assets or primary research with stakeholders. A good empathy map is a project asset that can be revised as the project progresses, stakeholder positions or true feelings are revealed and the team learns.

It can begin by setting some mapping goals, to obtain information or answer questions. For example:

Assess the impact of our project on the local shopkeepers
Increase our awareness of the work of local shopkeepers and how our project will impact it
How are their opinions being formed?
What are the most effective ways to improve their perception of our project?
Is there anything we can do to protect their business during the project?
How can we create a sense of control over what they feel is happening to them?

The technique works by filling out the categories in the model. The following questions are to build a picture of the stakeholder irrespective of the project:

Who are we empathising with?

Stakeholders should be identified and analysed in the most narrowly defined group.

What do they need to do?

The stakeholder acts or works towards goals that are meaningful to them. They pursue these goals irrespective of the project. The project will be impacting these actions and goals.

The following questions try to capture their experience of the project:

What do they see?

This refers to what is seen of the physical manifestation of the project in the stakeholder’s context and visual information about the project.

What do they hear?

This could be the audible aspects of the project in the stakeholder’s context but also the conversations around and about the project from other stakeholders or peers.

What are they thinking and feeling?

This is an integration of the previous information. People make comparisons between themselves and others, and now to the past, or an imaginary future. Their opinions may be subjective and based on an inaccurate perception of the project, but that does not make their opinions less effective on the project.

What are their pains and gains?

Their pains are obstacles, fears or frustrations they experience caused by the project as they work to achieve their goals. Gains are what they work towards, their aspirations and wants. The project may help or harm achievement of these gains. Perhaps the project could create new gains?

The above come together to create the basis for stakeholder actions. It is likely that they will be looking to minimise pains and maximise gains. This leads to their actions, which are how their influence on the project is manifest.

What do they say?

How the stakeholder exerts influence through their speech or texts they produce about the project.

What do they do?

Based on what they see and hear and the impact of the project on their goals, they will act to maximise their gains and minimise their pains.

Here is an example. A light railway line is being laid through a busy city street with many small retailers. Good trade depends on easy access for workers, shoppers and city residents. However, track laying will interfere with the road and pavement. Many small retailers operate ‘on their margins’ and so are highly sensitive to impacts on their immediate cashflow. The project team could be tempted to simply assert the benefits that the line will bring to retail in the area, but does that speak to the thoughts and feelings of the shopkeepers faced with the construction?

Pains:

Loss of income and customers.
Uncertainty about project duration and impact
Inaccessibility of their shop
Damage to shop from construction hazards
Stress from conjectures about the future
Feeling ignored or powerless in the construction process

Gains:

More customers when the line construction is finished
Increase in property value, or lease more easily covered
Increased sales/profits
Innovations from dealing with construction losses

What are they thinking and feeling?

“Who is going to answer my questions?”
“Look at all the mess”
“I’ve heard about other small shops that have gone out of business on other lines”
“What happens if that heavy equipment damages my premises?”
“I don’t think I can cover the lease next month”
“The city council doesn’t care about small businesses”
“How long is this going to take, really?”

Following this, possible shopkeeper actions and influences can be predicted leading to tactics for engagement, short and longer-term interventions to help the shopkeepers through the project; ways to demonstrate care for their concerns and the language to be used. These can be formulated into a stakeholder engagement strategy that obtains more suitable behaviours from stakeholders, by demonstrating empathy with them.