Stakeholder register template

Your project’s success depends on many factors—comprehensive planning, effective communication, clear goals and objectives, and, of course, stakeholder buy-in and satisfaction. 

Stakeholder happiness is key to any successful project, but it can be challenging to keep track of stakeholder preferences, especially in a large project with a lot of moving parts. Luckily for you, the days of complicated stakeholder management are gone, thanks to stakeholder register templates.

What is a stakeholder register?

A stakeholder register is a document that outlines all the stakeholders for a particular project, as well as their involvement in the project, their interest and influence, and their communication preferences. 

Have you ever mixed up one stakeholder’s preferences with another? Or worse—forgotten to include a stakeholder on important communication? It’s easier than you might think—after all, a project manager isn’t a miracle worker. Having a streamlined process to keep track of stakeholder information is just one small part of good stakeholder management.

That’s where stakeholder registers come in. Stakeholder registers are useful project management tools because they keep all of your stakeholder information in one easily accessible place, simplifying the process of tracking which stakeholders are involved in the project and how they influence the project’s outcome. If stakeholder information changes during the course of your project, you can quickly update the register to reflect the change, so nothing falls through the cracks.

What is a stakeholder register template?

A stakeholder register template is a reusable resource that you can quickly duplicate to set up a new stakeholder register for every project you work on. Stakeholder register templates create a basic outline for all of your projects, making it easy to track each stakeholder’s preferences and project influence after your stakeholder analysis.

Benefits of a digital stakeholder register template

As a project manager, it can be difficult to keep track of all your project’s stakeholders, especially when you’re managing a large initiative or juggling multiple projects. But stakeholder buy-in and happiness is important to success. Communicating the right information to the right people at the beginning of the project can help you get buy-in from leadership. It also ensures you and your stakeholders are aligned on the project’s timeline, objectives, and deliverables, preventing scope creep down the line.

Stakeholder register templates simplify this process and streamline stakeholder engagement by acting as a single source of truth for all your stakeholder information. Stakeholder register templates allow you to sort each project stakeholder into different levels or categories, and keep track of how to best share information with them, helping you secure—and keep—that crucial buy-in.

What’s more, digital stakeholder register templates created in a project management tool reduce work about work by acting as a templated blueprint for your stakeholder information, allowing you to quickly get to work at the start of each project.

Other benefits of digital stakeholder register templates include: 

• Serves as a single source of truth for all your stakeholder information

• Tracks stakeholder details in an easily accessible location for all your team members

• Keeps team members informed and aligned on stakeholder preferences

• Improves stakeholder engagement and relationships 

• Helps your team understand individual stakeholder preferences, improving effective communication and helping facilitate buy-in

• Builds trust and communication with stakeholders 

• Lets your team quickly see who has decision-making power (and who doesn’t), so you can target the correct stakeholders and quickly reach consensuses 

• Helps your team identify stakeholder needs and determine how to communicate in a way that’s most beneficial to them 

Remember, stakeholder registers are proactive (not reactive) tools that help you keep track of the who’s who on your project. They’re part of the early project planning process, and help you set boundaries and align with stakeholders early, preventing your project from growing in size or falling off track. 

What to include in a stakeholder register template 

Your stakeholder register template will serve as a blueprint for all your projects going forward, so it should include any information you want duplicated across different initiatives. This includes information you’ll want to track for each stakeholder, such as their level of project influence and communication preferences. This way, you never have to worry about forgetting key information.

Your stakeholder register template should include each stakeholder’s:

• Name

• Role or title

• Category (internal or external; primary or secondary)

• Level of influence over the project (low, medium, or high)

• Level of interest in the project (low, medium, or high)

• Specific needs or wants

• Primary form of communication

• The type of information they prefer in updates 

• How often they prefer to be updated

• Contact information

• Any additional notes 

Your stakeholder register template should also include a section for basic project information, such as the project’s name and description, the type of project, and the proposed start and end date. You can fill out this information and any stakeholder-specific notes at the beginning of each project. 

Integrated features

• Project status updates. Say goodbye to sorting between multiple tools to find project status information or sitting through another meeting that could have been an email. Project status updates in Asana aren’t just easier to use—they’re also directly connected to the work your team does. This makes it easy for team members to access additional project information, like your project plan, communication plan, project goals, milestones, deliverables, and more. Ultimately, project status reports reduce your manual work, centralize information, and keep everyone up to date.

• Custom fields. Custom fields are the best way to tag, sort, and filter work. Create unique custom fields for any information you need to track—from priority and status to email or phone number. Use custom fields to sort and schedule your to-dos so you know what to work on first. Plus, share custom fields across tasks and projects to ensure consistency across your organization.

• Project Overview. Project Overview is your one-stop-shop for all important project context. Give your team a bird’s-eye view of the what, why, and how of your project work. Add a project description to set the tone for how you’ll work together in Asana. Then, share any important resources and context—like meeting details, communication channels, and project briefs—in one place.

• Project Brief. A project brief is a way to communicate important details and dates to your broader project team. Make sure your team can easily access your project brief by putting it in a central source of truth like Asana.

Recommended apps

• Gmail. With the Asana for Gmail integration, you can create Asana tasks directly from your Gmail inbox. Any tasks you create from Gmail will automatically include the context from your email, so you never miss a beat. Need to refer to an Asana task while composing an email? Instead of opening Asana, use the Asana for Gmail add-on to simply search for that task directly from your Gmail inbox.

• Slack. Turn ideas, work requests, and action items from Slack into trackable tasks and comments in Asana. Go from quick questions and action items to tasks with assignees and due dates. Easily capture work so requests and to-dos don’t get lost in Slack.

• Dropbox. Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Dropbox file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane.

• Miro. Connect Miro and Asana to streamline workflows and see the full picture of every project, all in one place. Embed Miro boards into Asana project briefs, allowing team members to interact, view, comment, or edit directly from within Asana. Or, attach an existing or new Miro board to any Asana task, automatically inviting task collaborators to view, comment, or edit the board.

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