Stakeholder Identification in Agile Software Product Development Organizations: A Model for Understanding Who and What Really Counts

Stakeholder Theory is an area of strategic management that defines a stakeholder as someone who affects or is affected by the actions of the organization. The principles and concepts of stakeholder theory can be applied to software development organizations to give managers a better understanding of the diverse community of stakeholders that influence product development efforts. A deeper understanding of the broad community of stakeholders can help an organization that is transitioning to agile methods by highlighting the stakeholders that are affected. This paper describes the application of stakeholder theory to product development organizations in the context of a global product development company undergoing a multi-year transition to agile development. A model is presented for mapping stakeholders into stakeholder groups, and for quantifying the influence of stakeholders. This paper further uses a stakeholder approach to demonstrate how traditional organization roles map to roles in an agile product development organization.