Stakeholder analysis in applied research projects

In applied research projects, we want to create impact by developing innovative solutions, and land them in the organization. Successfully landing innovations typically requires a direct collaboration with stakeholders in the organization. They need to adopt the results in the system they develop or embed them in their systems development process and way-ofworking. It is essential to get a good overview of who the stakeholders are, and their roles and responsibilities in relation to the system architecture, the system development process, and how they collaborate within the organization. Traditional stakeholder analysis frameworks often use subjective stakeholder labels like "low influence" or "low urgency", making it difficult to create stakeholder overviews that can be shared and aligned with the stakeholders directly. Furthermore, they lack alignment with the system design and way of working. To address these problems, we propose a novel method for stakeholder analysis in applied research projects that uses neutral lenses that directly link to the setting of applied research. In the Poka Yoke project, we are using this method as part of a broader method to introduce a synthesis-based engineering way-of-working in an organization, which entails changes to the system development process, including new roles that also affect the organization. We show overviews of the current and envisioned situations and identify competence needs related to the envisioned situation. As next steps, we want to identify what is the gap between the current and envisioned situations and develop a stakeholder engagement plan for how synthesis-based engineering can be introduced in a step-by-step manner. In our experiences thus far, we noted that the project stakeholders value the discussions on human and organizational aspects next to the technical innovations and share our belief that these discussions are key in landing the innovations at the organization.