stakeholder-maps

Stakeholder-Maps — Skill

How This Works

Stakeholder maps built in a vacuum are a waste of time. This skill builds a map anchored to political reality: who has power, who's a hidden champion, who's a silent blocker, and what to do before you're in the room.

The skill runs in 7 steps:

Step 0 — Load brain context (ICP, positioning, GTM motion) and guardrails from /context/meta-patterns.md if it exists (e.g., "product launches without Sales Manage Closely engagement fail 80% of the time" — an example pattern shape, not a claim this skill has already observed).

Step 1 — Intake: Initiative description, success definition, timeline, and current champions/blockers.

Step 2 — Inversion: Who could sink this from inside? (If you can't name them, the map is assumed, not validated.)

Step 3 — Classification: Place each stakeholder on Power × Interest grid; assign political role (Champion, Blocker, Frozen, Gatekeeper, Performer, Floating Voter).

Step 4 — Conflict mapping: Identify stakeholder conflicts; define second-order risks and resolution owners.

Step 5 — Silent blocker scan: Which functions/roles aren't in the room but should be?

Step 6 — Output: HTML widget (grid + comms plan + conflict map + confidence assessment) + markdown diagnostic + Sprint Cards.

Step 7 — Learning Close: log the session to /context/skill-sessions.md.

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Trigger

• When: Building a political stakeholder map for an initiative — who can kill it, who champions it, and what to say to each person.
• Not for: Campaign messaging → use gaccs-brief after this skill. Risk analysis → use pre-mortem before this skill. GTM channel design → use go-to-market-strategy.
• Example prompts:
  • "Who are the stakeholders for this launch?"
  • "Map the politics on this initiative"
  • "Who could block this internally?"
  • "Build a stakeholder map"

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Inputs

• Args: Initiative description, success definition, timeline, current champions/blockers. Free format — Step 1 intake fills gaps conversationally.
• Defaults: If brain context is unavailable, this skill still runs — brain sharpens which stakeholders matter and what power they hold, but is not a hard blocker the way it is for go-to-market-strategy.
• Context keys:
  • /foundation/brain.md — optional but recommended. Sections 2 (ICP), 3 (Positioning), 5 (GTM Motion).
  • /context/meta-patterns.md — optional; recurring patterns the user has logged from prior stakeholder mapping sessions.
  • Brain contract: Reads Sections 2, 3, 5. Writes: none — this skill does not write to /foundation/brain.md.