Stakeholder Mapping Example — Industrial
Initiative: Northfield Automation's remote firmware update for the NFA-500.
Continues from the stakeholder-identification industrial example, which surfaced plant OT security
as a Permission-holder at every site.
Grid 1: Power × Interest
| High Interest | Low Interest | |
|---|---|---|
| High Power | Manage closely<br>· Northfield VP Engineering<br>· Plant operations managers | Keep satisfied<br>· Regulatory (UL/CE)<br>· Northfield CFO |
| Low Power | Keep informed<br>· Northfield field service<br>· Channel partners | Monitor<br>· Plant OT security<br>· Plant maintenance staff<br>· Plant safety officers |
Read alone: co-design with ops managers and engineering, brief Regulatory, inform field service and partners, ignore the rest.
Grid 2: Impact × Power
| High Power | Low Power | |
|---|---|---|
| High Impact | Q2<br>· Plant operations managers<br>· Plant OT security<br>· Channel partners | Q1 — elevate deliberately<br>· Plant maintenance staff<br>· Plant safety officers |
| Low Impact | Q4<br>· Northfield CFO<br>· Regulatory (UL/CE) | Q3<br>· Notification/telemetry vendor |
The comparison
| Stakeholder | Power×Interest | Impact×Power | Tension |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plant OT security | Monitor | Q2 | Holds Permission at every site and is deeply affected. Low expressed interest only because they haven't been told a network ingress is coming |
| Plant maintenance staff | Monitor | Q1 | A controller on their line changes state remotely; they stand at the panel when it goes wrong, with no say in enrollment |
| Plant safety officers | Monitor | Q1 | Own the incident review if an update contributes to an unplanned stop |
| Regulatory | Keep satisfied | Q4 | High power, low impact — a gate, and correctly treated as one |
| Channel partners | Keep informed | Q2 | Higher stakes than grid 1 suggests: the feature removes billable site visits |
Q1 and misplaced-Q2 voices to elevate:
- Plant OT security — the most consequential correction. Four conversations across pilot sites before the design is fixed, on what network path, authentication, and audit evidence they would require. They can refuse silently, site by site, and you'd never see a single "no."
- Plant maintenance staff — what they need to trust a remote change: notification, veto, rollback visibility.
- Plant safety officers — what evidence they'd need in an incident review.
The mismatch that matters most: plant OT security. Grid 1 puts them in Monitor — low power, low interest. Grid 2 puts them in Q2, high impact and high power, because they hold Permission at every site. Acting on grid 1 alone would have shipped a feature that quietly fails to be adoptable, one refused network request at a time, with no visible rejection anywhere.
Engagement plan
| Stakeholder | Quadrant | Engagement | Cadence | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plant OT security | Q2 | Design consultation on network path and audit evidence | 4 sessions pre-spec | PM + Eng lead |
| Plant maintenance staff | Q1 | Interviews, then review of the notification/veto design | Twice pre-launch | PM |
| Plant safety officers | Q1 | Review of the incident-evidence trail | Once pre-launch | PM |
| Plant operations managers | Q2 | Co-design, pilot cohort | Biweekly | PM |
| Channel partners | Q2 | Commercial conversation on service-revenue impact | Monthly | Channel lead |
| Regulatory | Q4 | Listing impact assessment | At spec, at launch | Regulatory |
Quadrant migration
| Stakeholder | From | To | Why | How |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plant OT security | Monitor (P×I) | Manage closely | They are a silent veto at every site; involving them early converts a blocker into a specification | Bring them into design before the network path is fixed, and give them the audit evidence they ask for |
| Channel partners | Keep informed | Manage closely | The feature removes billable visits; unaddressed, they slow adoption at accounts they service | Commercial conversation about what replaces that revenue, before launch, not after |
What to notice
- The most dangerous stakeholder was in Monitor. OT security has no interest in your product and absolute authority over whether it can reach a plant. A single grid puts them last; the comparison puts them first.
- A silent veto is worse than a loud one. OT security doesn't escalate — they decline a firewall change. Adoption just never materializes, and nobody can point at a rejection. That's what makes the mismatch expensive rather than merely wrong.
- Channel partners moved quadrants for commercial reasons, not process ones. The feature removes revenue they currently earn. The engagement is a commercial conversation, not a briefing.
- Q1 here is about consequence, not convenience. Maintenance staff and safety officers absorb the risk of a remote change to equipment they're responsible for. Neither has a vote in enrollment.
- The same pattern as the SaaS example, different stakes. Both initiatives put the most affected, least powerful group in Monitor on the first grid. Running the second grid is what corrected it in both cases — which suggests the mismatch is structural, not a one-off oversight.