The following information is drawn from September 19, 20, and 23, 1999 postings on the NPTalk discussion list. Introduction Stakeholder analysis is an aspect of organizing and mobilizing activity often overlooked by smaller community groups but not by larger entities interested in creating effective campaigns and strategies to help push their interests in the policymaking process. This is not to say that groups of all sorts do not assess stakeholder positions for a given issue, or do not gauge the level of support or opposition to given policy positions. There is, however, a wide variance in the tools employed by individual grassroots activists and better-equipped interests. Two of the most popular Windows tools in this arena are Outrage and PolicyMaker. Stakeholder analysis seeks to provide a crucial link in the formulation of policy and the actual mobilizing of support for policy, namely assessing the impact of positions on engaging, utilizing, and sustaining support while minimizing or neutralizing political opposition. Policy is just as much about effectively defining problems as it is about posing workable solutions, and devising strategies that speak the language of important constituencies. Therefore policy is, in part, dependent upon good management, sensitive to changing political needs, players, and environments to help determine the feasibility of a policy position. Political management and analysis, however, requires a proactive moment of reflection and inquiry that many groups, especially on the local level, do not always have at their disposal. This is especially true when political opponents consists of well-funded campaigns that can utilize the expertise of advisors and consultants, who have often plotted policy scenarios which have taken numerous variables into account, including media, community support, and monetary resources, to craft multi-level strategies to protect their interests. OUTRAGE OUTRAGE lets a company select and profile the sources and stakeholders (including community activists or government agencies) that are most likely to create the most vocal opposition to the company. After selecting the inputs, it generates the predicted level of stakeholder outrage that can be expected. It then allows companies to manipulate the input variables to determine a favorable scenario for minimizing the level of outrage. The man behind OUTRAGE, Dr. Peter M. Sandman, is an expert on risk management in the areas of health and the environment. Dr. Sandman consults on behalf of a number of companies involved in controversies, and has, on occasion helped activists to learn how to raise the visibility of their causes. His principles of risk prediction and management hold that successful management of risk to a company's reputation turns both on addressing the issues raised by critics and their potential or actual level of outrage.  How does it work? You define a situation that might lead to a controversy, and then Identify and categorize the major actors involved as allies, neutral players, or opponents. Then you map out how to rate each stakeholder, according to their level of "power" and "passion" (commitment). Depending upon this rank, you can then can choose an appropriate strategy to deal with that particular stakeholder. It also determines how much trouble the company is likely to face. The key to OUTRAGE is the databank powering the stakeholder analysis, drawn from Dr. Sandman's past client examples.   PolicyMaker PolicyMaker (http://www.polimap.com) follows a similar vein as it touts its ability to help organizing and mobilizing efforts define and identify policy content, key players, opportunities and obstacles, and strategies, which can then be evaluated in terms of their impact and outcomes. Once you have defined your policy, you identify stakeholders via a customizable table, according to their perspectives, policy positions, political strength, or other factors. You can then generate a number of reports and graphs that graphically layout the political landscape and a ranking of key players. This includes a comparison of current policy versus future policies, feasibility and opportunities, possible coalition and network permutations, and where potential opposition may lie. Based upon their experiences, users can also create their own modifications of the analytical algorithms and power analysis underlying PolicyMaker. A Feasibility Graph feature allows you to gauge the relative strength of your supporters versus your opposition. In effect, this gives you the opportunity to see how modifications in your proposed policy can be modified to engage potential opposition.  Not unlike OUTRAGE, PolicyMaker utilizes a formula that measures political feasibility based upon the strength of stakeholder positions, stakeholder strength, and the number of stakeholders involved or utilized. Proposed strategies are drawn from expert political consultant experience, which can be refined, tested, and customized to match user needs.   Are These Tools Right For Me? So what's the problem with tools like these? Well, nothing, if you can afford to invest in them. Political mapping, risk and organizational analysis, and rule-based decision making systems have long been used by corporations in their economic analyses, as well as often against local and community interests. Yet these same tools can be utilized by community groups to understand how past policies have been developed and implemented and to think in a systemic way about how to affect change by drawing upon the same intelligence gathering and analytical tools. While PolicyMaker retails for about US$90 (with a free fully functional limited-feature version available for download), the price tag for OUTRAGE gives some indication that it may not be intended for widespread use. It costs about US$3,000 per license, US$36,000 for an unlimited national corporate license, and US$48,000 for an international license. A free evaluation copy of OUTRAGE (with limited features) can be downloaded as well. If the cost is too high, consider that these and similar tools can be used to thwart your efforts. They may give your policy opposition the means to keep track of the people and entities most likely to cause them trouble, evaluate likely policy scenarios based on key inputs, and craft effective neutralizing strategies. Bob Burton wrote about OUTRAGE for The Center for Media and Democracy's publication PR Watch, arguing that it advises a company to "deflect" a stakeholder with power but no passion, by doing whatever it takes to distract them until their attention moves to other subjects. Stakeholders with passion but no power are to be "defeated," while people who lack both can be "dismissed." For those who have both power and passion, the company should "defer," or give in to their demands. A company or stakeholder using these tools that might blindly follow these recommendations might be problematic to deal with. Burton quotes an activist who participated in a panel discussion tied to the launch of the OUTRAGE software, whose concerns center around the central premise of the software: that the company at the center of a controversy can be trusted to do, "the right thing." The activist argued, in effect, that this and similar tools are potentially a way for entities to devise the optimum strategies necessary for keeping their opposition quiet. Tools, however, are neutral; the ends to which they are utilized are not always so. The intentions, quality of data, and commitment to utilize the analysis will affect the applications’ quality. Policy data requires interpretation, and if that is of poor quality, the results may be as well. The analytical framework, additionally, must inevitably leave out some factors, as policy landscapes turn on the unpredictable. Moreover, these tools will not be able to tell you the “right” decision or policy to follow, simply what the implications or response might be to key political decisions. They are designed to help you achieve a political goal, and not replace other key policy activities like public education and advocacy. In the final evaluation, stakeholder analysis tools might prove useful in helping your effort manage the daunting task of translating institutional knowledge and individual internalized experience into useful strategic information for your cause, to help complement difficult policy implementation and response management. Links Cited OUTRAGE http://www.qest.com.au/outrage.html PolicyMaker http://www.polimap.com )"Mad as Hell? This Program May Have Your Number" (Bob Burton) http://www.prwatch.org/99-Q1/outrage.html