As a warm up to facilitating the Intentional Design steps with a project team, I have found it very useful to work through an exercise that builds on one developed by Bob Williamns.  The steps are outlined below, and the exercise is designed for small groups of about 5-7 people per group. 

Exercise: Identifying and Connecting Stakeholders in Your Project

Time: 45 minutes

Objective: Identify the stakeholders and interrelationships important to the outcome of a project.

Step 1: Understanding your Case (10 minutes)

Take up to 10 minutes to discuss the project your group is working so that everyone understands its goals and mian elements and can participate as project team members. 

Step 2: Identifying the Stakeholders (10 minutes)

Together, on the flip chart, make a list of all individuals, groups or organizations that could have a stake in the project and its outcomes.  This should include all the actors who, ideally, could or should influence, be affected by or benefit from the project. 

Step 3: Identifying the Main Stakeholder Interventions (15 minutes)

Working together as a group, pick about five to seven of the most important stakeholders and write them on a flipchart around the outer edge of an imaginary circle.  The group then draws lines connecting these stakeholders to each other.  Each line represents an interrelationships between two actors which your group considers would be important to project otucomes and their sustainability.  

Step 4: Describing the Interrelationships (10 minutes)

Working as a group, decide on a word or a short phrase which describes the ideal nature of each interrelationship.  (Hint: Ideally, what should be the main characteristics or desired consequences of each of these interrelationships...training? funding? policy setting? technical support? collaboration? staff sharing or allocation? expert advice?).  Add a short descriptive title to each of the interrelationship lines on the flipchart.

Step 5: Present and discuss the flipcharts in plenary with colleagues

The flipchart produced in this exercise is a helpful reference when doing a vision statement and when identifying Boundary Partners.  It illustrates the complexity of the situation in which the intervention  is taking place and highlights the importance of being specific about which stakeholder intends to work with directly.