What it is
One-on-one conversations with the people who sponsor, build, sell, or support the product, to learn business goals, constraints, history, and risks. They capture the organization's view, not evidence of what users need.
Why use it
Many decisions depend on context only stakeholders hold: what success means, what has been tried, what is off the table, and where people disagree.
Use this when
- A new initiative is starting and goals are unclear
- Stakeholders may hold conflicting expectations
- Constraints or history are undocumented
- You need to know who must approve the outcome
You may not need this when
- Goals, constraints, and decision-makers are documented and current
- The change is a small iteration within well-understood scope
- The same stakeholders were recently interviewed
Dependencies — what you need
- Access to stakeholders across functions, not only the sponsor
- Topics defined: goals, constraints, history, risks, success
- Agreement on how responses are shared, so people can speak candidly
People involved
- Design
- Research
- Product
- Stakeholders
- SMEs
Typical outputs
- A stakeholder map of roles, interests, and authority
- Goals, constraints, and success definitions, with sources
- Points of agreement and disagreement
- Open questions and assumptions for user research
Template
Stakeholder Interviews template
A fill-in structure for running this method: what to prepare, what to do, what to record, and how to read the result.
How AI can help
AI as augmentation — not replacement
- Draft a guide tailored to each role
- Suggest follow-ups that probe constraints and reasons
- Summarize notes into goals, constraints, and open questions, for the interviewer to verify
- Draft a stakeholder map for review
AI prompt
A prompt for any AI assistant. It works only from material you paste in, keeps assumptions apart from findings, and leaves the decisions to you.