A business professional presents a SAP S/4HANA transformation roadmap during a meeting.
Definition
In TOGAF®, stakeholder management is defined as a set of processes and techniques used to identify individuals and organizations with an interest in an architecture (EA) initiative, understand their concerns and level of influence, and engage them continuously throughout the project lifecycle.
TOGAF® recommends applying this technique first in ADM Phase A (Architecture Vision) to identify key stakeholders, and then refining and using it iteratively across subsequent phases.
Purpose
The primary goal is to identify high‑influence stakeholders early, secure their sponsorship, and increase the chances of success for the architecture initiative.
It also aims to capture stakeholder concerns and requirements and reflect them in architecture views, deliverables, and roadmaps.
Another important purpose is to surface conflicting interests and sources of resistance as early as possible so that alignment, negotiation, and change management strategies can be defined.
Finally, the technique supports planning targeted, structured communication and managing expectations across the entire project duration.
TOGAF’s Stakeholder Management Technique can be understood as a practical sequence of steps.
a. Identify Stakeholders
Start by scanning organizational structures, project charters, existing roles, committees, and governance forums to identify individuals and groups who have a stake in the EA or transformation.
TOGAF provides typical stakeholder types across categories such as “Business”, “IT”, “Operations”, and “Governance”, which can be used as a checklist.
b. Classify Stakeholder Positions
Next, classify stakeholders using a Power–Interest matrix, mapping their level of influence (Power) against their level of involvement or concern (Interest).
Evaluate whether each stakeholder is supportive, neutral, or opposed, and organize these insights as both risks and opportunities for the initiative.
c. Determine the Stakeholder Management Approach
Based on this classification, decide how often to interact with each stakeholder, through which channels, and for what purpose (information, consultation, decision, escalation, etc.).
For example, executives may join monthly value review sessions, while key users participate in weekly design or Fit/Gap workshops.
d. Tailor Engagement Deliverables
Prepare different views, reports, and communication formats tailored to each stakeholder’s concerns and level of understanding.
Executives may need high‑level roadmaps and investment/value slides, whereas IT teams need detailed target architecture diagrams and interface lists.
This cycle is iterative across all ADM phases and should be updated when new stakeholders appear, especially in Phases E/F (Opportunities & Solutions, Migration Planning) and G/H (Implementation Governance, Architecture Change Management).
From here, the focus shifts to how an Enterprise Architect can apply TOGAF’s Stakeholder Management Technique in a typical global SAP S/4HANA implementation project.
In a multinational SAP program including Japanese entities, typical stakeholder groups include:
These stakeholders map directly to TOGAF’s business, technical, and governance categories and can be organized accordingly.
A typical Power–Interest mapping in an SAP S/4HANA program might look like this:
Using this classification, the Enterprise Architect designs stakeholder engagement: who reviews which deliverables, at what frequency, and in which decision‑making forums.
Concrete examples of how TOGAF‑style stakeholder management translates into deliverables in an SAP program include:
The entire configuration of “who, what, how often, through which channel” corresponds directly to what TOGAF calls the Stakeholder Management Strategy.
Within the TOGAF® ADM, Stakeholder Management is positioned as a core technique and a prerequisite for successful architecture initiatives.
Put simply, it is a way to identify the actors in the transformation story and deliberately design which narrative should be delivered to each of them.
In an SAP implementation, this technique helps answer questions such as:
If these questions are left vague, even the most elegant SAP architecture can be blocked by resistance, misunderstanding, or lack of ownership.
The first step is to identify stakeholders, but the key is to list them together with their main concerns rather than just their job titles.
In an SAP S/4HANA program, examples might include:
For Enterprise Architects, these concerns are the foundation for later designing architecture viewpoints.
For example, the CFO’s view should be built around “investment vs return” and “risk and controls”, whereas GPOs need views that highlight end‑to‑end processes and KPIs.
Once stakeholders and their concerns are identified, use the Power–Interest matrix to map them.
In SAP projects, this matrix becomes the backbone for deciding membership of governance forums and who reviews which deliverables.
For instance:
Two practical rules are critical: avoid surprising high‑power stakeholders by excluding them from key discussions, and avoid turning high‑interest stakeholders into passive observers.
In SAP programs, the second point is particularly important for effective change management.
TOGAF® strongly encourages tailoring architecture views and deliverables to stakeholder concerns.
In SAP implementations, the same architecture information, when presented from different angles, can trigger very different levels of understanding and buy‑in.
Consider a target landscape centered on S/4HANA:
The architecture does not change, but modifying the viewpoint and level of detail dramatically improves stakeholder understanding and commitment.
A core responsibility of the Enterprise Architect is to design architecture views that are not only technically correct but also expressed in the stakeholder’s own “language”.
Stakeholder Management is not a one‑off exercise done only at the beginning.
In TOGAF® ADM, it is assumed that new stakeholders will appear and existing ones will change their interests as the project moves from Phase A through E, F, G, and H.
In an SAP program, this typically looks like:
At each phase, it is important to reassess who currently has the most influence and the highest interest, then update the Power–Interest matrix and engagement strategy accordingly.
Finally, some practical tips for Enterprise Architects who want to make Stakeholder Management work in real SAP projects:
TOGAF’s Stakeholder Management Technique provides a common language and thinking framework to support these practices.
In large‑scale transformations such as SAP S/4HANA implementations, it becomes a powerful tool for Enterprise Architects to act as architects of people and organizations, not just systems.
Please refer to this article for topics related to Enterprise Architecture (EA).
Enterprise Architecture – Insight Arc | SAP, Enterprise Architecture & Supply Chain Strategy
Parts of this article were developed with reference to generative AI suggestions and were reviewed, refined, and supplemented based on the author’s professional expertise and judgment.
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