Mendelow’s Matrix is a stakeholder prioritisation framework that plots each stakeholder on a two-by-two grid by their power and interest in a project. The quadrant they land in determines how you engage them, from one-way updates for low-power, low-interest contacts through to full collaboration with those who hold both high power and high interest in what you’re doing.
It’s the most widely used tool for answering the question every engagement team faces: with limited time and resource, who gets what level of attention?
What is Mendelow’s Matrix?
Developed by Aubrey Mendelow in 1991, the framework maps stakeholders on two dimensions. Power is the ability to influence a project’s outcome, and interest is how much a stakeholder cares about that outcome. Plotting both gives you four quadrants, each requiring a different engagement approach.
| Quadrant | Power | Interest | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monitor | Low | Low | General updates, light touch |
| Keep informed | Low | High | Regular updates, active consultation |
| Keep satisfied | High | Low | Proactive briefings, direct access |
| Manage closely | High | High | Full collaboration, shared ownership |
The matrix isn’t a one-time exercise, stakeholders move between quadrants as a project evolves. A local councillor who starts in ‘monitor’ can shift to ‘manage closely’ the moment a planning decision lands in their patch. This is why regular reviews matter, particularly on long-duration projects.
How does Mendelow’s Matrix connect to the four levels of stakeholder engagement?
The quadrants map directly onto a practical engagement framework. The four levels - inform, consult, involve, and collaborate - each correspond to the type of relationship the matrix has identified:
- Monitor → Inform. Low power, low interest. These stakeholders need to know what’s happening, but they don’t need to be involved in decisions. One-way channels, such as website updates, newsletters, press releases, are right.
- Keep informed → Consult. High interest, limited power. These stakeholders have opinions worth hearing even if they don’t hold decision-making authority. Surveys, forums, and public hearings give them a voice without overpromising on outcomes.
- Keep satisfied → Consult or involve. High power, low interest. This combination rewards careful handling. These stakeholders can make or break a project if they become unhappy, even if they’re not closely following the detail. Personalised briefings and early sight of decisions keep them onside.
- Manage closely → Collaborate. High power, high interest. These stakeholders are partners, not recipients of information. They should be co-authoring relevant documents, reviewing risk registers, and part of the decision-making process.
Informing and monitoring stakeholders
At the inform level, your job is to provide updates and make information easy to find. The onus is on the stakeholder to read what you publish.
Communication is mostly one-way. Transparency matters, but active dialogue isn’t yet required.
The right channels include:
- Corporate websites and dedicated project pages
- Social media and press release outlets
- Digital newsletters and email distribution lists
- Public announcements
The risk here is under-investment, monitoring doesn’t mean forgetting. Stakeholders who feel uninformed can shift position quickly, particularly when decisions start to affect them more directly.
Consulting stakeholders
Consulting goes beyond information delivery. Here you’re actively seeking input from stakeholders with real interest in the project, even if their direct influence on outcomes is limited. Two-way communication is essential.
Useful channels include:
- Discussion forums and online Q&As
- Surveys and questionnaires via an engagement portal
- Public hearings and town hall meetings, for those with limited online access
- Personalised communications for high-power, low-interest stakeholders who won’t seek information out themselves
The responses need to be logged, analysed, and fed back into decisions. That’s what separates genuine consultation from a tick-box exercise, and what regulators, inspectors, and judicial reviewers look for when scrutinising an engagement record. A University of Hawaii study found that 94% of spreadsheets contain errors, with roughly one in every 20 cells affected, which is why a purpose-built system matters as consultation volumes grow.
Involving stakeholders
Involvement means treating stakeholders as partners in shaping decisions rather than recipients of them. Stakeholders at this level have high interest and real influence; they expect to contribute meaningfully.
The engagement approach here emphasises:
- Workshops and participatory processes
- Co-creation of plans, strategies, or documents
- Ongoing two-way dialogue with visible feedback loops showing how input has shaped outcomes
Trust matters more here than anywhere else. Stakeholders who are involved but feel their input is being disregarded don’t stay involved for long.
Collaborating with stakeholders
Collaboration is the highest level of engagement, reserved for ‘manage closely’ stakeholders, those with both high power and high interest. At this level they’re active partners with shared ownership of decisions and outcomes.
Collaboration typically includes:
- Real-time access to shared documents, including the risk register
- Joint planning sessions and co-authorship of process documents
- A place in the project’s internal communications channels
- Personalised engagement that reflects their specific stake in the project
This is the level major infrastructure programmes operate at. On the Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C programmes, EDF Energy uses Tractivity to log and respond to stakeholder issues at scale, around 30,000 issues recorded at a 100% response rate. The audit trail at that level isn’t optional; it’s evidence that every raised concern was heard and acted on.
How do you determine the right engagement level in practice?
The process runs in sequence:
- Identify who your stakeholders are: individuals, groups, and organisations affected by or with influence over your project.
- Analyse them: what do they know, what do they want, and how directly will the project affect them?
- Map them using stakeholder mapping on Mendelow’s Matrix, placing each on the power/interest grid.
- Assign an engagement level based on their quadrant: inform, consult, involve, or collaborate.
- Review regularly. Stakeholder positions shift. The mapping exercise is ongoing, not a one-time output.
The practical challenge is that most organisations are managing dozens or hundreds of stakeholders across multiple projects at once. Spreadsheets handle early-stage work, but they break down when stakeholders appear across projects, engagement histories need auditing, or a regulator asks to see the record. A stakeholder relationship management platform is built for exactly this complexity.
National Grid has 430+ Tractivity users coordinating engagement across the UK and US east coast from a single shared stakeholder record. SSEN has grown from 15 users to more than 200 since 2018. Anglian Water manages 13,000+ stakeholders across a £10bn investment programme in one system. The stakeholder engagement plan is the strategy; the SRM is how you evidence you followed it.
Build your stakeholder engagement plan around the matrix
Understanding who sits in which Mendelow quadrant shapes every decision in your engagement plan: which channels to use, how often to communicate, and how much resource to allocate to each stakeholder group.
Tractivity is built to support engagement at every level, from mass communications and surveys for inform and consult activity, through to shared project access and sentiment tracking for involve and collaborate relationships.
Request a demo to see how Tractivity manages the full Mendelow spectrum in one place.
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