Analytical Framework Design

Context An evaluation of stakeholder relationships for a major UK Foundation.

The Challenge The client needed more than an assessment of past activities, they needed a new way of thinking about how their relationships with stakeholders actually worked, one that could guide strategy going forward rather than just report on what had already happened.

What I Did Moving from evaluator to architect, I independently designed an empirically grounded, multi-feature framework, mapping stakeholder influence against values alignment, with four relationship archetypes derived inductively from the evidence rather than imposed from an existing model. I then co-facilitated a workshop with a partner organisation to test and validate the framework directly with stakeholders.

Outcome The framework held up under stakeholder scrutiny in the validation workshop, and surfaced a specific strategic focus area for the client going forward. This work shifted my role on the project from delivering an evaluation to shaping the client’s strategic thinking.