“AI Stakeholder Facilitation Map” and How to Anticipate Strategic Questions
A few months ago, I had the opportunity to participate in an AI Research course led by Ann Conway, director of the agency Amplify. The course was heavily focused on how to turn LLMs into true allies throughout our research and synthesis activities during a project. One of the strategies Ann shared was anticipating the potential questions that stakeholders may ask during a meeting where we need to present our design process, research, and final outcomes. Presenting findings can be challenging for anyone contributing to a project. For this, there is a widely used technique in the design and product world known as the “Stakeholder Facilitation Map.” Brief Overview of the Stakeholder Facilitation Map This technique helps us identify who the people involved in the project are, what level of influence and interest they have, who we need to keep informed or satisfied, and how these factors impact decision-making. However, this article is not focused on explaining this technique itself, since there is already plenty of theory around it. Instead, we’ll use it as a starting point. For the next steps, we need to define a scenario where we already know the project stakeholders and their level of influence and interest. Interacting with AI Imagine that tomorrow you have a meeting with department leadership, the project manager, and the CEO. You need to present important research findings, your design process, and the final outcome. You feel confident talking about them, but you don’t know what potential questions may come up during the meeting. This is where we begin thinking strategically by feeding the AI with the project brief and the “Stakeholder Mapping.” Additionally, include which parts of the research you want to position, why they are important, and what impact they have had on the results. Then identify your stakeholders. Here’s an example: If you want better results, you can also include personal characteristics of each stakeholder. If you’ve had previous meetings, you can add comments they’ve made, recurring concerns, or viewpoints they’ve expressed. Example: “Andrea has previously shown a tendency to run live testing directly on the product. Because of this, she shows some resistance toward conducting user testing before launch, likely because she believes it may slow down the process more than necessary.” Once you’ve loaded all this information into the AI, provide a prompt similar to this: “I need to present the following points ‘…’ in tomorrow’s meeting regarding this particular topic ‘…’. Based on the information I’ve shared about the project stakeholders, help me anticipate potential questions each of them may have. For every question, and considering the project context and the elements I want to position, help me prepare strategic responses. Create at least 3 questions and answers per stakeholder.” Additionally, it’s valuable to challenge your own research and ask the AI to identify weak points in your strategy and possible improvements. Something like: “Once we have mapped the strategic questions and answers, help me identify weak points that may represent a risk for decision-making, and provide pro tips to better position my research.” Finally, you can ask the AI to help you structure a concise storytelling approach for your presentation when exposing your findings: “Based on the points I want to position, the profile of each stakeholder, and the potential questions, help me create a step-by-step structure for my presentation.” Your result may look something like this: Clearly, the prompts, definitions, and refinements should ultimately come from you. Everything the AI provides should align with your strategy, and the more specific the profile of each stakeholder becomes (including qualitative information), the more refined the potential questions — and the more accurate your responses — will be. Final Step Now, we shouldn’t stop at the AI output alone. There is a huge opportunity to put this strategy into action and validate it after the meeting by synthesizing everything that was discussed and presented. Create a recap of your conversation with the AI and then ask it to generate a prompt that can be copied into FigJam, Miro, or your preferred collaborative whiteboard tool. Example: “Based on everything we’ve worked on, create a prompt that I can paste into FigJam where I can identify each stakeholder, their questions and answers, and the main steps to position the research and storytelling.” Your result may look something like this: Once the meeting is over, together with your personal notes, AI notes, or meeting transcript, it’s time to move everything into your collaboration board. Validate which of the anticipated questions actually came up: In conclusion, building a stakeholder mapping scenario, identifying pain points, thought patterns, tendencies, motivations, and target profiles for each stakeholder — while also anticipating potential questions and identifying weaknesses in your strategy and research — will help you stay one step ahead and strengthen the confidence behind your responses. I hope this perspective helps you continue growing and strengthening your strategic positioning across your projects, department, or organization.
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions and How to Interpret Them for UX / Gaming
This article aims to bring clarity to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and how they can be applied to design and research processes within the field of user experience. A brief overview Geert Hofstede was a Dutch psychologist who, during the 1960s, developed a research framework to better understand human behavior and the cultural patterns of specific societies. Like many sociological research models, this theory provides a solid perspective to measure, understand, analyze, and empathize with people from different backgrounds, as well as with communities, ethnic groups, families, and individuals. What is it about? Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are measured across six main areas: Power Distance, Individualism vs. Collectivism, Motivation toward achievement and success, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long-Term Orientation, and finally, Indulgence. Below, we explain each one using simple examples. Power Distance Power Distance describes how individuals relate to hierarchy and authority, and how power is expected to be distributed and exercised. It also reflects how willing people are to accept this structure in their daily lives, relationships, and social interactions. Individualism vs. Collectivism A high or low level of individualism is not necessarily good or bad. The more individualistic a society is, the less collectivist it tends to be, and vice versa. This dimension explains whether people relate to society mainly as individuals, prioritizing personal growth, or whether progress is closely tied to the success of the group as a whole. Motivation toward achievement and success Somewhat related to the previous dimension, this one measures how competitive people are when it comes to achieving goals and how much society values success. A low score usually means the culture prioritizes quality of life and balance, rather than standing out or competing aggressively with others. Uncertainty Avoidance This dimension looks at how comfortable a society is with uncertainty and lack of control. It shows whether people prefer to avoid ambiguous situations or are able to adapt and accept that the future can be unpredictable. It also reflects how individuals deal with ambiguity and how this affects collective anxiety. Long-Term Orientation As the name suggests, this dimension is related to how people approach goals over the short or long term. Some cultures are more tradition-oriented and prefer quick, visible results, while others take a more pragmatic and patient approach, focusing on saving, planning, and long-term effort. Indulgence Indulgence relates to how freely people allow themselves to enjoy life. It reflects how societies deal with leisure, pleasure, failure, and mistakes, and how strict or permissive people are with themselves and others. Higher indulgence is often linked to valuing rest, fun, and personal enjoyment. How does all of this apply to UX? I work in the Gaming sector and have been applying this framework in practice through research strategies aimed at better understanding our target audience in Southeast Asia, specifically in Singapore and Malaysia. Although these two countries belong to the same region and share some historical and economic background, they are not culturally identical. Singapore tends to be more pragmatic and competitive, with a strong need for control in long-term planning and decision-making. Despite its smaller size and population, it has a strong, financially solid economy centered around technology and efficiency, with a higher GDP. Malaysia, on the other hand, is a multicultural and ethnically diverse country with a more visible social, religious, and political structure. It has a larger territory and population, and its economy is more focused on manufacturing and natural resources. These differences play a key role in how digital Gaming products are positioned in the region. To achieve meaningful impact and engagement, it became necessary to apply the cultural dimensions mentioned above. This allows us to create strategies tailored to each audience while still sharing common elements that support user-centered design. Applying the dimensions to Gaming strategies Once we understand each dimension, the next step is to translate them into UX strategies that shape the user experience of a Gaming product, from interface design and critical flows to research, testing, and analysis. Let’s take Malaysia as an example: Summary Like any research framework, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions offer another lens to understand audiences and how products interact with them. They help teams approach users more thoughtfully from a cultural and social perspective. Of course, these insights should always be tested and validated through qualitative and quantitative research, integrating findings into the design process to support better decision-making across the business. I hope this article helps you better understand and empathize with your users. Translated by AI from the original post in Spanish.