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Actor Network Map

What

A tool to create a visual map of all the actors that have an influence on your product or service. The actor map shows all the actors involved, their relationship and their level of influence on your organisation.

Why

This tool gives you an idea of all the actors that play a role in the product or service you deliver. Creating an Actor Network will trigger thoughts about your role in relation to the stakeholders involved. It will help you to identify opportunities for new connections beyond the “usual suspects” in your network.

How

1. Write down the most influential actors (people, organisations, objects, technology, etc.) that influence or are influenced by your product or service. Try to be specific: don’t say customers but say who they are, e.g. parents, students, homeowners, etc.

2. Group the actors into clusters (for instance: users, buyers, suppliers, donors, technologies, businesses, etc.). Assign a color to each group.

3. Draw circles representing each actor, taking the following into account:

• The size of the circle represents the importance or influence of each actor in relation to the others. For instance, a donor’s circle would normally be bigger than the circle representing a small organisation.

• The color identifies the group that the actor belongs to. For instance, Artificial Intelligence and 3D printing are green because they belong to the group ‘Technology’).

• Visualise how the groups relate to each other by using lines and/or arrows. For example, an arrow indicates that a donor circle provides funding to the startup circle

💡 Practical tip

Actors can play different roles: look beyond the first label you put on the different actors. For example: a mother can also be a wife, an Instagram user, a consumer, a dancer, an entrepreneur or employee etc.

The project team. If possible, you can include experts (could also be the MeM)

45-60 minutes

• Digital worksheet or paper and pen

Reflection moment

With the team, evaluate the map:

• Do you already engage with the stakeholders in the map?

• Do you have a strategy to keep this engagement strong and sustainable?

• Who else should you engage with?

Based on the result of this reflection, come up with a strategy to ensure that these actors are leveraged by your business, and that new “unusual” actors are taken into account.

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Actor network map

Worksheet instructions

You can fill in this online worksheet by downloading it as .pptx and typing in the text boxes, editing and moving around the different elements and adding new ones.

Step 1: Make an actor list

Cluster xxx:	Cluster xxx:	Cluster xxx:	Cluster xxx:	Cluster xxx:

Step 2: Cluster all the actors

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Actor network map worksheet

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Worksheet instructions

You can fill in this online worksheet by downloading it as .pptx and typing in the text boxes, editing and moving around the different elements and adding new ones.

Step 3: Create a network out of the clustered actors