Knowledge MaxxingStakeholder
A stakeholder is anyone with a meaningful interest in how a system behaves, including its users, operators, and people affected by its decisions even if they never use it directly.
Prerequisite: Sociotechnical system
What matters
Considering only the paying customer as a stakeholder can miss the people most affected by a system's decisions, who may never be consulted at all.
Example
For a loan-approval system, stakeholders include the bank deploying it, the applicant it evaluates, and regulators overseeing lending practices.
Common misconception
A stakeholder is not limited to the direct user of a system; someone affected by a decision without ever interacting with the system themselves is a stakeholder too.
Recall question
Why might someone who never directly uses a system still be a stakeholder in it?