Who has a stake in the work?
For a new appointment booking system, stakeholders might include patients, reception staff, clinicians, the organisation paying for it, and the team responsible for keeping it running. Each group cares about different results and may spot different problems.
A user interacts with the product. A customer buys it or receives the service. Either may be a stakeholder, but so might a manager approving the budget or a support team handling questions. One person can belong to several groups.
Listen to the right people at the right time
Teams involve stakeholders in discovery to understand needs, then check requirements and share progress as the work develops. A stakeholder’s feedback is evidence, not automatically a decision or a promise to build a feature.
It helps to be clear about who gives input, who makes a decision, and who needs an update. Those responsibilities depend on the organisation and the decision being made; “stakeholder” alone does not grant someone final say.