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Nemawashi template (stakeholder plan)
Nemawashi is the practice of building agreement for a proposal one person at a time, before it goes to the formal decision. The word comes from Japanese gardening, where it means preparing the roots before a tree is moved. Done properly it changes the proposal: each conversation surfaces a concern, and the proposal is adjusted where the concern deserves it, so the meeting confirms something people already understand and have shaped. Page 1 of this template has the proposal as a draft, the decision needed, the forum and the date, the stakeholders in the order you will talk to them with their influence, how they are affected, their position before, the concerns they raised, what changed in the proposal, the date met, the follow-up and their position after, and a record of how the proposal changed version by version. Page 2 has the steps, the counts to check before the meeting and a worked example. The Excel version counts positions before and after, the share of high-influence people supporting, who moved toward support, meetings and follow-ups overdue, proposal versions and days to the decision, with a chart.
Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.
When to use it
When to use a nemawashi plan
- Before proposing a process change that operators, maintenance or other shifts will have to live with, such as a new changeover standard or a layout change.
- When a decision needs approval at a formal meeting and a cold proposal is likely to start a debate.
- When an earlier change was approved but quietly ignored on the floor because the people doing the work were never asked.
- Before a catchball round or a budget request, to know the concerns before the formal exchange.
How to fill it in
- 1
Write the proposal as a draft
What changes, why now, who it affects and what it needs. Call it a draft and mean it: it is supposed to change.
- 2
Map the people and set the order
Decision-makers, informal influencers, the people who will do the work, support teams and teams affected downstream. Start with people you trust to be honest and end with the decision-maker.
- 3
Talk one to one and listen
Ask what worries them and what they would change. Write the concern in their words and their position before the conversation.
- 4
Change the proposal and record it
Change what the concern deserves, record it as a new version and whose concern caused it, and tell the person what changed.
- 5
Widen the circle
Move to the next people only when the current group's concerns are dealt with, and keep the follow-ups you promised.
- 6
Check before the meeting
Positions after against before, how many high-influence people support it, and any meeting or follow-up still overdue. Then let the meeting confirm it, and implement quickly.
A filled-in example
Illustrative, not a benchmarkAn example: a changeover standard for presses 5 to 8 (quick-release clamps, die carts and a staged checklist, 45 to 20 minutes), going to the monthly operations review on 20 October, as of 1 October 2026 (illustrative).
- Eight stakeholders in talking order, from the day-shift press supervisor to the operations manager who decides. Before: 2 support, 3 neutral, 2 concerned, 1 against.
- The lead die setter's concern (quick-release clamps do not fit old dies 12 and 14) kept those dies on bolts until reworked; the night shift's (more paperwork, nobody asked them) cut the checklist from 24 to 12 points, co-written with a night setter.
- Maintenance took ownership of the die carts on the PM schedule, EHS got load-rated carts and a risk assessment before the trial, quality kept the first-piece check inside the 20 minutes, and the operations manager asked for a four-week pilot on press 6 first.
- Input from 7 of the 8 changed the proposal, through four versions dated 10, 17, 22 and 28 September.
After: 7 support and 1 neutral (the night shift, from against). High-influence people supporting went from 1 of 4 (25%) to 4 of 4 (100%). One follow-up was overdue, the risk assessment due on 30 September, with 19 days to the decision meeting.
Common mistakes
An announcement tour
Visiting people to tell them about a decision already made produces the same resistance as skipping nemawashi, and takes longer. If the proposal never changes, no nemawashi happened.
Going straight to the decision-maker
Skipping the people who will do the work leaves their concerns to come out after approval, on the floor, where they are expensive.
Not showing what changed
People who raised a concern and see no change conclude the conversation was for show. Tell them what changed, or why not.
Rushing it
The value comes from unhurried, individual conversations. Plan the time before the decision date, not the week before.
Download the template
Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.
Run this template in LeanSuite
In LeanSuite each project's workflow sets who can move it to the next step, what must be filled in first and who is alerted next, and the project keeps its linked documents and the discussion in comments and @mentions.
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