Defining Stakeholder Engagement

Two earlier posts have discussed the concepts of stakeholder engagement.

• The Elements of Stakeholder Engagement discussed the three foundations of stakeholder engagement and the paradigm shift in thinking needed to shift from management to engagement: https://stakeholdermanagement.wordpress.com/2015/07/20/the-elements-of-stakeholder-engagement/
• Beyond Crisis Management looks at the journey from responsive to proactive engagement with stakeholders in your community http://www.projectmanagement.com/blog/Voices-on-Project-Management/13868/

This post builds on these foundations to look at the tools and techniques of proactive stakeholder engagement. Effective stakeholder engagement is a mutually beneficial process designed to enable better planned and more informed policies, projects, programs and services.

For stakeholders, the benefits of engagement include the opportunity to contribute as experts in their field or ‘users’ of the deliverable, have their issues heard and participate in the decision-making process. This should lead to:

• Greater opportunities to contribute directly to the development of the outputs from the work;
• More open and transparent lines of communication, increasing accountability and driving innovation;
• Improved access to decision-making processes, resulting in the delivery of better outcomes;
• Early identification of synergies between the stakeholders and the work, encouraging integrated and comprehensive solutions to complex issues.

For the ‘organisation’, the benefits of stakeholder engagement include improved information flows, access to local knowledge and having the opportunity to try out ideas or proposals with stakeholders before they are formalised. This should lead to:

• Higher quality decision-making;
• Increased efficiency in and effectiveness of delivery;
• Improved risk management practices – allowing risks to be identified and considered earlier, thereby reducing future costs;
• Streamlined development processes;
• Greater alignment with stakeholder interests – ensuring outputs are delivered in collaboration with stakeholders and provide outcomes which meet their needs;
• Enhanced stakeholder community confidence in the work being undertaken;
• Enhanced capacity to innovate.

As with any stakeholder management process, ‘not all stakeholders are equal’ some stakeholders should be engaged because they are important to the work being undertaken, others simply need to be kept informed by appropriate levels of communication (for more on this see The three types of stakeholder communication).

The various levels of stakeholder communication, management and engagement are:

• Inform: You provide the stakeholder with an appropriate level of communication, generally either PR or reporting.
• Manage: You direct your communication to achieve a desired change in the attitude of the stakeholder or to manage an emerging situation.
• Consult: You invite the stakeholder to provide feedback, analysis, and/or suggest alternatives to help develop a better outcome.
• Involve: You work directly with stakeholders to ensure that their concerns and needs are consistently understood and considered; eg, the business representative involved in an Agile sprint).
• Collaborate: You partner with the stakeholder to develop mutually agreed alternatives, make joint decisions and identify preferred solutions; eg, typical ‘alliance’ and ‘partnering’ forms of contract.
• Empower: You place final decision-making in the hands of the stakeholder. Stakeholders are enabled (but also need to be capable) to actively contribute to the achievement of ‘their’ outcomes.

The first three bullets above are Stakeholder Management activities, the last three various levels of Stakeholder Engagement. Deciding which level of interaction is appropriate is a key driver of success, in any project, program or other work, some stakeholders will be best managed by simply keeping them informed, whereas the higher levels of engagement such as collaboration and empowerment require stakeholders with sufficient skills and knowledge to be able to actively participate in the endeavour, and importantly the desire to be involved!

The Stakeholder Circle® methodology provides the foundations needed to understand your stakeholder community and decide on the appropriate level of engagement for the ‘high priority’ stakeholders affected by the work. When you get to ‘Step 4 – Engagement’ the additional questions that need answering include:

• What is the purpose and desired outcomes of the engagement activity?
• What level of engagement is required to achieve this outcome – consult, collaborate, empower?
• What method of engagement will you use?
• What are the timing issues or requirements?
• What resources will you need to conduct the engagement?
• Who is responsible for engagement?
• What are the risks associated with the engagement?

 

Finally, as with any stakeholder management process, the success or otherwise of the overall process needs to be reviewed regularly and appropriate adaptation made to optimise outcomes (step 5 in the Stakeholder Circle® methodology)

Summary:

Stakeholder engagement is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution to managing stakeholders and needs to be planned into the overall development of the work:

• Some of the questions outlined above need asking at the very earliest stages of a project or program during the ‘strategic planning phase’ and will affect the way the whole of the work is planned and undertaken.
• The culture of the organisation undertaking the work will determine how open it is to inviting stakeholder collaboration or engagement, a degree of ‘culture change’ may need to be planned into the work.
• Stakeholder engagement is always a two-way process, the skills, capability and culture of the key stakeholders will also be a constraint on what is feasible or desirable. You may need a strategy to ‘get the stakeholders on-side’.

Overall time and effort spent on stakeholder engagement will pay dividends (see: Valuing Stakeholder Management), stakeholder engagement is simply the most proactive way of helping your stakeholders to help you deliver their requirements successfully.