Stakeholder Engagement for Project Success
Many new projects both large and small, ranging from housing developments to the creation of new traffic corridors, have been unfortunately consigned to the too hard basket because of a failure by its proponents to predict, let alone deal with the adverse reaction of stakeholders.
It is not a particularly surprising outcome when you consider every new development takes time and energy by talented people to conceive, plan, and prepare, believing they have dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’. And to be fair, they may well have considered the potential reaction of stakeholders, but it is more than likely such an assessment has been be disproportionately influenced by the belief they were doing something good.
That is echo chamber planning, and more often than not a crucial mistake.
Why? Because you should never assume stakeholder reaction. When you do, project implementation becomes a ‘selling’ process rather than the unveiling a collaboratively plan.
With that in minds, community consultation should always be part of the planning stage as those with a stake in the outcome need to be assured their voice is heard and that they have a meaningful ‘stake’ in the process. That won’t necessarily provide an opposition-free situation, but it will go a long way to achieving overriding acceptance.
So, what should stakeholder consultation actually involve?
In a perfect world, it is a multi-stage undertaking, including:
- Stakeholder mapping in which organisations, interest groups and individuals are proritise against two fundamental measurements – their interest and influence.
- The auditing of primary stakeholders – those with the strongest interest and greatest influence. This requires face-to-face individual interviews to capture opinions and insights that are not normally achievable using more traditional research methods. This is vital in exposing the issues, views, concerns and expectations of opinion leaders.
- Focus group testing at which the insights from the audit are discussed with small, diverse groups of stakeholders to help prioritise obstacles to community acceptance.
- Consideration of what measures could be taken to obviate the prime reasons for community dissatisfaction.
- Vulnerability auditing to identify those remaining issues, organisations and people for which there is minimal prospect of appeasement. This will also require updating the stakeholder map.
- Development of a strategic communication plan to inform the community on the results and outcomes of the consultative process – i.e. the findings and resultant remedial action.
- Adoption and implementation of the development plan.
The entire process should ideally be overseen by an independent organisation holding International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) accreditation. This ensure the efficacy of the consultative process.
One final word of warning. It is not uncommon for developments to unearth passionate opponents and critics no one anticipated. Be alert for that reality and do not ignore their potential impact.