Help:Practical guide on stakeholder involvement

PRACTICAL GUIDE ON STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT

PLEASE NOTE: This page is under construction.

The purpose of this page is to provide you some guidance on the management of stakeholder involvement. A stakeholder is a person or organisation that has (may have) some interest in your project. As you will notice, it is all about common sense. The benefit of this guide hides in the explicification of stakeholder management issues. By answering the lead questions, you will become aware of these issues.

Why should you involve stakeholders? This first somewhat philosophical question is often not explicitly answered. The decision to involve stakeholders can be made for several reasons: (1) It is ethical just to involve people and organisations, when your work influences their interests. (2) Stakeholders have a plurality of view and often inside-information, which are important to you work. (3) Stakeholders can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your work; stakeholder involvement increases common understanding, and the acceptability and usefulness of the project output.

IDENTIFICATION PHASE

This guide distinguishes two phases: the identification phase and the involvement phase. During the identification phase, stakeholders are identified, their wants and expectations in relation to your work are mapped, as well as your own wants in relation to the stakeholder. Lead questions for identification and mapping are:

Who are the stakeholders?

If there is decided to involve stakeholders, you need to identify them. You can make a list of people and organisations that can influence or can be influences by your project work. Consider both positive and negative influence. For example, in a risk assessment of coal-industrial pollutants, the involvement of the industry can facilitate data collection and policy measure acceptance (stakeholder's positive influence) and the involvement of "the money" is crucial to secure financial resources (stakeholder's negative influence). You could also ask stakeholders who else they consider to be a stakeholder, so that you do not overlook someone.

What does each STAKEHOLDER wants from us?

Each stakeholder has its own expectations concerning your work, because he/she/it has some stake in your project. For example, stakeholders could want to maintain the status quo, and thus expect the project to leave their interest untouched. They could also want to be actively involved in a particular matter. Stakeholders could want to be informed, so that they can react to any inconvenienced developments. Stakeholders could expect to be heard, so that they can express their views. By answering "what does each stakeholder wants from us?” you identify, estimate and group stakeholders' expectation in relation to your work. Several subquestions, such as: "what is the stakeholder's view on our project, and why?", "does the stakeholder see the same problem(s) as we do, and why (not)?" or "what is the stakeholder’s role in our project, and why?" can be helpful in estimating stakeholder wants. Nota bene, stakeholder wants can be estimated wrongly; asking for stakeholder views on the project/problem provides better insight in stakeholders' wants and expectations.

WAYS OF INDENTIFYING STAKEHOLDER WANTS:

Depending on the scale of the project, the budget and time limits, you can map stakeholder wants in several ways. You could organise within the unit/department a brainstorm session, in which you will estimate stakeholder wants. The advantage of a brainstorm session is that it is relatively fast and cheap. Its disadvantage is that it yields estimations of wants and expectations. You could also organise hearings, for which stakeholders are invited and in which they can present their expectations. The advantage of a hearing is that all stakeholders’ expectations are heard at the same time. Its disadvantage is that with a large number of stakeholders the hearing last forever and is difficult to arrange (time and date planning, transport, location, etc.). With a large number of stakeholders, (group) interviews in which stakeholders are asked for their views and expectations are more convenient. The disadvantage of interviews is that it requires a lot of time. Surveys can also be used for mapping stakeholder wants and expectations. The advantage of a survey is that you can question a large number of stakeholders without relatively much effort. Its disadvantage is that certain expectations/wants may not be named, because the questionnaire limits answers to the questions.

What do WE want from each stakeholder?

The answer to this question is closely related to the reason(s) for stakeholder involvement. For example, do you just want to inform stakeholders or do you want stakeholders' input, i.e. their views, information, data, etc.? Do you want stakeholders' commitments, i.e. their participation in the project objectives formulation and the work process? Do you want their protection or do you want them just to be satisfied and silent? By answering "what do we want from each stakeholder?” you identify, articulate and discriminate your needs in relation to stakeholders.

INVOLVEMENT PHASE

Once you have identified and mapped your and the stakeholders' wants and expectations, the stakeholders can be involved in your work. This requires organisation. The following lead questions will direct the organisation process of stakeholder involvement:

Who SHOULD we involve? -- stakeholder power

Particular stakeholders can play an important role, because they have stakeholder power, i.e. the ability to obstruct or to accelerate the project process. As in the example of the risk assessment of coal-industrial pollutants: the industry could facilitate data collection and policy measure acceptance (stakeholder's positive power) whereas the financing party could cut of the financial resources (stakeholder's negative power). By answering the question "who should we involve?" you identify the powerful stakeholders in the project.

Who CAN we involve? -- openness

All stakeholders can be involved, but not all can participate due to capacity limitations. The openness of your project is restricted to ensure efficiency of the work process, either by you or through a natural selection process. For example if the issue-framing phase in a project is totally open for stakeholder participation, it might be that 35 different stakeholders want to participate. It is impossible to achieve within a reusable time limit consensus on the purpose, scope and content of the project, because all these stakeholders have different psychological schemas that are not aligned (REFERENCE: Jehn, Chadwick & Thatcher 1997). The lack of progress demotivates participants and consequently they withdraw disillusioned. It depends on the project organisation and capacity how many stakeholders can participate. By asking "who can we involve", you prioritise the participation of particular stakeholders.

When do we involve particular stakeholders? -- planning

Your project most probably has several phases/stages/steps/etc. (of which one is the stakeholder identification phase). In each phase particular stakeholders can play an important role due to their power or input. Take as example the first phase of the risk assessment of coal-industrial pollutants; the assessment process starts with issue-framing, where the purpose, scope and content of the assessment are specified, as well as the basic indicators. In this phase, policy maker involvement is important, because they are supposed to use the assessment output (user role). The involvement of experts is important, because their knowledge is required for indicator determination (expert role). Public involvement is important, because they might raise important practical issues that policy makers did not thought of (role of practical critic). By asking "when do we involve particular stakeholders?” you allocate particular stakeholder to particular phases in the project. Nota bene, the involvement of a stakeholder does not have to be restricted to one particular phase; he/she/it can of course be involved in several phases of the project.

Depicturing stakeholder participation

Once the questions of who should and who can we involve in which phase are answered, it is possible to draw a diagram of the project process. In this diagram the project phases are depictured and the potential participating stakeholders are allotted to one or several phases. Figure 1. gives an example.

What are the barriers to stakeholder involvement?

Persuading stakeholders to become involved in your project could be difficult. For example, stakeholders could perceive the problem as your problem and not theirs. May be, they do not see the benefits of your project. Perhaps, stakeholders distrust governmental organisations. They do not speak your language (jargon). They have an overwhelming amount to read. The documents are not to the point. The discussion is too technical. Perhaps, they believe that they cannot or should not influence the project issue or stakeholders could simply lack time. It is likely that stakeholders cannot be involved directly but that they have to be prepared for involvement. By asking "what prevents stakeholders to become involved?" you pin-point possible barriers to stakeholder involvement, which in turn enables you to decrease or remove them.

How do we involve each stakeholder?

Each stakeholder can be involved, as long they have the opportunity of involvement and practical barriers do not withhold them. All the answers to the previous questions converge on this question of "how do we involve stakeholder?". Taking into account stakeholders' wants, expectations and power, your needs, project phases and capacities, and the possible barriers to stakeholder involvement, you can opt for several ways of stakeholder involvement, which can be groups in the 3 categories: passive involvement, active involvement, and commenting.

Ways of stakeholder involvement:

1. Passive involvement refers to taking stakeholders' views and opinions into account during a phase of the project without the direct participation of the stakeholder in that phase. Passive involvement methods are most suited for the expression of view, wants and expectations in case of (1) powerful stakeholders, in the negative meaning, who are not interested in active involvement, and (2) large numbers of non-powerful stakeholders who expressed interested in the project. For example, if the financing party is not interested in direct participation but only in controlling whether its money is spend in the proper way, it does not have to be involved in meetings, etc.; your compliance to its requirements is enough. Another example, if a large number of citizen pressure groups have expressed interests but due to capacity they cannot participate in meetings, then hearing each of their opinions would provide a good alternative. As already explained in the methods for identifying stakeholder wants, brainstorm sessions, hearings, interviews and surveys are suited ways for mapping views and opinions. Briefings, reports, information on the project website or the issuing of a communiqué are ways to inform stakeholders about the status of the project, how their stakes and expressed concerns are reckoned with, et cetera.

2. Active involvement: A stakeholder is actively involved, when in one of the project stages he/she/it participates in a gathering (with reciprocal communication), for example in a meeting, conference, task force, focus group, or workshop. Active stakeholder involvement methods are most suited in case of (1) powerful stakeholders, who want to be involved. For example, the decision makers are invited to participate in a meeting for defining their information needs, or industry representatives are invited for a meeting to express their opinion.

3. Commenting: By commenting is meant ways for receiving stakeholder comments and critics at the end of a project phase. Although actually commenting is not by itself stakeholder involvement (because stakeholders are approached post factum, i.e. at the end of the project), it can be considered a way of stakeholder involvement in combination with the stakeholder involvement methods of the other two categories. Commenting requires stakeholders to be informed. Attention to the stakeholders in concept reports and on the project website, or debriefings could be a way to inform stakeholders about the results of the project, how their stakes and expressed concerns were reckoned with, which future events related to the project are planned, etc. Stakeholders can also be invited to provide feedback, comments, and criticism in a questionnaire, interview, or on the project website (for example in Wiki).

Three golden tips from the field

• Express what you expect from stakeholders: What would you like to discuss? What kind of input do you need? What would you like to have decided at the end of a meeting? et cetera

• Explain the reasons for decisions, so that stakeholders who become involved later on understand the project situation. For example: Why are there certain focus groups for measurement X? Why is impact valuated by methods Y and data Z? et cetera

• Indicate the effect of stakeholders' contributions to the project: What was achieved with the aid of stakeholder X? Who would you like to thank for his/her/its co-operation? (stakeholder power) What has been changed after stakeholder remarks? et cetera

Related matters

• How do we deal with stakeholder conflict?