|
home | strategy development | strategy
skills | site
index | access
keys
Effectively engaging with stakeholders
>
in practice
> template
Having identified all the stakeholders and their
issues, the team will need to decide how they will prioritise their
efforts between them and how they will most effectively engage with them.
Prioritising effort
In order to prioritise the team's efforts it is
necessary to identify the most important, or key stakeholders - i.e.
those who are most affected by or most capable of
influencing the strategy and its implementation. Combining this with an
understanding of how supportive each stakeholder is likely to be will then
enable the team to differentiate their approach to engaging with them. A
simple matrix can help in this process:
- Stakeholders who are highly supportive and highly important should
be closely involved with the work of the team.
- Stakeholders who are highly important but not supportive need to be
closely managed with the aim of increasing their level of support. To
do this, it is helpful to determine the benefits that the project can
offer to them, and identify how those benefits can be sold to the
stakeholder.
- Stakeholders who are supportive but of little importance could
provide a distraction and should be acknowledged but then managed
accordingly.
- Stakeholders who are neither supportive nor important should be
monitored to ensure that their level of importance does not change,
but otherwise should not distract the team.
It may be helpful to plot the matrix twice - once
considering the degree of influence of each stakeholder, and once
considering the degree to which each stakeholders is affected by the
strategy. The first matrix will inform the process of achieving
political buy-in, and the second will help focus the team on serving the
true customers of the strategy.
Engaging with stakeholders
Having identified those stakeholders that will be
most closely involved with the project, it is necessary to identify how
best to engage with them throughout the various stages of the project.
The key elements of a positive stakeholder
relationship include:
- Early agreement of the need to work together to deliver results
- Meetings to establish project parameters, success criteria and
potential constraints or barriers
- Review and agreement of key issues
- Early flagging of problems
- Constant updates on progress.
The table below identifies some of the steps to
stakeholder engagement throughout 4 phases of the strategy process.
|
Phase |
Key Stakeholder Management Tasks |
|
Justification & Set Up |
- Agree objectives and questions to be answered
- Determine process for consultation
- Discussion of broad issues
|
|
Research & Analysis |
- Identify key concerns/issues and collect knowledge
- Communicate emerging conclusions
|
|
Strategic Direction Setting |
- Seek views as to emerging strategic options
- Communicate chosen option
|
|
Policy and Delivery Design |
- Consult on policy design, especially those responsible for
implementation
- Secure collective agreement if required
|
There are a number of approaches to engaging with
stakeholders, including:
- One to one meetings (usually required on regular basis with
influential stakeholders)
- Inviting stakeholders to sit on Steering, Advisory or Working Groups
- Presentations to staff/senior management teams/boards
- Recruiting team members from stakeholder organisations
- Joint working with stakeholder organisations on key issues
- Conducting a public consultation exercise and preparing an interim
report for publication
- Seminars for broader debate of particular issues or topics
- Written communications, for example in the form of newsletters,
updates or drafts of papers
- E-mails
- Web sites posting up key papers
- Focus
groups and
seminars - for example, these might be a useful way of involving members
of a sector, representative organisations and users.
Different approaches are likely to be appropriate for different
stakeholders. A combination of approaches is likely to be most effective,
especially for key stakeholders.
Effectively engaging with stakeholders
In Practice 1: SU GM Crops Project
The GM crops project learned some tough lessons in
stakeholder engagement. Despite the team having drawn up a stakeholder
management plan, the initial scoping document - heavily reliant on
internal work and comments from other government departments - was widely
and severely criticised by many external stakeholder groups.
In response to the criticism, the GM crops team opted
for a much more extensive level of stakeholder engagement. All interim
papers (including the criticisms of the scoping note) were published, and
the team arranged stakeholder seminars to design the scenarios for the
project and to draw up some illustrative "shocks and surprises".
Repeat meetings with key stakeholders were organised, and many key
stakeholders were involved in "Expert Groups" which had the
opportunity to provide input to work in progress. A long list of contacts
was kept informed of key developments in the project, and at the end of
the project, a post-publication event provided stakeholders with an
opportunity to comment on the report and the methodology.
Whilst most stakeholders were interested mainly in the content of the
report, the degree of engagement in the process was widely welcomed. NGOs
in particular appreciated the feeling of being used as a source of
valuable information, rather than just another group to tick off a list.
The ability of the team to respond and re-plan in the light of criticisms
was also seen as positive. Overall, the project achieved a surprising
degree of consensus, with most groups feeling that their viewpoint had
been listened to and reflected in the report.
|
Effectively engaging with stakeholders
In Practice 2: SU Fisheries Project
The Fisheries Project set up two bodies to mediate
formal contact with external stakeholders. The team invited a 'Red Team'
of fishing industry experts to act as critical friends of the project.
They provided constructive criticism of the team's thinking at key
stages of the project. In addition, the Stakeholder Advisory Group brought
together representatives from all sectors of the fishing industry along
with environmentalists and other stakeholders. Two meetings were held
during the course of the project. These were structured to allow the team
to communicate key findings and for the Stakeholder Advisory Group to
input to the team's work.
The consultation paper, launched after the first couple
of months of analysis, had several purposes. It provided an opportunity
for gathering data that could not be found by other means. It gave
individual stakeholders and organisations the opportunity to feed into the
team's work through a formal process. It also provided the team with the
opportunity to present some of the initial analysis in a form that
challenged preconceived notions and asked some searching questions. This
was useful in preparing the ground for consideration of reform of the
fisheries sector.
The team also held a Stakeholder Event after the bulk
of the analysis had been done. The team invited over sixty stakeholders;
people met during the course of the project and a number of respondents to
the consultation exercise. The Stakeholder Event allowed the team to 'truth
test' its findings with a cross-section of stakeholders, continue the
process of challenging received wisdom and provide stakeholders with 'early
warning' of the likely terrain of the final report. The Stakeholder
Event used outside facilitation and innovative technology to allow
structured participation from attendees. This meant that all participants
were able to comment on the team's work.
The use of a mixture of conventional and innovative
tools for stakeholder engagement, combined with a commitment to
transparency, encouraged constructive engagement and allowed the team to
access resources and knowledge that were invaluable to gaining an
understanding of a highly complex field.
|
^ top
|
