Stakeholder Involvement
Successful projects need to engage the users, operators, customers, and other stakeholders in critical aspects of their development. In system engineering, the process involves a systematic procedure, which encompasses reviews and decision-making points aimed at offering sound visibility into the planned process while promoting total stakeholder engagement. Importantly, systems engineering aspects require stakeholders in nearly all phases of the project, right from the preliminary needs definition and system verification to the acceptance stage (United States Department of Transportation 8). Moreover, the stakeholder who might be engaged in any specific step can vary, offering managers, technical personnel, and operators the chance to contribute to such steps by integrating their much-required inputs.
In a task such as executing an intelligent transportation system (ITS), stakeholder engagement remains a critical and fundamental process to ensure its robust and successful planning, development, deployment, and operationalization. In an ITS project, stakeholder involvement can take place through an array of forms. Some of the engagement processes include contacting stakeholders, enlisting participation, keeping participants knowledgeable, coordinating key activities, creating strong relations with partners and stakeholders, broadcasting the project, and sharing with the community. Since the ITS project development occurs in numerous stages, the constellation of various contributors will be distinct to attain the best outcome at every phase.
It is vital to work with the project stakeholders in developing the ITS project for enhanced identification possibilities while having sufficient period to make suitable judgments. Moreover, stakeholder engagement continues across the entire project, although it exhibits different levels of involvement at every process. The project can assume the V diagram defined in the systems engineering progression illustrated in the figure below.
As part of stakeholder engagement, initial outreach activities become important since the communication team can perform background studies and assessment on various areas that require addressing. The outreach exercise also provides a platform to develop short-, intermediate- and long-term strategies for communications and capacity-building. Predominate undertakings should incorporate the building of communication goals and objectives, as well as mapping of precise approach to enable prosperous stakeholder meetings. After initial mentoring accomplishments, it is essential to prepare a stakeholder engagement plan. The document provides a requisite roadmap that identifies the required needs and their anticipated accomplishment period. As the project progresses, the plan can be modified further to reflect a robust communication management strategy with structures, responsibilities, and roles.
The crafting of stakeholder agreement is also a significant aspect of the engagement process since the process helps in establishing written arrangements, which express member’s interest, commitment, and support. Some of the common stakeholder agreements include resolution of support, project charter, and cooperative agreement. A resolution entails the expression of general support and interest for the planned project without stipulating any extra involvement or commitment from the agency. Moreover, the project charter illustrates the preliminary stakeholder responsibilities and contracts. Even though it might not be a lawfully binding text, stakeholders append their signs in the prepared charter as a show of expression of commitment and support to the ongoing project. Lastly, a cooperative pact refers to documents, which are more legitimately binding and can consume time to fully prepare, review, and implement. In addition to these explicit agreements, stakeholders can contribute to project documents through letters of support as well as reviewing systems engineering documents.
Questions and Answers
What is Stakeholder Involvement?
Stakeholder involvement refers to the interaction between acknowledged groups and responsible agencies with the key intention of providing opinions and raising concerns to ensure effective consideration of such views during decision-making. The process should be devoid of interference, intimidation, coercion, and manipulation. It can be performed at different levels of the project cycle but should remain relevant, timely, accessible, and understandable in a culturally accepted format. Suitable stakeholder participation needs to establish a social license to function and must cultivate respect, trust, and transparent exchange between the authority and its members. When done effectively, the process can result in cost reduction, minimized project risks, enhanced reputation, conflict prevention, and reduced stakeholder expectations.
How Does Timely Stakeholder Involvement Impact Project Value Creation?
Prompt stakeholder engagement can impact project success during the initial phases since resolutions reached at an early stage can eliminate unnecessary modifications at the later step of development or even whole life-cycle budgets. Apt stakeholder participation provides numerous benefits to project success as identified. First, preliminary involvement results in reduced possibilities of poorly developed designs. Engagements at this stage generate a higher possibility of more efficacious, seamless, and improved outcomes. Second, timely knowledge from end-consumers instills greater customer satisfaction concerning the product’s usage and function. The more many stakeholders understand the end-users or customers’ needs, the more efficient the operations become. In addition, primary contribution provides spaces for innovative solutions coupled with the extensive exchange of knowledge that can substantially create synchronized procedures for effective project execution. In essence, the more the stakeholders comprehend the precise objectives and design provisions, the more they can revise or even meet those stipulations by modifying their competencies.
Which Stakeholders Should Be Involved During Project Definition Stage?
The development of the ITS project, just like other tasks, faces many challenges, particularly during the definition stage that ought to outline the purpose of stakeholder integration for the enhanced realization of the intended needs. Explicitly, the project definition responds to key questions of “what.” The definition stage encompasses three phases: establishing project objectives, interpreting those aims into ideal criteria for evaluating the alternative solution or design, and producing other design concepts.
What Considerations Should Be Made During Stakeholder Involvement?
Numerous considerations should be integrated when organizing stakeholder engagement in a project. First, the key aspect of resources and time require deep contemplations since the participation process is time-consuming. It needs a considerable amount of time to build and develop trust-based relations. From the onset, dealings with the participants need to develop and advance while ensuring such association is suitably natured and not neglected to decline. Second, the element of expectation requires immediate management during project executions. Stakeholders can develop unrealistic high hopes, which may accumulate from the project. Consequently, program proponents should clearly state what is doable and what cannot be executed from the initial stage.
What Are the Key Methods of Stakeholder Identification and Analysis?
Stakeholder analysis establishes the possible relations between the project and participants and assists in determining the suitable consultation approach for every group during the program’s life-cycle. Common methods used to perform the analysis process include email/phone, physical interviews, workshops, dissemination of newsletters and pamphlets, print media, online channels, public meetings, etc. Three criteria should be adhered to when deciding the appropriate regularity and suitable engagement methods. These measures include the magnitude of influence of the program, stakeholders’ level of impact, and culturally tolerable arrangement.
Work Cited
United States Department of Transportation. Systems Engineering for Intelligent Transportation System: An Introduction for Transportation Professionals. United States Department of Transportation, 2007. Web.