- How do you identify your stakeholders?
Stakeholders could be individuals, groups or organisations who have interest in the consulting organisation or what it is trying to achieve. Stakeholder mapping is done to identify stakeholders based on their interest, influence and impact/opportunity on a project. In most scenarios there are internal and external stakeholders. Set out below is an example of who they may be:
Internal stakeholders:
- Employees
- Departments
- Subsidiary companies
- Board members/Councillors /Ministers
- Project control groups
External stakeholders:
- Industry partners/stakeholders
- Investors and/or shareholders
- Community
- Reference Groups/Panels
- Consumers
- Pressure groups
- Stakeholder engagement 101
Stakeholder groups and then drilling down to individual stakeholders have different interest, influence and impact/opportunity on a proposed project. At a high level the messaging and information requires to be succinct, but this needs to be modified based on stakeholder identification. For example, tailoring information dispersion and feedback opportunities to the identified stakeholder groups. Stakeholder mapping and stakeholder engagement design is vital to managing any consultative process.
What is a stakeholder management plan?
It is recommended for any consultative process to develop a stakeholder communication and engagement plan – overall, a stakeholder management plan. This document prescribes the processes of communicating with and engaging the diverse stakeholder. It involves identifying stakeholders analysing their interest level/influence/impact/opportunity/outcomes and from this strengthening the proposed project’s business case whilst finessing the collateral and feedback planning.
- What are the benefits of stakeholder management plan and stakeholder management software?
For stakeholder engagement to be carried out seamlessly, it is imperative to review the business case, analyse and mitigate any risks and develop an elastic plan. Having a succinct plan in place at the beginning and a sophisticated online stakeholder management system benefits everyone involved; employees are able to save a lot of time, users can readily access information and easily participate while project managers can make judicious use of their saved time.
- How software like Engagement Hub helps?
Implementing sound stakeholder engagement processes at early stage of any project is the only way to authentically bring everyone to the table. Excel worksheets are not designed for stakeholder management, so to manage efficiently organisations are turning to stakeholder management software. Why using such software is the best approach, you ask? Well, not all your stakeholders may be present together in the same place or same time zone, and in such situations, software like this which can be accessed from anywhere and at anytime can make it convenient for everyone involved to have the discussion.
Engagement Hub, an all-inclusive stakeholder relationship management software covers under its umbrella a range of digital tools that is perfect for engaging stakeholders and reducing administrative burden, thus allowing for the success of the project.
You can view how Engagement Hub works at the demo site – https://demo.engagementhub.com.au/ or book a no-obligation software demonstration to see these innovative tools.
