Engineering projects involves an endless list of stakeholders. In these projects, stakeholders are any people who are engaged in making decisions of the projects or they are affected in one way or another, directly or indirectly by the project presence (Creswell, 2009). Projects complexity and uncertainty of the situations involved in the project determines the number of stakeholders involved. High complexity and uncertainty of the situations attract an increased number of stakeholders involved in project and vice versa. Interests and priorities of the stakeholders vary from one stakeholder to another. The different activities and responsibilities which are involved in the engineering projects also lead to the involved the different stakeholders. Stakeholder management has been embraced for long in the project management. Project success is closely related with the stakeholder’s management strategies. Proper stakeholder’s engagement is able to solve the different challenges which the project is related to. Stakeholder engagement is a process, and following the process keenly is what determines the success of the implementation of the engineering project (Aaltonen Jaakko, & Tuomas, 2008). The major steps which are involved in the stakeholders’ engagement to have a success implementation include the stakeholder identification, analysis, stakeholder classification and formulating or adopting a proper engagements and management strategy of the stakeholder.
Engineering projects have key goals which need to be achieved at the end. Stakeholders also hold specific goals and visions which interfere with the project implementation strategy. Their goals are well established and coordinating them with the engineering projects goals helps to define the implementation success (World Bank, 2005). The project manager are the key people who define the engagement strategy for the stakeholders. In this, the project managers are supposed to understand the stakeholders’ visions and goals and align them with the projects goals and visions. The project managers understanding and alignment of these goals helps to achieve mutual interests and benefits, reduce risks and advance the organizational economic advantage. Just like engineering projects, the asset management projects are able to involve different stakeholders. The stakeholders in both projects are important to enhance the success of the implementation of the projects. The stakeholders are key parties who are affected positively or negatively by the projects. The major classification of the stakeholders includes the internal and external stakeholders. The internal stakeholders are directly involved in organizational decision making process and are highly involved in day to day running of the project. On the other hand, the external stakeholders are the ones who are affected by the organizational activities (O?berseder, Schlegelmilch, Murphy & Gruber, 2014). Stakeholders engagements makes sure that the relationship between the project management and external and internal stakeholders’ relationship. The engagement is critical to ensure that the project goals are met.
The stakeholders, whether external or internal, secondary or primary play a critical role in the day to day delivery of the projects goals. The relationship during their engagement is important to ensure that the goals of the projects will be achieved. Worse engagement means that the stakeholders can be able to raise issues which will negatively affect the project implementation (Pre?vot, Servais, & Piron, 2016). Primary stakeholders have key responsibilities and contract on the projects. Their engagement is critical since they are involved in daily running of the project activities. These stakeholders have important duties which they must be able to implement in the project scope to achieve the project goals. In addition, these stakeholders have a formal engagement with the project and thus are able to get involved in deep in project implementation. On the other hand, the secondary stakeholders have informal relationship with the organization managing the projects. Even with such relationship, the engagement with the secondary stakeholders is important to enhance the project implementation. The organizational management plays an important role in ensuring that a health engagement is achieved between the secondary stakeholders and organization. The relationship between the organization and the secondary stakeholders can be critical in the implementation of the project goals (In Leal, In Nesbit, & Conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development, 2016). This prompts the organizational management to ensure that a health relations and constant engagement is enhanced. `the classification and engagement of the different stakeholders depend more on the relationship which the stakeholders have with the organizations. Their engagement differs and this defined the level of the organizations relationship with the specific stakeholders. Nevertheless, even with the different relationship, the engagement of all stakeholders is critical to ensure the organization attains the specific goals during the project implementation.
Most importantly, the engagement of the stakeholders on any project is highly dependent on the roles which the stakeholders play or the relationship which the stakeholder has with the organization. Increased roles mean that there will be high interaction and engagement between the stakeholder and the organization regarding the project (Aksorn, & Hadikusumo, 2008). The roles available are able to define the level of relationship which the stakeholders have with the organization. As seen earlier, the internal stakeholders have high engagement in the projects than the external stakeholders. This is simply because their engagement with the organization is more for internal stakeholders than the external stakeholders. The organization has the key role of managing the stakeholders and ensure that the goals of the specific project are achieved. In the management of stakeholder’s engagement, the management of the organization has to look on the relationship level which the organization has with the specific stakeholders. This will define the management strategy to be applied and also the engagement level which the organization can engage. Moreover, the organization must be able to understand the attributes of the specific stakeholders before they are able to engage them (Jonas, 2017). This is an important step which helps the organization to learn the stakeholders and classify them according to their relationship. Understanding their traits helps the organization to come up with proper method of engaging and managing them. This is simply like a learning process for the organization to the stakeholders. The frequency and level of engagement with the stakeholder is usually determined at this stage. Stakeholders with high stake and high level of interest are able to receive high engagement level with the organizations. This is an important decision which the organization management is able to come up with before engaging the stakeholders.
Mapping is a critical step in the stakeholder’s engagement. Stakeholders are grouped according to their characteristics and roles which they play in the projects. The mapping will be able to determine the stakeholder’s level of influence, predictability and interest in the project. These factors are able to help the organizations to understand the level of engagement which they have to maintain with the specific stakeholders (Baxter & Jack, 2008). Moreover, the mapping process is able to help in determination of the behaviour of the stakeholders. This helps the organization management to understand the way they will engage with such stakeholders. Moreover, the mapping helps the organizations to be able to formulate the strategies which will be used to each stakeholder according to their characteristics. The power and interest also helps the organizations to understand the manner and level on which the engagement will be carried out. In this analysis, the stakeholders will be able to identify the stakeholders who are likely to cause problems to the organization. This helps to the management of the organization to create different strategies for their engagement. The monitoring activities for the stakeholder will therefore depend on the mapping outcome carried. This understanding is important to help strategize ion the way to solve any issue or problem arising from the problems in the projects.
In addition, the engagement of the stakeholder can be carried out in different ways. The engagement strategy is able to depend on the outcome of the mapping process. One of the important ways for the stakeholder’s engagement is the informing (Chinyio, Olomolaiye, & Wiley InterScience, 2010). Under this the organization only offer brief information about the project and the activities the organization is carrying out. The key stakeholders who are included in this group include the stakeholder with low level of interest and also low level of stake in the project. These stakeholders usually have little information about the projects. The main aim of the informing is to is to help the stakeholder understand the problems and alternatives solutions. The stakeholder in this category or those engaged through this process have low probability of influencing the outcome of the engagements and operations of the project (Cline, 2015). Their engagement is only done to help giving them projects and thus helping to provide key information regarding the projects.
Another way to reach out to the stakeholders is through consultation. Unlike the group which is attained through words, the consultation indicate that the stakeholders have influence on what happens on the project. The group which is engaged through this method usually has low interest and high stake in the projects (International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Qi, Shen, & Dou, 2013). The stakeholders reached out in this method must be able to provide feedback or alternative decisions. This stakeholder plays a critical part in the implementation and thus are able to be kept near. Their opinions carry out a lot of activities which help to build them up. Their opinion is valuable and thus play an important role in decision making. Increased engagement is found at the stakeholder who require close monitoring and supervision.
In addition, another way of stakeholder engagement is through involvement. The stakeholders with high level of interest as well as low stake are engaged through this process in the project. The use of this method for these stakeholders makes sure that they are satisfied in terms of their aspiration and concerns (Rangarajan, 2012). In addition, this ensures that there is consistent understanding and considerations of their concerns by the organizations. Although these stakeholders have low probability of impact on the project, their high interest raises require their constant engagement on the project activities. This means that they have high decision making power on the project matters which has impact on the projects. The organization and project team therefore has to accommodate and address the issues of these stakeholders by constantly involving them in the decision making of project. Also, stakeholders’ engagement can be done through collaboration. This strategy is done to the crucial players of the project implementation. The stakeholders who are engaged through this method have high stakes in the project. Their level of stake ensures that it is key for the project implementation team to partner with this group in every decision of the project. This group of stakeholder have high probability of impacting the project implementation and high level of interest on the project success (Aslam, 2014). The stakeholders in this group require to be involved in the decision making of the project at all stages including planning and implementation. Due to their level of interests, this group is looked up and engaged as partners in the project. This ensures that their engagement to the project and commitment to the project implementation success is increased. Their interests and commitment plays a critical role on the achievement of the project implementation. Collaborating with them makes it easy to understand their needs in the project.
In addition, in order to have a perfect stakeholder’s engagement, it is important to have the understanding of their needs. Exploring the stakeholders need is important to ensure that their needs align with the need of the project (Trentim, & Trentim, 2015). Realistic solutions are provided to ensure that the engagement with the stakeholders will achieve the best output for the project implementation. The needs of the stakeholders are considered and aligned with the constraints in the project. This helps to deliver a best solution on addressing the concerns which may be found in the project implementation. In addition, in stakeholder’s engagement, it is important to access the behaviour of the stakeholders. This ensures that their capacity and willingness to threaten or cooperate with the organization in relation to the project is known. Three categories of stakeholder’s behaviour are known and these include observed behaviour, cooperative potential and competitive threat. Knowing the behaviour category of the stakeholder there helps to devise a proper way of engaging them in line with the project goals and avoid any issues (Construction Research Congress, Ariaratnam, Rojas, Construction Institute., & University of Washington, 2009). The behaviour knowledge helps to predict their influence level and the harm or support they can be able to offer to the project implementation. This helps to come up with a devise way of engaging the stakeholders or even addressing their concern.
In addition, in engaging the stakeholders, it is important to access their attributes. This involves knowing their power, urgency, legitimacy and even proximity which helps to understand their needs better. Understanding their ability to control the resources helps to come up with a proper schedule on their managements and engagement plan (Valdes-Vasquez, 2011). This helps to know the level of harm which the project will experience without the support of these stakeholders. Understanding the power of the stakeholders will help the project manager to devise the proper plan to address their needs when need arises and the level of their engagement to avoid such opposition in the project. In addition, accessing their attributes helps to understanding the urgency of the calls of the different stakeholders and the level of harm which the project will experience with their opposition. This understanding helps to address the issues in perfect time and helps to avoid any unnecessary issues which may stall the project implementation. Moreover, analysing the conflict zones and coalition zones with the stakeholders helps to reduce any areas of stalling the project (In Leal, & In Brandli, 2016). These zones identification ensures that the stakeholders involvement is done easier enough to ensure proper address of the stakeholders needs. Proper management of the stakeholders is achieved with proper management of their needs. This can only be achieved with proper understanding of the zones which the stakeholders fall into.
Compromising on the conflict will help to create a positive relationship with the stakeholders. This ensures that the project management team has enough time to address any issues which the stakeholders have concerning the project. Win for the project is always the desire of the implementation team even with compromised solution (Atkin, & Borgbrant, 2010). Cultivating of good relation is essential and helps to create proper solutions for any issues even from the stakeholder’s end. Proper formulation of stakeholder’s engagement is important to ensure that their needs are addressed. These are dealt with at the planning stages to enhance the project implementation. The strategies help to response to the stakeholder’s demand and helps for successful engagement of them in the project implementation (In Issa, In Flood & American Society of Civil Engineers, 2014). Moreover, the project manager must have the capability to access the reaction of the stakeholder at different moments. This will help them in understanding the strategy which can be applied at different situations to solve any issue. This will help to address any change on the stakeholder regardless of the change of their situation. Lastly, engaging on effective communication is important for the stakeholder’s engagement. This helps to analyse and address their concerns in a proper way. In return, with proper and effective communication, the stakeholders are able to offer their support and commitment to the project implementation.
References:
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Aksorn, T. & Hadikusumo, B.H.W. (2008). Critical Success Factors influencing safety program
performance in Thai Construction Project, Safety Science 46: 709.727.
Atkin, B. and Skitmore, M. (2008). Stakeholder Management in Construction. Construction Management and Economics 26(6):pp. 549-552.
Aslam, M. S. (2014). Sustainability of community-based drinking water systems in developing countries. [Montre?al] : McGill University Libraries.
Atkin, B., & Borgbrant, J. (2010). Performance improvement in construction management. London: Spon Press. In Wambugu, F. M., In Kamanga, D., & Serageldin, I. (2014). Biotechnology in Africa: Emergence, initiatives and future. Cham : Springer.
Baxter, P., & Jack, S. (2008). Qualitative case study methodology. The Qualitative Report, December 2008, 13(4), 544-559.McMaster University, West Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)
Chinyio, E., Olomolaiye, P. O., & Wiley InterScience (Online service). (2010). Construction stakeholder management. Chichester, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell.
Cline, A. (2015). Agile development in the real world. Berkeley, CA: Apress.
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Creswell, J. W. (2009) Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed.) London: Sage Publications.
In Issa, R., In Flood, I., & American Society of Civil Engineers. (2014). Computing in civil and building engineering: Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering : June 23-25, 2014, Orlando, Florida. Reston, Va: American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Jonas, J. M. (2017). Stakeholder Integration in Service Innovation. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
O?berseder, M., Schlegelmilch, B. B., Murphy, P. E., & Gruber, V. (September 01, 2014). Consumers’ Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility: Scale Development and Validation. Journal of Business Ethics, 124, 1, 101-115.
Pre?vot, A.-C., Servais, V., & Piron, A. (December 01, 2016). Scientist and non-scientists share a diversity of dimensions in their relations to urban nature. Urban Ecosystems, 19, 4, 1787-1799.
Rangarajan, K. (2012). Sustainable engineering practices in transportation projects. Ph. D. Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Trentim, M. H., & Trentim, M. H. (2015). Managing Stakeholders as Clients – Second Edition. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
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