Creating a complete Stakeholder Management Plan will enable you to define and document the tasks and strategy related to your project. Your management plan will involve the work we’ve outlined in previous posts: identifying, plotting out, and engaging with your stakeholders.

You start with creating a stakeholder matrix, also known as stakeholder mapping. A stakeholder matrix is a simple and effective project management tool to analyze your stakeholders and to create different strategies for the different groups of stakeholders, ensuring that you meet all the actions needed to align their needs and perspectives with your project goals.

Approach this work holistically, and the benefits will come along. By managing your stakeholders using software, you’re building business intelligence and understanding your own work, and lead to new ideas for developing products and systems that work with the needs of your stakeholders. You’re also then making sure you are protecting your business’s:

• Reputation
• Competitive advantage
• Corporate governance
• Risk management
• Approval within stakeholders’ communities
• Record keeping and reporting

Your stakeholder management plan takes into account many different facets of your stakeholder/project manager relationship, including stakeholder engagement. Those tactics fold into the management plan as one part of the whole system, and you should be taking into account the needs both within and outside your organization.

You can break down your management plan into these segments to track every element, from the way you engage with your stakeholders to the current next steps in your relationship. If you’ve been tracking your engagement with these stakeholders already, this is a great start to organizing those communications:

• Stakeholder / Rights-Holder (use their names here)
• Role (Indigenous groups, land-owner, community member, etc.)
• Interest Level (high interest, casual interest, etc.)
• Expectations (constant communication, detailed reports, etc.)
• Actions Required (write email, approve letter campaign, etc.)
• Communication Required (Email, instant messaging, etc.)

Once we have that management plan figured out, what are we actually doing with it? Make sure to use a robust software-based tool that will help keep everyone involved on the same track.

• Begin this work early to ensure you have your bases covered.
• Be transparent. Be open with your stakeholders about the methods you use, and why you’re including them in the process to build trust.
• Use easy-to-understand terminology throughout your plan so nothing is lost on either stakeholders or your team members.
• Prep for any conflicts that come up. Something is inevitably going to cause a wrinkle. If you are ready for that, you’ll be able to rebound easily.
• Even think about sending elements of your plan directly to key stakeholders. It may seem counterintuitive, but they may alert you to something you overlooked.

Your stakeholder management plan is taking into account all the aspects of stakeholder work: analysis, engagement, and categorization. We are looking forward to introducing you to the StakeTracker Stakeholder Engagement Plan Module in a future post.

Learn more about StakeTracker and sign up for a demo here. 

Check out our FREE Stakeholder Management Software Buying Guide.  

This e-book will walk you through a series of important pre-purchase considerations, providing essential tips and resources aimed at helping you make an informed buying decision.

]]> https://sustainet.com/stakeholder-management-plan/feed/ 0 https://sustainet.com/stakeholder-analysis/ https://sustainet.com/stakeholder-analysis/#respond Wed, 20 Apr 2022 21:49:27 +0000 https://www.sustainet.com/?p=4765

Stakeholder analysis is the main building block of starting the plan for any project. You’re going to be analyzing everything in this process: identifying and prioritizing rights-holders, communities, interested parties, and anyone who is going to be impacted by the project, particularly when the ‘duty to consult’ is mandated for the project when Indigenous groups are involved.

Ensuring you analyze your stakeholders and rights-holders at the start will save you so much time in the long run.

Understanding relevant stakeholders, rights-holders and opinion-leaders at this point helps to identify the prospects and potential challenges for dialogue and change. You will be able to:

• Understand the issues that matter to the people and communities you’re impacting
• Place all in tiers based on their rights, interest, impact, etc.
• See how the different groupings will actually influence and speak to each other
• See risks and be able to mitigate them before you even begin planning

But what’s the gain?

To some project managers, stakeholder analysis can seem more beneficial to stakeholders instead of the team that’s leading, but in reality the value is very high. Putting your stakeholders in tiers lets you understand that not every stakeholder has the same level of impact by, or interest in, your project – or requires the same level of engagement. 

That way, you won’t be wasting time focusing on stakeholders who don’t want to be as involved, or over-explaining your goals to stakeholders who are already signed on. Stakeholder analysis can also help you figure out what communication methods will work best for the people connected to your project.

You’ll do your analysis to start, but it’s also something that is ongoing for the entirety of the project. To begin, you can pick a specific matrix to plot all your stakeholders. But no matter how you approach it, you’ll likely follow these guidelines:

• Determine who your stakeholders are. Look at the people you are contacting, Indigenous groups, the community members, the public, political motivators, etc.
• Assess: look at their interest levels, how much they know about the project. Are they in, or are they opposed?
• Group them: put stakeholders in similar tiers if they seem like they’re approaching from similar interests and engagement.
• Then figure out your best way to communicate with each. Who are the legitimate community representatives? How will you approach them? This will lead into your further Stakeholder Plan.

Who are your stakeholders?

That first step can be a daunting one, especially when you are dealing with a complex group who are affected by your project. Make sure you have covered all the bases.

If you have a comb through a history of projects, take a look into your databases for the names that you think might be affected and relevant, or projects similar to yours and the indigenous groups, people and communities attached. 

Rely on your people too. Ask members of your team: Who are you liaising with that needs to be part of this list? Where are the gaps in who we’re reaching out to? Who did we forget so far?

Then understand their motivations. Look out for what these stakeholders and rights-holders care about, and just think big. Almost everything could have an influence on the people attached.

Expected outcomes:

• Identifying stakeholders and rights-holders
• Building stakeholder trust
• Gaining credibility required for implementation
• Understanding the context of the project/issue with respect to stakeholders
• Identifying external influencing factors

There are so many things you can take into account with stakeholder analysis. The sky can be the limit. In the end you will have a good understanding of who are the primary and secondary stakeholders, what systems should be in place and how you can impact stakeholder participation.

Contact SustaiNet Software – We would love to hear from you!

Contact us with questions you have about our stakeholder engagement software and services, or if you’d like to have an online demonstration of our software.

Often, project managers will step into a stakeholder management plan without consulting or creating a stakeholder matrix, also known as stakeholder mapping. It can seem like an unnecessary extra step – however, making one is essential to the ease of your project. A stakeholder matrix is a simple and effective project management tool to analyze your stakeholders and to create different strategies for the different groups of stakeholders, ensuring that you meet all the actions needed to align their needs and perspectives with your project goals.

You may hear people talk about different types of matrices, each with their own approach. Every single one has a different origin. The basic six you will hear about are:

• The Business Process Management Stakeholder Matrix, proposed by John Jeston and Johan Nelis
• Stakeholder Influence Grid, proposed by Dragan Milosevic
• Power and Support Stakeholder Analysis, proposed by Paul Roberts
• Power and Interest grid Power/Interest Grid, from Eden and Ackermann
• Support and Importance Stakeholder Matrix, developed by Paul Nutt
• The Influence/Interest Matrix, suggested by the OGC
• The Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix

But what do these matrices actually involve? How can you have so many approaches to the same relative idea? Let’s dive into a few examples.

The Influence/Interest Matrix plots out your stakeholders based on their influence on the project, cross referenced by their interest in the project. This way, you can figure out which stakeholders need the most attention to keep the impact of their opinions in check.

A government body would have a significant impact on a project. A person whose home needs to be moved in the process might have significant interest. So, your stakeholders then get plotted out based on these two axes. Less interested stakeholders who also have less impact might need to be monitored. You can keep others satisfied, keep informed, and manage your most interested, most impacted stakeholders closely.

The Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix rates your stakeholders based on how engaged, flatly, they are with the process in total. They’ll be rated on a scale of Unaware, Resistant, Neutral, Supportive, and Leading.

Each stakeholder can be put into these boxes, but the trick with this matrix is to also demarcate where they currently sit in their interest, versus where you’d like them to be. You can mark each current status with a “C” and each desired status with a “D”. Are more Cs and Ds actually in the same column? That’s great! But if you’ve got them spread out, there’s still more work to be done.

There are many different approaches, many different matrices, and each with different strategies for the different groups of stakeholders in each of the four quadrants. These are just two examples broken down, but you can take any path you think will work. How do you decide which matrix should be for you? Every one is geared toward measuring your stakeholders’ value and impact on your work. But take a look at these models and see how you would describe your stakeholders. Whatever terminology connects mostly strongly with your team, pursue that in your matrix.

Will every stakeholder you have always fit perfectly into these matrices? Not always. But it’s also not a perfect science. The goal is to have a starting point to work from. If you’re able to visualize all your stakeholders on this matrix, you can have an opportunity to start calculating and planning out their engagement, editing as you go to get a good perspective on priorities and needs.

Understanding the influence and authority of specific networks, and being sensitive to stakeholder relationships will provide you with a real advantage right from the start.

Learn more: Communication Strategy for Stakeholder Engagement

Contact SustaiNet Software – We would love to hear from you!

Contact us with questions you have about our services and products, or if you would like to see our software in action. Someone from our team will get back to you within 24 hours.

Effective stakeholder engagement is essential to ensure a project is fully successful. For your stakeholder engagement plan to have value and be impactful, it has to be meaningful.

But why shift toward meaningful engagement? The goal is to emphasize:

• corporate social responsibility, 
• more transparency, 
• better reporting,
• and improved project outcomes.

You’re doing much more than reaching out to the people impacted by your project and giving them a voice. Optimal engagement has been shown to have a direct connection to the success of a project.

Learn more about StakeTracker information management software with your custom demo.

Originally, stakeholder engagement was seen primarily as a way of mitigating risk. Keep your stakeholders happy, make sure to talk to them in the planning stage, and there was a smaller chance something would go awry. But now, that engagement is essential to the whole lifespan of a project – ensuring stakeholders are part of the process, and documenting those interactions over time.

To do that, we have to always be returning to how we approach a plan and re-editing, reevaluating. That continuous cycle looks like this:

• Planning: Create your initial plan after some preliminary talks with stakeholders. Figure out their original needs and incorporate that into your overall plan. Identify your stakeholders, create a map, and do research to understand them.
• Engaging: As you proceed with your plan, continue to engage with those stakeholders. Ask them about their needs as you proceed with the project. Have conversations or focus groups, do surveys, and hold one-on-one meetings to connect.
• Measuring: Measure the impact of the plan and project progress so far on your stakeholders. Gauge the success and their needs again. Let that impact your work.

And then, the cycle repeats. You’ll adjust your plan based on those measurements, you’ll engage with those stakeholders, and measure the success of that engagement. Then change that stakeholder engagement plan again. It might feel exhausting to return to the same planning document, like you’re a hamster on a wheel. But the point is to watch how your project influences your stakeholders over time, so you’re better prepared the entire way through your process.

In essence, that all really means you’re never done with stakeholder engagement. You’re always refining and honing what your plan looks like in relation to those stakeholders. Broken down further, you should always be committing to a cycle that looks like this:

• Identifying stakeholders
• Defining objectives
• Communicating objectives
• Creating strategy
• Assigning responsibility
• Measuring outcomes
• Assessing risks & objectives, and then beginning again at the top.

But these processes are never going to be so smooth in reality and you need to balance out your objectives with their needs. You’ll likely encounter roadblocks that will change your course. But that’s the point of more meaningful engagement: providing you with a strong, flexible stakeholder engagement plan that’s ready for change.

Contact SustaiNet Software – We would love to hear from you!

Contact us with questions you have about our services and products, or if you would like to see our software in action. Someone from our team will get back to you within 24 hours.

Strategic stakeholder engagement and effective information management are cornerstones of successful project outcomes. Understanding the following stakeholder communication strategies will help to optimize your engagement and manage the important data you collect. 

Compelling stakeholder engagement follows a strategy that targets the right people and groups, involves participants in a meaningful way, and makes use of the information collected to inform next steps.

• Seek to identify a stakeholder’s views and how this perception changes over time, equipping you to anticipate issues and develop ways of addressing them. Ultimately, it will help develop trust and generate solutions with your stakeholders and rights-holders.
• Continuously use findings to review strategies and methods of stakeholder engagement throughout the lifecycle of your project. Doing so will maximize improvements to stakeholder engagement and increase project support.

Prioritizing ongoing, two-way communication with stakeholders increases understanding, clarifies preferences and values, and helps you to understand how views can and should lead policy decisions.

• Organizations often struggle with communication with their stakeholders. But good communication channels that are prioritized between an organization and stakeholders can result in the strengthening of relationships between parties, and provide essential insights into current and future challenges.
• It is easier to maintain good relationships with stakeholders when people feel they are being heard and their input is valued. So, diligence is needed in the assessment of an issue’s intensity and the prioritization of a response. Provide feedback to stakeholders on how their interests and issues are addressed and resolved.

Keep a careful record of all aspects of stakeholder communications that occur over time. Track commitments made to them and ensure project team members coordinate consultation events, share information, and assign tasks and follow-up actions.

• Misunderstandings and delays can be prevented if you can easily demonstrate the history of all aspects of communication with your stakeholders – which is especially challenging with multi-year projects where representatives change over time and there is huge amounts of data to keep track of. This includes meetings, phone calls, emails, and commitments made.
• Protocol documentation ensures that all team members understand and use exactly the same data collection parameters, formats and meta data when using your information management software. This allows you to generate consistent reports that meet industry standards and expectations – even many years later.

The value of information, and how it’s tracked and reported, is of paramount importance during the lifespan of your project. Effective management of communications, stakeholder engagement and information management is essential to prevent a project from going sideways at any point. 

At SustaiNet, we offer full after-sale support. From answering a quick question to coaching and technical support, our customer service team is passionate about supporting our clients so you will be sure to receive a consistent, high quality support experience every time you contact us. 

Learn how our stakeholder information management software can help your organization effectively connect and communicate with important audiences across the communities in which you operate. Request a StakeTracker Demo.

Which stakeholder engagement and information management software is best for your needs? Since each industry is unique when it comes to stakeholder management, invest the time to define your organization’s business objectives related to the collection, management, and reporting of stakeholder engagement activities before you get started. The following tips can help guide your buying process so you will really understand what you are getting.

Ask yourself and your team the following questions to understand your information management software options.

1. Do you have a formal or informal systematic stakeholder information management process in place already?
2. If you do, does everyone follow these protocols?
3. What are your primary business reasons for purchasing the software?
   • Conform to industry and government regulatory requirements?
   • Reduce costs related to stakeholder administration and reporting?
   • Centralization of all stakeholder engagement records?
   • Data security?
4. Does the vendor offer excellent support and immediate service, during implementation and ongoing throughout the lifecycle of your project?
5. What data management and reporting capabilities are available?
6. Does the software vendor have customers similar to your business?
7. In what ways is the information software solution configurable to your needs?

These factors are important to consider when choosing a stakeholder information management software system.

1. Scalability – Does the platform grow to match your organization’s future needs? Ensure the software can adapt to increases in the number of users and additional engagement projects.

2. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vs. onsite servers – There are advantages to both systems, but SaaS offers lower start-up costs and makes it easier to collaborate with consultants and other business partners.

3. Data entry – Is it easy for the average user to enter the required data into the stakeholder engagement and information management software? Think about any other database systems you are already using.

4. Reporting – Robust reporting capabilities are a key feature. Will the software enable you to report the communication history of a project, and also showcase the transparency of the events that occur?

Reports should summarize stakeholder engagement interactions but also have the ability to go into great detail – and be supported by original records such as emails, letters, meeting minutes etc. An important criterion is the ability to report on these interactions in chronological sequence, so that it’s easy to ready narratively. If misunderstandings occur, the ability to dig into a report to review original messages and interpretations can go a long way towards resolving an issue.

Now you are ready to schedule your stakeholder engagement and information management software product demo.

A 1-on-1 product demo is one of the best ways to understand the capabilities of a stakeholder engagement and information management system – and a good initial indication of how well the platform and professional support staff will meet your needs.

Consider the following tips to get the most out of your stakeholder information management software demo.

• Involve your company end users: They will have questions about their workflow and how the new software affects it.
• Create a series of process scripts in advance (aka, use-case scenarios): make sure you advise the vendor what needs to be covered in the demo.
• Create detailed scorecards that allow you to objectively compare each vendor’s product.

Learn about StakeTracker information management software and book your custom demo.

StakeTracker is a powerful web-based stakeholder information management solution designed for organizations that need to reduce project risk and avert surprises.

It is used by organizations to plan, record, document, evaluate and report on communication and interaction with stakeholders, and centrally manage all communications regarding the impact your initiatives have on the communities in which you operate.

Developed in collaboration with stakeholder engagement and public consultation practitioners, StakeTracker’s simple, practical interface helps you to stay on top of your projects. It significantly reduces the effort required to collect and organize the information you need to generate reports while helping to minimize risk and maximize transparency and accountability.

Contact SustaiNet Software – We would love to hear from you!

Contact us with questions you have about our services and products, or if you would like to see our software in action. Someone from our team will get back to you within 24 hours.

Is customer relationship management (CRM) software that is designed for use in sales, marketing, and customer support environments, sufficient to help you meet the stakeholder information management needs of your projects? The short answer is…no.

Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) software, also known as Stakeholder Information Management Systems (SIMS), has evolved precisely because Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software struggled to cost effectively meet the needs of stakeholder engagement professionals.

In the complex and intricate world of stakeholder engagement, particularly in regulated environments where ‘the duty to consult’ meaningfully is mandated, project risk and accurate records management is paramount to withstand the legal rigor during court hearings.

Many IT departments have tried to customize mainstream CRM systems, predominantly driven by rudimentary and ill-understood requirement specifications. As a result, many years and hundreds of thousands (even millions) of dollars had been spent on never-ending customizing as ‘new’ features and functions appear. Unfortunately, IT departments become the scapegoats, as they were not given the correct brief in the first place. What is not clearly understood by both parties is that the underlying data model between the two systems is FUNDAMENTALLY different!

To efficiently manage the complex data and reporting involved in the engagement with stakeholders, rights-holders, communities and the public, you need tools that are designed just for this purpose. Stakeholder Information Management Software such as StakeTracker is specifically developed to specialize in the capturing and reporting on such complex, interrelated and ‘cross-referenceable’ data.

Taking a closer look at SIMS (or SRM) and CRM, you see they are designed for two different processes and the underlying model of each is different:

• CRM is a sales-based process. Developed to automate sales, marketing, and customer service processes, based on a one-to-one relationship between vendor and customer or prospect.
• SIMS is a communications-centric data model. However, StakeTracker ratchets this up a notch by utilizing a more complex tri-centric data model, based on communications, events and distinctly different stakeholder entities, each with equal prominence, with data inter-relationships being at the heart of the model. A key focus is on simultaneously tracking multi-party-to-multi-party interactions and associated data relationships.

Stakeholder Information Management is focused on a “many to many” relationship model, managing the interactions, discussion topics (aka themes), issues, tasks, commitments, documents, etc., related to your stakeholder/rights-holder engagement initiative.

The true value of SIMS is the ability to extract robust reporting in a way that is meaningful to data consumers (internal managers, regulators, stakeholders, courts, etc.), to demonstrate process transparency and accountability, and to effectively measure results.

Key functions of Stakeholder Information Management:

• Stakeholder/Rights-holder profile management
• Interactions management
• Topics and issues/grievances management
• Tracking and assigning tasks
• Managing commitments and permit conditions
• Tracking community investments

Examples and benefits of Stakeholder Information Management software for public consultation initiatives.

1. Land Component – There is often a land-based component with SIMS, where an impacted property located near a mine, pipeline or airport for example IS the de facto stakeholder. It is important to track communications with the various people that have an interest in the property; however, such people may change over time, but the stakeholder (the property) stays that same. SIMS maintains the communication record connected with a property, even when contacts change over time.
2. Anonymous Contributions – There may be the need for consultations with stakeholders/rights-holders who chose to be anonymous in order to participate, or who just don’t want further contact after an initial consultation. SIMS enables you to index communications properly, even when you don’t have a stakeholders’ name to connect it to.
3. Complex Relationships – Stakeholders and rights-holders can and do ‘wear many hats’ during a consultation or hold varied roles in one or mare organizations. For example, there might be familial relationships amongst stakeholders/rights-holders that must be accounted for. Or a person might have personal interests in a project in addition to interest held when representing the various stakeholder group to which they belong. SIMS tracks relationships between groups that are highly relevant to consultation outcomes, as these relationships can drive the dynamics between communities and affect outcomes.
4. Reporting – A key SIMS feature is robust reporting capabilities. It is important for software to enable you to report the communication history of a project but also to showcase the transparency of the specific events and themes that occur. Reports should summarize stakeholder engagement campaigns but also have the ability to go into great detail and be supported by original records such as emails, letters, meeting minutes etc. If misunderstandings occur, the ability to dig into a report to review original messages and interpretations can go a long way towards resolving an issue.
5. Supplier Expertise – Companies like SustaiNet are immersed in the SIMS space and are uniquely positioned to offer industry expertise that will be missing with CRM suppliers (we will bet our bottom dollar that there’s not a single customer support staff at any CRM vendor who understands true stakeholder engagement). The right vendor can help you benchmark your project consultations against industry best practices, provide ongoing support tailored to your needs, and stay with you for the life of your software subscription.

The shortcomings of CRM software first led us to develop StakeTracker. This is an advanced, purpose-built stakeholder engagement and information management software solution designed to help stakeholder engagement and public consultation professionals efficiently manage communication with stakeholders, communities, and the public. It is easy to use and designed to specifically handle all the “curve balls” that come your way as a result of the public consultation process.

So, let us help you simplify the stakeholder engagement and information management process for your project and your team. One of the best ways to understand the capabilities of a stakeholder information management system is through a custom demo. Contact us today to get started. 

It can be a costly shock to realize years down the road that the detailed data collected in relation to your project does not meet the needs for the reporting you now need to produce. Maybe some data was not even collected at that time, or even currently as nobody updated to the collection protocols as requirements changed over the years. Is the current database meta data even setup to meet these reporting requirements correctly? What were the details, outcomes, and commitments made? Meetings, stakeholder outreach, even emails between a former staff member and stakeholders – how was it all transcribed and entered at the time? How was follow-up ensured? Did staff enter the information in a consistent format?

Going back over reams of documents from the past takes a lot of time and budget – and that’s IF your team can manage to find everything you need. It comes down to either a lack of adequate thought in the early days about how you need to manage stakeholder information, or nobody taking ownership of the information management protocols and communicating them to staff; but rest assured you can take clear action steps to avoid this chaos through a well-designed protocol document.

Protocol documentation ensures that all team members understand and use exactly the same data collection parameters, formats and meta data when using your information management software. This allows you to generate consistent reports that meet industry standards and expectations – even many years later.

Take a look at these protocol document guidelines that can help set up your project tracking and reporting for success from the start.

The business goal of a protocol document is to meet the specific stakeholder information management needs of your project – efficiently and consistently managing communication with stakeholders, rights-holders, communities, and the public. It’s especially essential when you get to the reporting stage, when needing to run reports you didn’t even know about at the start.

1. Developing a protocol framework.

A protocol document aligns consultation and engagement processes to your software, ensuring that all information is captured and entered in a consistent manner by all users. It sets up your project to comply with industry best practices and regulatory requirements from the beginning, and is customized to your individual business reporting requirements.

It really is the single most important document that ultimately determines the success of the implementation of stakeholder information management software such as StakeTracker. Taking into consideration the processes specific to each stakeholder, department work flows, informational and reporting needs, that are all brought together into a single document used in order to enter data in a consistent way.

2. Increasing efficiency and reducing risk.

A detailed protocol document helps to maintain the integrity of your stakeholder data. Ensuring that all users gather and enter information in a consistent way, and aligning this process with your organization’s engagement and consultation information tracking and reporting systems, helps to increase efficiency and mitigate risk.

Inconsistencies in the collection and entry of data can impact your organization’s ability to effectively keep proper records and generate accurate, relevant reports. This can lead to serious regulatory compliance and reputation management issues.

From an organizational efficiency standpoint, effective protocol documents help with project succession and ease the impact of staff turnover – as new users can refer back to protocol documentation to ensure consistency. In addition, training new employees and contractors is easier, which improves productivity.

3. As needs change over time.

Processes and regulatory requirements evolve over the life span of your organization’s consultation and engagement projects, and the evolution of protocol documents need to follow suit.

Ongoing protocol document management is a work in progress, so it is important to assign protocol ownership to a central person or team within the organization. This helps ensure stakeholder information is kept up to date and relevant, while continuously improving data usage.

4. Protocol document questions to get started.

These are just some of the protocol document questions that will help your team define the needs specific to your project.

• What is the business need for stakeholder information management software?
• What data needs to be entered and managed, what formats, and using which filters?
• Why does this information need to be collected? What reports will need to be generated?
• How should the data collected be entered into specific fields in the platform?
• Who will be involved? Who will be responsible for training, and what happens when a team member leaves?
• Who will be responsible for updating the protocol over the lifespan of the project?

5. Examples of protocol specifics.

These are examples of finer points to consider. A word of caution that without this level of protocol document detail, users will inevitably develop their own ways of doing things over time which introduces data inconsistencies.

• What date format to use? (yyyy/mm/dd, or dd/mm/yyyy, or mmm/dd/yyyy, or…)
• What naming conventions and formats best describe records
• Whether to use accented characters? (some users may, others don’t).
• How will you deal with email threads? (summarize all, or enter each one as a separate communication).
• Should communication be summarized, or be recorded verbatim what each person said?
• How will you deal with emails with threads from different time-zones? (what date/time zone do you enter).
• Who maintains controls and approves the Master Data? (under topics, for example, someone will select ‘trees’, others choose ‘forest’; do you need both?)
• …and many, many more!

6. Protocol documentation support services.

At SustaiNet, we offer professional protocol documentation guidance and implementation assistance for our StakeTracker clients. We have experience working with many types of industries and can help you set up the framework that will work best for you – now and in the future.

Different levels of government have different requirements, and over the years, regulations and reporting needs change. Our team has up-to-date experience dealing with regulators and the ever-changing political environment.

Working closely with your team, SustaiNet data services team helps to develop a detailed protocol outline customized to your project. We share our extensive experience and knowledge of industry best practices to ensure your organization has the highest standard of communications management and reporting in place.

7. A last word on protocol documents.

Establishing a robust, consistent and streamlined process for how your data is collected and entered to your stakeholder information management software is invaluable, and absolutely essential. Taking the care and time at the start allows you to create all kinds of reporting, without having to go back to research and re-enter information years down the road!

What are the key factors impacting a successful information software implementation plan? Challenges often arise with the deployment of any new business tool, but you can greatly reduce the risk of software implementation failure by understanding common pitfalls to avoid – and learning how to rescue elements that are headed sideways.

This is how we work at SustaiNet: making sure you get the best advice and a software solution configured specifically for your team from the start – and providing the best advice and hands-on support throughout the lifecycle of your project.

The long-term results of proper implementation include obvious benefits such as better data quality and integrity, more organized records for quick reference and access, enhanced security and privacy, and a system that truly supports the work of the company employing it.

So let’s take a look at why some software implementations fail, and what you can do to both rescue a failed project, and prevent many issues from occurring in the first place. Set-up is so important, but mistakes can also be fixed.

1. Defining objectives, developing the plan.

The efficacy of a system is only as good as the work done upfront to ensure its success. Many companies face difficulties when deploying new stakeholder information management software because they fail to plan ahead or define their business goals. So, make it a priority to plan in detail what expected outcomes are, and how the software can be used to achieve them.

What can go wrong:

• A lack of clear objectives leads to a lack of understanding how your stakeholder information management software can help.
• Vague, unidentified, or non-measurable goals will ultimately provide poor project delivery and performance.
• Ineffective transition from a previous software system can lead to data duplication and user confusion, especially if implementation is rushed and lacks planning.

The fix:

Create a plan: All plans surrounding the business case, user buy-in, system ownership, information management protocols , terminology use, configuration strategies, database administrator skills, deployment, training and maintenance need to be specific. Generic plans adopted from other projects or systems won’t address the unique policies and practices of a new system. With properly recognized objectives, users will be able to understand why the software is needed, what it will be used for, how it will be used, by whom, where, and for how long.

2. Change management and user adoption.

User adoption can be affected if you fail to gather and acknowledge input from involved and impacted people or departments within your company. Ensure that all departments involved are on the same track and clear about the reason for the new software, the goals of its use, the value it brings and the overall usage expectations. Otherwise, team members might experience these factors that could affect their engagement level – and have a negative impact on the implementation of a new system.

What can go wrong:

• Important issues or challenges may go unnoticed if those interacting with the system on a daily basis are not given an avenue to provide feedback.
• Lack of defined leadership is a recipe for over-complication and possibly interpersonal conflict around lack of clarity regarding roles and responsibilities.
• Lack of accountability. Not charging someone specific for the overall responsibility of the success of the software solution.
• Users can be confused about the changes taking place and the impact on their jobs; frustrated because they weren’t trained how to use the software properly; and indifferent because they don’t understand the value of a new system or why it’s necessary.

The fix:

Develop a communication plan for the roll out which involves all the end users. Daily/direct users are the greatest assets to identifying system faults or possible causes for failure, so software users interacting with the data must be made part of the solution. Good communication with staff and consultants who will be working with the stakeholder management system is imperative – so ensure proper training and support is available. As with any change, for your team to be engaged they need to feel they are part of the process and that their feedback is being considered. Assign someone who is sufficiently skilled and knowledgeable in both the domain subject matter and in data management, and who is detail oriented and loves data.

Optimizing the initial set-up in order to account for how users and the software interact will help assure a more effective outcome for your project.

3. Setting up a protocol document.

A well-written protocol document (a.k.a. SOP’s – standard operating procedures), is essential for maintaining the integrity of the stakeholder data being collected. Protocol documentation ensures that all staff and consultants understand and use exactly the same data collection parameters for the purpose of generating consistent reports that meet industry standards and expectations. It sets up your project to comply with industry best practice and/or regulatory requirements right from the onset and is customized to your individual internal business reporting requirements.

What can go wrong:

• Inconsistencies in the collection and entry of data impact your organization’s ability to effectively keep proper records and generate accurate, meaningful reports.
• This can lead to more serious regulatory compliance and reputation management issues.
• Project succession and staff turnover leads to inconsistencies with data collection, data entry and reporting, and lowers productivity.

The fix:

Protocol documentation helps increase efficiency and mitigate risk by ensuring that all users gather and enter information in a consistent and meaningful way. Establishing a robust, consistent and streamlined process for what data to collect, as well as how your data is collected and entered allows you to create many kinds of reports – without having to go back and re-enter information. This helps ensure stakeholder information is kept up to date and relevant, while continuously improving data usage. It also makes training new employees and contractors easier, improving productivity.

4. Reviewing and updating your software implementation plan.

Needs may change over time during a complex, long-term initiative that has lots of moving parts. To perform well, avoid running on auto-pilot and build an ongoing review of the requirements of your information management software solution, and the people involved. Ongoing information software management is a work in progress, and it’s important to assign responsibility for reviews and updates to a central person or team within your organization.

What can go wrong:

• As needs change, decreasing alignment with company strategies and effectiveness.
• Diminishing value of the new system and wasted resources.
• No longer understanding how to use the software to its maximum potential.

The fix:

As people, processes and regulatory requirements evolve over the life span of your organization’s consultation and engagement projects, the need for review and amendments to the usage of your software must follow suit. Plans should be revisited and reviewed on a regular, scheduled basis – with a focus on continuous improvement. Assign roles to address specific challenges as they arise and empower system users to identify and deal with problems.

Finally, the benefits gained from deploying an information management software system are largely determined by its application and use. Integration and implementation failures will devalue the system and keep the information from being used to its maximum potential.

However, a well-designed information management software implementation plan includes obvious benefits such as better data quality and integrity, more organized data for quick reference and access, and a system that truly supports the work of the company employing it. In addition, other benefits include a confident and empowered team, the ability to track and manage data, better relationships with the stakeholders themselves, and efficient reporting for the lifespan of your project.

At SustaiNet, we offer full after-sale support. From answering a quick question to coaching and technical support, our customer service team is passionate about supporting our clients so you will be sure to receive a consistent, high quality support experience every time you contact us.

The social license to operate refers to the ongoing perceptions, acceptance and approval of a project among its stakeholders, and is granted by the stakeholder community. In order for social license to be determined for a project, efforts have to be made to measure these beliefs and perceptions. Since beliefs and perceptions can change over the lifespan of a project, social license needs to not only be earned but also preserved.

Understanding stakeholders and their needs.

Stakeholders are the local community and other interested parties, such as NGOs, government and other organizations. It is that diverse group of people’s beliefs, opinions and perceptions that make up their collective feelings about a project. Acquiring social licence from stakeholders is a complex exercise, and when not done effectively can result in the delay or cancellation of a project.

For companies proposing projects, the social license to operate is something only stakeholders can grant. Companies should be aware that social license is a dynamic, mostly intangible concept that can change and evolve over time. Therefore, it must be gained and then maintained over the course of a project’s lifespan.

Research shows the concept of social license depends on stakeholders’ perceptions of the project—first the project must be viewed as legitimate in order for it to have credibility. A company must therefore understand a group or community’s social, cultural and legal norms before engaging them. Having this understanding legitimizes and lends credibility to the process, as does sharing clear and accurate information under an established communications framework.

Levels of social license.

Trust takes time and effort to cultivate, and requires shared experiences throughout the stakeholder engagement process. Even if a project travels through the stages of legitimacy, credibility and trust, stakeholder approval is still not guaranteed. It is not a case of “Yes” or “No”, as there will be different levels of stakeholder support. These can include:

• Acceptance: stakeholders accept the project. This is viewed as a primary level of social license.
• Approval: this is a higher level of social license that carries more weight and is more desirable for all parties.
• Becoming part of the social fabric: this occurs when projects transcend acceptance and approval, and become part of a community’s collective identity.

Best practices to achieve and measure social license.

Some pitfalls that can have an impact on your project’s ability to achieve social license to operate are:

• Failing to engage a community early enough in the process.
• Not taking the time to understand the norms of a community of stakeholders.
• Failure to accommodate the diverse range of knowledge and behaviours across stakeholder groups.
• Not investing enough time for the process and for relationship building.
• Overestimating support for a project.

Best practices to achieve, measure and maintain social license include:

• Understanding the context of the project/issue with respect to stakeholders, as well as identifying external influencing factors.
• Engaging and building relationships with all stakeholders, including those opposed to your project.
• Communicating early and with as much transparency as possible.
• Considering what resources and background stakeholders will need in order to understand your project, and how often updates should be provided.
• Continuously using findings to review strategies and methods of stakeholder engagement throughout the lifecycle of your project. Doing so will maximize improvements to stakeholder engagement and increase project support.
• And finally, making good use of a secure online stakeholder management solution to centrally document engagement strategies and outcomes of stakeholder engagement activities.

To be confident of the status of a social license, it needs to be measured and documented.  The results are used to modify activities with the intention of improving the quality of the relationship between the project and the community/stakeholders. A project that lacks a meaningful stakeholder engagement process can lead to politicization of the process and delays, but done effectively social license is an achievable goal for those who can make longterm investments in the process.

Learn how our stakeholder management software can help your organization effectively connect and communicate with important audiences across the communities in which you operate.                    Request Your Demo Here.