REVIEWING STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

In the series of articles, I discussed the stakeholders' engagement process. My first article discussed why ineffective stakeholder engagement is dangerous for software development processes and what the stakeholder engagement roadmap is.

In the second article , the first phase of the stakeholder engagement roadmap is explained, including the prerequisites and the required steps for planning engagement strategies.

The third article discussed how to communicate with stakeholders and collaborate during the engagement process.

We will discuss "review" in this article as the final step of the engagement process.

1. Purpose of reviewing the engagement process

Before starting to review the engagement process is necessary to define its purpose.

The stakeholder engagement review helps you monitor the overall stakeholder relationships and adjust strategy and execution as needed to increase or maintain engagement effectiveness.

Indeed, periodic review sessions can be very valuable in maintaining momentum and involvement.

Any review may have different learning objectives, for example:

• Improving operations: Have outputs been adjusted and activities improved as a result of the current engagement approach?
• Re-adjusting strategy: Did assumptions and theories of change after participation have positive impacts?
• Deepening understanding: Did participants gain new knowledge after trying something innovative or experimental?
• Building trust: Has communication and participation during engagement increased transparency and participation?
• Sensitizing for action: Has stakeholder support been created?

To reach the above learning objectives, in the review activity, we need to collect feedback, define engagement indicators, and reflect on the results after the engagement activity.

This helps you to understand what part of the engagement strategy needs to be adjusted before starting the next engagement activities.

Regular stakeholder review meetings maintain the stakeholders, and provide information about changes that cause the product’s stakeholders to be re-assessed, re-prioritized, and re-developed.

2. Feedback from stakeholders

Whenever we conduct an engagement activity, we should ask the participants how they felt about it.

The stakeholders' feedback helps us to perceive:

• Do we need to adjust our approach for future engagement activities?
• Do we need additional engagement activities?
• Do we need to invite additional stakeholders?
• Is it necessary to adjust the communication format, facilitation format, or any other practices?

Depending on the size of the engagement activity, there are different ways of feedback collection.

• Onsite feedback: Participants leave their feedback by post-it on a pinboard.
• Feedback after the event: Obligatory feedback survey filled in.
• Content Analysis: Find out what people are saying informally.

To ensure an effective review process, feedback questions should be tailored to the learning purpose, engagement objectives, and success definition.

3. Engagement indicators

For monitoring engagement efforts, you need to define and consider a set of indicators.

There can be different types of indicators and they can even be included in monitoring at the product scale.

Each time we iterate, we can analyze the collected data based on those indicators and reflect them.

Let's look at an example of an indicator and its usage:

• Indicator: the level of stakeholders' interest to help the product succeed.
• Identify stakeholders: outline who has a stake in the product.
• Identify stakeholder interests: understand what stakeholders' interests are. Is it efficiency, profit, or compliance that they are seeking?

Create an analytics board to reflect the business objectives and note the stakeholders’ interests.

Each stakeholder may be in a different zone of interest. The stakeholder interest zone can be classified as follows:

1. Unawareness: they do not know that the product is underway.

2. Resistant: they do not want the product, feature, or specific decision to take place within the product.

3. Neutral: they are fine with any decision being taken as part of the product and aren't much concerned about the outcome.

4. Supportive: they want the product to succeed. Thus, any decisions taken as part of the product are also supported.

5. Leading: they are actively helping the product to succeed.

• Reflection: use the Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix as a tool (Figure A) to reflect the gaps between Current stakeholders' engagement (C) and the Desired one (D).

As you can see indicators help you to investigate, reflect, and assess data over time (The reflection will be discussed more in the next section).

4. Reflection

Based on feedback and observations, engagement activities should be reflected to distill improvements.

It is possible to present the data in three main areas of analysis:

A) success of engagement, B) process of engagement, and C) engagement impact.

4.1 Success of the engagement

In this area, we need to understand whether the purpose and scope of the engagement activity are clear or not.

In addition, we must ensure that the objectives of the engagement activity are met and that stakeholders have realistic expectations about the scope of the partnership.

4.2 Process of engagement

Analysis should reflect what worked well and what did not, along with the reasons why.

Stakeholder representation needs to be evaluated to determine whether it has been beneficial and effective. In the case that it was good, why, and in the case that it was not, why?

Furthermore, the level of communication with stakeholders before, during, and after the activity needs to be evaluated, as does the reality of preparing for and implementing the activity.

4.3 Impact of the engagement process

It is important to determine why the engagement activity resulted in the desired outcome for the stakeholders or the product. What are the reasons if not?

Furthermore, it should explain whether or not the engagement activity meets the stakeholders' expectations.

4.4 Tools and Documentation

To assess the health of your stakeholders and monitor each area of analysis, you can use tools such as the Stakeholder Engagement Profile (SEP).

In Figure C, a stakeholder engagement plan is illustrated that is used to monitor stakeholder support and receptivity.

The movement or lack of movement in the SEP indicates how well the engagement process influenced stakeholder attitudes.

If there has been an improvement in the gap between the current profile and the optimal profile, this indicates communication strategy is working and encourages its continuation.

However, the worsening of this gap indicates the communication strategy is not having the desired effect and you should make course corrections.

5. Summary

Engaged participants should follow any facilitation techniques the coach instructs them to follow.

However, after the engagement activity is over, the overall engagement process must be evaluated.

While monitoring and controlling it is critical to know whether what is delivered aligns with product objectives. Whether stakeholders are satisfied with that?

To meet the engagement objective and learning purpose, it is necessary to develop tailored questions, decide on the appropriate method, and collect feedback.

It is essential to collect data based on predefined engagement indicators that reflect engagement activities.

The feedback loops and reflections on stakeholder engagement activities will be combined with the self-reflection of the Agile coach to assess the engagement process.

It is then possible to make a list of actions to improve the engagement approach.

Let's look at an example: If the result of reflection is "the review indicates that women were underrepresented during engagement activities", the action is "sending targeted invitations to women".

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