Facilitate Stakeholder Engagement
Task 1 – Stakeholder Engagement – Communication Plan
· This summative assessment can be completed in class or at any other convenient location.
· Students are required to complete this task using digital tools and ensure to submit in an acceptable format, e.g. .docx, .pdf, .pptx, or as advised by your assessor.
· Please use the following formatting guidelines to complete this assessment task:
· Font Size : 12; Line Spacing: Double; Font Style: Times New Roman
· Assessment activities can be completed either in real workplace environment or in a simulated environment such as your classroom. In both cases, appropriate evidence of the assessment activities must be provided.
Instruction to Assessors:
· You must assess student’s assessment according to the provided Marking Criteria.
· You must complete and record any evidence related to assessment activities including role-plays and presentations using appropriate forms which must be attached with student assessment submission.
You must provide students with detailed feedback within 10 working days from submission.
Assuming that your organization has been awarded contracts to undertake the following projects:
| Project 1 – Website redevelopment and hosting and maintenance services for Destination: Australia
This project is for the technical upgrade of the Archives’ website Destination: Australia. In order to ensure the best value for money and optimal functionality (for the website and related exhibition interactive) going forward, it is necessary for the website to be transferred from a proprietary CMS to a commonly available CMS (including, but not limited to, an Open Source CMS). The website will enable the National Archives of Australia to collect user contributed data about the photographic collection featured on the site. The interface must be modern, engaging and user-friendly, designed to meet the needs of people of all ages, and differing levels of computer and English literacy. The website must interact successfully with an exhibition interactive via an existing API. There is an option for hosting, maintenance and support services to be provided from contract execution until 31 December 2019. |
| Project 2 – Re-development of Intranet
A redevelopment of the Clean Energy Regulator Staff Intranet into SharePoint 2013 |
| Project 3 – Database for community engagement – Software as A Service Customer Relationship Management system (SAAS CRM)
The National Radioactive Waste Management Facility project is currently in Phase 2, best described as the technical assessment and continued community consultation phase. One site has been chosen to progress to this stage while other as yet unknown sites may also progress to this stage. The project team requires a database (Software as A Service Customer Relationship Management system (SAAS CRM) to effectively and confidentially manage large volumes of data, including names, addresses, opinions of community members and contact details. This will assist in ongoing community engagement. The system must be fully operational (tried and tested) within two weeks of the commencement of the proposed contract. The project, and related community engagement, will be ongoing for years. Access to maintenance and advice will be desirable. |
Your task is to, considering the 3 projects above to be developed concurrently, develop a stakeholder communications management plan.
Effective communication is one of the most critical aspects of any change initiative. This resource will help you to address key questions around your communication effort:
Key Questions
Who are the people who need to know about your change?
What are the likely concerns for each group?
How are you going to ensure they understand it?
What are the key points you need each group of people to know/understand?
How will you respond to them, to ensure you build a critical mass who support your change?
Stakeholder Analysis
A Stakeholder Analysis is a useful way to identify the people who need to know about the change and their likely concerns. The following is a brief guide to developing a Stakeholder Analysis, for a more detailed explanation, review the resources.
Step 1: Identify your Stakeholders
Use your guiding coalition to identify all those who can contribute to or are impacted by the change initiative. This can be achieved through a brainstorming activity. Cast your thoughts as widely as possible.
Step 2: Categorise your Stakeholders
It can be useful to categorise your Stakeholders according to Influence and Attention. What is the amount of influence that each stakeholder group has on the success of the change? What is the likely attention each stakeholder group has with regard to the change? You can then map each stakeholder group onto the Influence – Attention diagram (example below).
| Influence | High |
Consult
|
Consult Often
|
|
Low |
Inform
|
Consult
|
|
| Low | High | ||
| Attention | |||
| Mapping Influence and Attention | |||
Communication Plan
Now that we have a better understanding of who our stakeholders are, we can develop a Communication Plan. The Communication Plan gives us a planned, structured approach to our communications and ensures that all the key stakeholders are consulted on their areas of interest and concern.
Key Messages
Consider the key messages that you want to reinforce in your communication. These will obviously be different for each change imitative.
Channel
It is important to consider multiple channels for communication. ‘Change by Email’ is rarely effective. Communication channels include: meetings; newsletters; project briefs; emails; teleconferences; video link; one-on-one; etc. Consider the channel that will be most useful for the audience and the message you are trying to convey.
We now have a better understanding of our stakeholders, the key messages we want to communicate, and the channels of communication available to us. We can now develop our Communication Plan.
The templates attached, or suitable alternatives may be utilized to complete this task.
Stakeholder Analysis and Management Plan Template
Definition of a ‘stakeholder’: A stakeholder is a person, group or organisation that affects or can be affected by the change and can be characterised by the following:
· will be impacted, positively or negatively by the change;
· are in a position to support or oppose the change;
· can influence the thinking or actions of other stakeholders involved in the change; or
· have the ability to impact the change effort directly or indirectly
