Engagement should be a nutrient for your project

I recently read the book Decide – How to Manage the Risk in Your Decision-Making by Bryan Whitefield [1]. In it he draws attention to the gap between project decision-making and the practice of risk management. This got me thinking about how engagement is often considered in projects.

While it is challenging to determine the exact cost of public engagement to organizations, because they are usually embedded in a project budget, some of the typical expenses [2] include things like, staff time, online engagement software, facilitators, consultants, project and communication materials (e.g., presentations, renderings, newsletters, advertisements), supports for participants (e.g., translation, closed captioning, parking reimbursements), and so on. Despite this, organizations often think about and perform engagement retroactively and/or reactively. Once a project is underway and the ideas have been generated, reviewed and a solution chosen or narrowed down, then attention turns to engaging to inform the work that has taken place. And, more often than not, the timeframe is very short to get the input.

Much like the relationship Whitefield makes between project decision-making and the practice of risk management, engagement can be treated as a tack on without consideration of how the input might impact all the work that has been done already. I often refer to this as the ‘backtrack’ and/or ‘scramble’ approach. And, while they often result in increased project risks, such as cost and delays, they can also cause a lot of stress for the staff pulling the engagement together, create inconsistencies in how engagement is implemented by the organization and, raising questions amongst engagement participants about the authenticity of the opportunity (e.g., will the input actually get used or is it too late to consider it?).

Whitefield suggests that it is important for the practice of risk management be integrated into a project at the beginning to help reduce the chance of missing potential risks and increase mitigation opportunities. I think this idea also has merit for the role of engagement in projects. Similar to what Whitefield suggests about the relationship between risk management and projects (his MCI model), including engagement at the beginning allows conversations to happen that:

•  assess the motivation for engaging;

• clarify what needs to be considered so the engagement supports the project; and

• determine the organization’s ability to implement.

The engagement can then be planned to involve the right people at the right time for the right reasons. This supports informed decision-making by surfacing any uncertainty about what to engage on, when and with whom. It also helps create engagement opportunities that nourish the project decision-making process instead of over-stuffing it with distracting input or depleting the limited resources needed to achieve the project goals.

[1] Whitefield, B. (2015). Decide: How to Manage the Risk in Your Decision Making. Bryan Whitefield Enterprises. Brookvale, Australia.

[2] The True Costs of Public Participation – Research Study Full Report from INVOLVE UK 2005.