Stakeholder Engagement At University Of South Australia: Strategies And Challenges

The Importance of Stakeholder Engagement

Question:

Discuss about the IT Stakeholder Engagement.

The “stakeholder engagement” is the method in which people are involved in any organization. They are affected through the decision makings (Wilhite and Pyrz 2017).

Every deliverables of the project are undermined in those fields that contain deficient stakeholder commitment. The potential stakeholders are required to be understood and studied at the “University of South Australia”.

The paper discusses the strategies of the important sections identified. In addition to the conclusion, recommendations are made with action scheduling.

The engaging of stakeholders at the “University of South Australia” has been a continuous evolving practice. It has concluded with some queries about the “stakeholder engagement” in the future (Henisz, Dorobantu and Nartey 2014). The “cloud tools” has originated as a rising cost-effective and credible solution for every problem.

The “University of South Australia” has been interacting huge quantities of the other entities. Now, the question arises here is that how could compete requests could be incorporated in an overall cohesive strategy. The quantity and diversities of the groups of stakeholders has been a huge challenge for the university. The cloud-work-spaces have made it simpler to control the activities of stakeholders. This is done by delivering a core hub for every announcements, consultations and conversation exercises (MacLennan et al. 2017).

By collaborating with the “clouds”, the organizations do not require to choose various instruments or channels of communication for engaging in various groups. On the other hand, they are able to build particular spaces for work for specific issues or projects. They are further able to send invitation the necessary people or groups for giving contribution when needed. Thus the load to collaborate with huge space with a huge scale of stakeholders could be highly reduced (Cooper,  Parkes and Blewitt 2014). However, each activity has been retaining their purpose and focuses.

The next query arises regarding the capturing of data streaming in the university. Further the distillation of the data to the node trends and developing planning around them are to be determined. Each of the cloud collaborations do not possess tools to have the analysis of built-in data and functions reporting. These have been best suited for the “stakeholder’s engagement” activities. This is due to the fact they have been enabling the users in shaping and refining the strategies of engagement. These have been lying on the basis on the information built through each interaction. Reports should be created by organizing that information in graph and other forms. This indicates that the information collected from the stakeholders utilizing the questionnaires within the instrument could be assessed and then formatted for the presentation in this instrument (Cote  and Osborne  2017). Hence, there has been no requirement for any distinct reporting software. The capturing of data and reporting of functions has also made it linear to control the usage patterns, So it could be clearly seen when and how the stakeholders have been interacting with the working space.

The stakeholders possess the ways to challenge the strategies almost in an instant manner.  Further the last query arises regarding the managing the strategy in that dynamic environment. The clod has been providing scopes for the organizations to become agile. This has helped in moving quickly and responding immediately as latest problems arise. That’s why the “cloud computing” has been useful for the organizations for supporting the plans of stakeholder engagement (Concannon et al. 2014). They have been aware that extra resources would be available in the clouds just after the project priorities alter. This could also occur as any unexpected spike in the demand take places.

Challenges Faced by University of South Australia

The online workplaces have been largely adaptable due to the fact they have been designed to back-up the agile organizations. This indicates that they have been created to suit the call of the fast-changing and the dynamic environments of working. The users could be deploy and repurpose the cloud workplaces very fast. This is done as a move for the project going by various phases. This is done instead of installing ad selecting and training people to utilize various instances of software every time (Padayachee, Naidu and Waspe 2015).

For instance a common procurement exercise could be taken as the example. A huge range of the stakeholders has been likely been included. Everybody should have various interest levels. They should influence and engage according to the stages of their project. The online workplaces could bring the stakeholders altogether. They could also strongly manage permission to access. This leads in assuring that no private and secret information has been shared in any place where it has not been expected (Osman et al. 2016). However, there is no necessity to reapply or replicate the precautions of security around various channels and platforms. The bidders at the first phase of the workplace could be reutilized to any shared zone for negotiations at final contract. This is to be again applied to the area of project management or the client portal for supporting delivery.

As the “stakeholder engagement project” is started the map for the stakeholders are to be drawn. This should display the groups to collaborate with, consult and inform. This must be based on the effective levels of interests and influence.

The first group comprises of the group to be informed with minimum effort. The techniques to maximize the awareness among the stakeholders in this case are using of the public “web pages”, “RSS feeds”, YouTube channel, Twitter, Facebook and other social media and lastly the quick polls (Bonsón and Ratkai 2013). The next group is those who must be consulted and shown the consideration for the views. The channels allowing collecting and quickly assessing feedbacks from any quantity of stakeholders in minimum cost are the online surveys and ideation. It also includes formal consultations, discussion forums, and discussion forums. The third group comprises of those are been collaborated for close partnerships. The object here is to inform, then consult and then collaborate. The effective relationships for working with the primary stakeholders groups are securing the file-sharing workplaces, team management and task management. The sharing of team diaries, wikis, documenting the co-authoring and risk registering could be also done. The last group is those who are meant for engaging and keeping satisfied. There objective is to informing and consulting. This category of stakeholders could become very powerful influencers (Rinaldi, Unerman and Tilt 2014).

 However, the using of digital techniques and channels are required as they have very low interest potentially. The methods are meant to target the messages such that they deliver address and contexts particular issues that have been interesting them. The techniques include the issue registering, reviewing of document, and alerting the targets, updating data, links to the articles, project blogs and stakeholder database.

The Role of Cloud Tools in Enhancing Stakeholder Engagement

As some overlaps are found, some categories of pathways would help in engaging with the stakeholders in few ways. Through the understanding the categories it becomes easier to make choice of the software packages to provide the digital ways required. A closer look at them is recommended below:

Channels of Social media:

They are free in using and could be controlled from their individual sites. A wide range of the third-party software could be used to manage the accounts.

Publishing platforms:

The  popular and common options for the blogs and websites consist of plenty of free software. They also have the RSS feeds created in them. There have been numerous proprietary solutions that could be adjusted according to requirements.

File sharing:

It is a simple approach to exchange spreadsheets, images and documents. As any sharing of file needed with the stakeholders, on the basis if different locations, a cloud-based solution of file sharing is recommended (Gesell et al. 2017).

Consultative channels:

There are many ways that enables to counsel with partners, including the web overviews, authority e-interview programming, discourse gatherings, surveys and so on.

• The feedback of community on the measure of mitigation would be reviewed for better understanding of the problems.
• The feedback should be further investigated by discussing with the stakeholders.
• The feedback must also go through the analysis of technical monitoring, data collection and field investigations (Roberts et al. 2017).

After following the investigations, recommendations are to be made to the manager about the proper action course. As required, the action plans could be upgraded and then communicated with the university staffs to implement.

Conclusion:

It has become a cult for the organizations to compete that to tick the box rather than to endeavor the understanding of stakeholder engagement. The “stakeholder management” also put impact on the decision implementation. The engagement of stakeholders is a crucial functionality for the project managers. The managers charged by the “stakeholder management”  have been feeling pressure in dealing with this. The digital channels have brought important advantages for the “stakeholder engagement”. This has permitted the organizations in consulting, informing, engaging and collaborating in variety of ways. Once the basis of the “stakeholder engagement” is mastered, it is crucial to make appreciation of the ever-altering characteristics of the practice.

References:

Bonsón, E. and Ratkai, M., 2013. A set of metrics to assess stakeholder engagement and social legitimacy on a corporate Facebook page. Online Information Review, 37(5), pp.787-803.

Concannon, T.W., Fuster, M., Saunders, T., Patel, K., Wong, J.B., Leslie, L.K. and Lau, J., 2014. A systematic review of stakeholder engagement in comparative effectiveness and patient-centered outcomes research. Journal of general internal medicine, 29(12), pp.1692-1701.

Cooper, S., Parkes, C. and Blewitt, J., 2014. Can accreditation help a leopard change its spots? Social accountability and stakeholder engagement in business schools. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 27(2), pp.234-258.

Cote, J. and Osborne, P., 2017. The value of stakeholder engagement in a long term scientific research program in Puget Sound.

Gesell, S.B., Klein, K.P., Halladay, J., Bettger, J.P., Freburger, J., Cummings, D.M., Lutz, B.J., Coleman, S., Bushnell, C., Rosamond, W. and Duncan, P.W., 2017. Methods guiding stakeholder engagement in planning a pragmatic study on changing stroke systems of care. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, pp.1-8.

Glover, J. (2017). Digital stakeholder engagement software - what are the options?. [online] Cloud-collaboration.kahootz.com. Available at: https://cloud-collaboration.kahootz.com/digital-stakeholder-engagement-software-what-are-the-options [Accessed 3 May 2017].

Henisz, W.J., Dorobantu, S. and Nartey, L.J., 2014. Spinning gold: The financial returns to stakeholder engagement. Strategic Management Journal, 35(12), pp.1727-1748.

MacLennan, S.J., MacLennan, S., Bex, A., Catto, J.W., De Santis, M., Glaser, A.W., Ljungberg, B., N’Dow, J., Plass, K., Trapero-Bertran, M. and Van Poppel, H., 2017. Changing Current Practice in Urology: Improving Guideline Development and Implementation Through Stakeholder Engagement.

Osman, O., Mey, S.S.C., Ibrahim, K., Hassan, H.A., Ghazali, M. and Koshy, K.C., 2016. The role of solution-oriented knowledge transfer programme and networking in charting a new course in University-Stakeholder Engagement. In Engaging stakeholders in education for sustainable development at University level (pp. 243-262). Springer International Publishing.

Padayachee, A.D., Naidu, A. and Waspe, T., 2015. Structure and governance of systems, stakeholder engagement, roles and powers. Twenty Years of Education Transformation in Gauteng 1994 to 2014.

Rinaldi, L., Unerman, J. and Tilt, C., 2014. The role of stakeholder engagement and dialogue within the sustainability accounting and reporting process. Sustainability accounting and accountability, pp.86-107.

Roberts, C., Lavery, C., Nicholls, N., Jain, M., Hendriksz, C.J., Upadhyaya, S. and Jessop, E., 2017. Multi-stakeholder engagement leading to access to treatment for MPS IVA (Morquio syndrome type A), a model for the ultra rare disease community. Molecular Genetics and Metabolism, 120(1), p.S115.

Service Innovation & Design. (2017). Engaging stakeholders in the designing of a service: a case study in the B2B service context. [online] Available at: https://sidlaurea.com/2013/03/21/engaging-stakeholders-in-the-designing-of-a-service-a-case-study-in-the-b2b-service-context/ [Accessed 3 May 2017].

Wilhite, R. and Pyrz, J., 2017. Engaging Stakeholder Engagement.