Planning is an essential step to work out how you will implement your engagement activities.
Planning for an engagement will help you:
- define your engagement objectives, techniques and how you will provide feedback
- create a step-by-step roadmap of responsibilities, tasks and supporting communication tactics and tools
- revisit your purpose if the project ‘loses its way’
- demonstrate how it will add value to the project
- motivate teams and gain commitment to the engagement process
- get management commitment to the project with a signed document.
Key steps in the planning stage
The key steps in the planning stage are as follows:
- know your purpose - a clear statement about the decision to be made
- define your engagement objectives
- identify what is negotiable and non-negotiable (what can and can't be influenced)
- undertake a community and stakeholder analysis
- determine appropriate engagement tools and techniques
- consider the parameters and limitations of your project and engagement
- identify potential risks and mitigation strategies
- plan how you will report back and close the feedback loop
- decide how you will know if your engagement was successful (evaluation).
To get started use the Better Together Engagement Plan template (DOC, 185 KB)