Reflection on “Mass Appeal, By Gale, 2011”

The article “Mass Appeal” discussed the influence of the public external stakeholders. That type of stakeholder is so powerful that if you can win its backing, you will be able to gain a powerful ally in moving the project along very smoothly, but ignoring their concerns, will make them quickly turn against you, and that will be creating delays, adding costs, and possibly leading to the project's cancellation. That type of damage can be avoided only if project managers acknowledge that impact on the community from the very beginning.

Project managers should educate the public through breaking down the facts by topic, such as scheduling, environment and technology. In this way, the plan will be showing the details that might happen months before the actual project team hit the road executing the project. Training and hiring the workers from the community is way less expensive than housing and bringing outsiders, knowing that it reduces the risk of them leaving the project when opportunities arise closer to their home. Firms cannot survive without the local resources from the community, and the community members benefit from the support, education and opportunities that the firms bring.

Addressing the concerns of the community should begin in the planning stages, but project managers also should stay attuned to all the unexpected problems that might arise during the execution that might upset local citizens, knowing that sometimes people only need to be heard, so when you acknowledge the locals’ concerns, the project will be aligned with satisfying the stakeholders, so spending extra time and money to meet their needs may seem like an unneeded cost, but when those costs help in wining community support, it will be worth the investment.

Some of the lessons learned from this article are that project leaders must work closely with regulators and government agencies in order to be sure that the project goals will align with local rules and expectations, which makes building strong relationships with government agencies helpful for project teams overcoming complex obstacles that they could not master by themselves. Additionally, making alliances with stakeholders who agree with your ways can help in negating that influences of the negative stakeholder.

From my own experience, I think the power of the public stakeholders comes from the structure of the government, and so if the government is more liberal, you will find the public with great influence, but in many countries, this is not the case, especially if the project is related and supporting the government interest. It is crucial to consider the impact of the project on the public and on the environment, and even to take the pollution for example into consideration, but it is also important to understand the government and the political environment and structure in the country that you are trying to implement a particular project in.