Tuning in to stakeholder voices

How to genuinely listen and engage with your stakeholders, not just as contributors, but also as active participants in the project itself.

Every organization emphasizes stakeholder engagement, aiming not only to interpret their voice, but to act upon it and allow it to guide their impact direction.

Do you usually use a quick process to listen to your stakeholders?

Or do you usually use it as a way to confirm prior perceptions?

If this is the case, it may be worth considering some process alterations.

One strategy that can ignite the potential of stakeholder engagement is the implementation of the Human Centered Design (HCD) methodology.

The Human Centered Design (HCD) is a methodology traced back to the foundation of the Stanford University design program. The strategy of John E. Arnold by 1958 was conceived as a way of focusing design on human needs.

Many of us are familiar with the Design Thinking (DT) methodology, which bears resemblance to Human Centered Design. Both prioritise human necessities and dive deeper into them. While profit organisations mostly use Design Thinking, HCD is more utilised by the non-profit sector.

It is worth highlighting the influential role IDEO has played in advancing and popularising both methodologies. Bringing them to the forefront of the global design landscape.

What is the use of HCD on stakeholder engagement?

As a people-oriented, collaborative way to create tangible and real solutions to address real needs, HCD offers a unique opportunity for engaging with all types of stakeholders.

By incorporating it, we can mention the Ethnography phase in which collaborators can engage with other people on a deeper and more meaningful scale.

The ethnography used in the Human-Centered Design methodology is the short immersion in the context to be studied. It qualitatively investigates factors that are important to understanding the social reality of the people involved.

Employing it implies more than listening to your stakeholders in different phases. It is a dedicated commitment to social justice, community development, and challenging the existing models of international development or environmental conservation.