Stakeholder management during project inception: Strategic needs analysis

The project inception stage has been the focus of intense research activity for a number of years. The need to establish the project parameters and performance requirements has been an imperative in many organizations. Predesign processes and activities are being instituted that work through client strategic and organizational issues, needs, and requirements before the design team is involved. The participation of stakeholders in predesign workshops is a common feature of these project inception approaches. These approaches prepare a clear and workable statement of the project requirements in performance terms that the client group has agreed and committed itself to. This document can then provide a sound basis for the development of the design. One approach to these early stages of the project is strategic needs analysis. This approach uses a workshop setting to focus stakeholder involvement in proposing and identifying a range of strategic options for the proposed project. A case study of strategic needs analysis involving university faculty relocation to a new site is presented. The developments of organizational strategic options are described with the development of user performance indicators to guide the design development process.