Initiation of engagement will often take two different paths to begin with depending on if there is an historical relationship where a known relevance has already been established.
New stakeholders will require a more introductory tone in an initial communication to gage interest/relevance especially if they have been collected through harvest techniques such as registration. Those with an on going relationship can then join the engagement tracks identified for the various groups.
Engagement tracks can take several paths, including organised events, newspapers, structured and semi-structured interviews, forums, automated opinion gathering and regular communications via email. The key is to identify the concerns or interests of each group and ensure these are a prime focus of their track and that the methods used are effective in reaching these stakeholder groups.
Every action within an engagement track needs to be measurable. It also has to be able to be responded to and analysed for future consideration.
During the engagement process stakeholders can change their group track properties. Regular analysis will provide trending and classification updates.
Once you have completed step three of the Stakeholder Engagement Process and started communications with your stakeholders, you will then be in a position to move onto step four - Review.