Engaging stakeholders for a software development project: River Manager model

This paper describes the approach being used to engage stakeholders for the development of the River Manager river systems modelling tool, which is designed to simulate river system hydrology and water management rules for water management planning. River Manager software is being developed to replace three river system models (MSM-Bigmod, REALM, IQQM) that are currently applied in different parts of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Engagement is occurring as a multi-part process that comprises the following elements: (1) An initial round of stakeholder discussions in 2005/06 that elicited the user requirements. This process was repeated in 2008/2009; the requirements were largely unchanged. (2) A governance structure organised into three levels: (a) technical user group providing technical advice; (b) technical managerial group deciding requirements and approving functionality specifications; and (c) steering committee of user representatives providing strategic direction. Interactions between the project and these governance groups are mostly formal, through periodic meetings and outof-session papers. (3) User acceptance testing that is via four complex river system model trial applications. (4) Other stakeholder communication processes, which include bi-annual planning meetings, monthly project update meetings, fortnightly eNewsletters and shared files stored on a SharePoint site. For a wider audience, there is user documentation and training materials, training workshops, public seminars, exposure in the corporate magazine and descriptive fliers. This formal approach to stakeholder engagement has some advantages: (a) encourages all identified stakeholders to be active in the decision-making process; (b) provides equity of stakeholder influence; (c) provides a transparent forum for decision making; (d) fosters cohesion of vision and commitment; (e) is important for achieving a collective responsibility for project success; (f) achieves stakeholder buy-in to the project; (g) ensures the software is fit for purpose, technically and for policy development; (h) provides a pathway for uptake and adoption; and (i) socialises project performance risks. The main disadvantage is that the governance gates in the engagement process slow project progress.