Does the thought of turning up to your project site to be confronted with protestors brandishing angry placards and blaring bullhorns amid riot police and media cameras send a shiver down your spine?
Knowing how to prepare for, and manage, the community outrage that often attends projects is now an essential skill for project managers.
Examples where protestors stopped projects dead in their tracks are the $550 million Roe 8 highway extension in Perth and Melbourne's East West Link; both attracted massive protests and media coverage that swayed their outcomes. And projects such as Sydney's WestConnex, light rail and Badgerys Creek airport have attracted their share of attention.
How should PMs handle civil outrage when social tensions and community conflicts create project risk?
Barbara Campany, principal and technical lead in stakeholder engagement with project consultancy firm GHD, says that in general, managing outrage has to start alongside the project.
"Most organisations realise that it's unwise not to engage and you want to have some control of that engagement so the earlier you start, the better and more positive the outcomes you can achieve," she says.
"If you go in early and give an opportunity to partner properly with your impacted stakeholders, you have a greater chance of successfully navigating that journey with your community partners."
Campany says there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution. Many concerns depend on such issues as the community, demographics and geography.
"If you go out and honestly engage your community in a way that they feel there is authenticity in that approach, they may be more willing to participate in discussions around what part of this project might be negotiable," she says.
"There might be a decision made by government, for example, to build the road but there may be areas where you can negotiate with people around. What might the urban infill look like? And what parkland may be given back?
"It's not a silver bullet. There will always be stakeholders with competing interests. It's about trying to engage meaningfully with each of them where the trade-offs might happen."
So the key, she says, is to give the community a sense of ownership "rather than making a decision and imposing that on the community so they had no say".
"An outrage management strategy looks at that and, if you listen most intently to the aggrieved, if you actually manage their valid grievances first and other people watch you do that in a responsible and responsive way, your credibility goes up."
And how should PMs handle protestors using social media such as Facebook or Twitter or uploading their issues to YouTube and posting to blogs? Campany says a communications strategy, which could include social media, is essential but it has to be carefully managed.
"It takes a lot of training and it becomes a culture, not a strategy, so you need the right people conducting this.
"If you engage in valid grievances, that's a good approach. You don't allow the conversation to unwind around an invalid grievance with people making claims about untruths. There's a way to respond to those claims and that's through frequently asked questions and a fact sheet on a website.
"It's a difficult and growing area but the principles around outrage management remain the same. Once you get the outrage down to a point where you can have a rational conversation with people, it's easier to move forward."
She says PMs should remember one thing when politicians get involved: it's not their problem.
"We usually have CEOs who sit with those people. A politician's interests are very different from a community's. A community has to host change forever; a politician's term is very limited."
Infrastructure professionals are invited to participate in the University of Melbourne's Next Generation Engagement Project to assist in addressing the key community engagement challenges.
Visit https://nextgenengagement.dialogue-app.com
Acknowledgements
This article was first published in the AIPM Project Manager, August 2017.
Link to AIPM website: https://www.aipm.com.au/home