Why Did the Original Project Fail?

Experts reported two major reasons for the project discontinuation. First, the bad economy

forced many stores to close their doors, which derailed many new construction commercial

projects. The second reason was the stakeholders.

When the news of the opening of the new shopping mall broke, the residents of the City of

Redville were not happy. They protested the opening of this huge mall in the vicinity of their

small town. They argued that the mall would bring a lot of traffic and crime to the city and

would disrupt their peaceful life. But the builder kept lobbying the city manager Jason Roth

and the mayor Russ Williams to pursue this project. The city officially eventually decided to

go ahead by bypassing the community protest and approved the mega project.

The idea of building a huge shopping mall was originally conceived by the city council back

in $2000.$ However, the city officials did not include the community in the decision$-$making

process. No community member was consulted, and no town hall meetings were held. The

Redville community was outraged when the project was officially started. Immense

opposition and regular protests by the community slowed the project significantly. The

project came to a halt when the community leaders filed a legal action against the city and

obtained a stay order.

New Approach

Recently, with the help of the project management expert consultant on board, the city

decided to thoroughly analyze the root causes of the original mall project closure issue. The

objective was to explore the possibility of resuming the project again per original plans or

per brand$-$new plans but this time with the new approach based on lessons learned from

the previous failure including but not limited to proper stakeholder analysis.

Conclusion

The project management team, the project manager, along with public relations,

communications, development, and planning staff from the city office, came together to

conduct a formal stakeholder analysis and to develop an effective community outreach

strategy. The result was the proposal to initiate a new project to build an outlet shopping

mall, a new hope for the original incomplete shopping mall.

The following steps were performed to achieve the wanted outcome:

$1.$ :

$2.$ Identify relevant decision$-$makers for each development goal:

$3.$ Identify effects on the community of achieving goals:

$4.$ Identify all groups and individuals with a stake in the project $-$ Brainstorm on the

following questions to identify all the groups and individuals who have a stake in the

project community:

a$.$ Who would benefit if the project goals are achieved for the project?

b$.$ Who would be hurt, or might believe that they could be hurt, by the project?

c$.$ Who could shape public opinion about the project, even if it might not

directly affect them?

d$.$ Who has the authority to make decisions affecting the program?

The following is the list of the stakeholders identified during the brainstorming:

a$.$ City $($tax and tourism revenue$)$

b$.$ City Officials $($possess authority to make decisions$)$

c$.$ Community at$-$large $($convenient shopping, dining, socializing opportunities,

d$.$ Management consulting firms $($can coach city officials on how to shape public

opinion about the project$)$

e$.$ Community at$-$large $($increased traffic, potential for increased crime$)$

$5.$ Prioritize stakeholders $-$ Practical restraints on time and resources usually make it

infeasible to develop strategies for working with all stakeholders in a community, so

it is necessary to set some priorities. Priority stakeholders should be identified based

on their relative potential to impact your ability to meet your goals, whether

positively or negatively.

$6.$ Analyze high$-$priority stakeholders $($see table below$)-$ Analyze high$-$priority

stakeholders to begin to develop strategies for working with them. Answer the

following questions:

a$.$ What do we know$/$not know about the high$-$priority stakeholders?

b$.$ How can the high$-$priority stakeholders affect the achievement of the project

goals?

c$.$ How would achieving the project goals affect the high$-$priority stakeholders?

$7.$ Develop community outreach objectives and strategies for each high$-$priority

stakeholder $($see table below$).$ Objectives are specific, verifiable, and attainable

indicators of success. Strategies are the specific methods and procedures used to

achieve the objectives.

Case Study Questions:

$1.$ Who are the stakeholders in this case?

$2.$ What steps were performed by the project team to analyze stakeholders?

$3.$ What questions in this case were suggested to brainstorm to identify stakeholders?

$4.$ Why is it important to prioritize stakeholders?

$5.$ Who are the high$-$priority stakeholders in this case?

$6.$ What is the purpose of formulating outreach strategy for each high$-$priority

stakeholder?