3rd ASSIGNMENT

on

Stakeholder Analysis

SUBMITTED TO: DR. MUZAFFAR ALI QURESHI

SUBMITTED BY: MUAMMAD JAWAD UR REMAN BHUTTA

REGISTRATION NO NDU-LMS/M.P-16/F-218

DEPARTMENT OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES,

NATIONAL DEFENCE UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD
What is Groupthink? Also explain Brainstorming and Reverse Brainstorming

What is Groupthink?

In 1972, Irving L. Janis presented a set of hypothesis that he extracted from observing small
groups performing problem-solving tasks; he collectively referred to these hypotheses as
groupthink. He defined groupthink as “a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that
people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’
strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of
action”. Groups are usually successful because group members bring varied ideas, collective
knowledge, and they tend to be focused while working together. Groups can be advantageous
to both individuals and businesses. They are valuable to individuals because they are able to
learn new skills, get feedback from others, and recognize their own strengths and weaknesses.
The most important function of groups for businesses is to accomplish tasks that individuals
cannot do on their own. Groupthink can lead to bad judgments and decisions being made. So,
we will look at the conditions, the indicators or symptoms, and the ways to counteract
groupthink.

The conditions for groupthink to happen are important to recognize. When a homogenous,
highly cohesive group is only concerned with maintaining unanimity, they fail to evaluate all
their alternatives and options. It is obvious that a group suffers from groupthink when the group
feels apathetic about its task; group members do not expect to be successful; one group member
has very high credibility---group members tend to believe what he or she says; one group
member is very persuasive; and group members do not usually challenge ideas; it is expected
that group members will agree with one another. The members also see themselves as part of
an in-group working as an out-group opposed to their goals. Stress can also be a condition that
allows for groupthink to take place. As group members realize that immense external and
internal pressures come with their task, the level of stress rises. The desire to reduce the stress
motivates the members to come to an outcome quickly. Effective groups need to have clear
goals, mutual trust among all participants, accountability shared by everyone, external support,
and training.
There are many indicators or symptoms that groupthink could be happening in a decision-
making process. Groups dominated by groupthink tend to make unethical decisions when
compared to the decisions that could have been reached using a fair, open, and rational
decision-making process. Many groups have an illusion of invulnerability and they think that
they are not capable of being wrong. When the group believes that they are doing the right
thing in all circumstances and that it is best for everyone, then they are showing inherent
morality. Groups are often close-minded about the situation that is occurring. They ignore the
information that does not back up the opinions of the group members. When any of these occur
in a group, changes must be made to ensure that it will not happen in the future.

How to prevent groupthink from happening

One way of preventing groupthink is to make each member of the group a “critical evaluator”.
Group members will make an effort to find problems in-group situations by evaluating them
individually. The leader must accept criticism if this is to work. Problems can appear because
the leader feels that there is not centralized control within the group.

Another solution is to have many different groups work on the same problem under separate
leaders. Every group would come up with different ideas, and the pressure to agree with each
other is not as great. Sometimes group members are more comfortable with sharing their
disagreement in a smaller group than in a larger group. The problem with this is that
information is likely to become known if more people are aware of the situation. Groups that
take this approach are less likely to be locked into one solution.

Another alternative solution is to assign someone to be a devil’s advocate—to look for

disadvantages to a proposed idea. This strategy is especially useful if no one offers any
disagreement about a position. The devil’s advocate must also be willing to vocally share their
ideas with the rest of the group to force them to take a second look at the decision that they
made. The ways that groupthink are prevented are very important because it can eliminate some
future fatal mistakes if it is taken seriously. The plan of one person is more likely to be
inconsistent than the plan of a group. The more people contributing their opinions will help the
group put together a creative and inclusive plan.

Effective teams avoid groupthink by striving for group diversity—in age, gender, backgrounds,
experience, and training. They encourage open discussion, search for relevant information,
evaluate many alternatives, consider how a decision will be implemented, and plan for
contingencies in case the decision does not work out. Groupthink is a dilemma that can have
devastating consequences. Good communication skills are crucial for any results to occur. If
group members are aware and frequently checking for it, the negative effects can be avoided.
If members are not made aware of the groupthink dilemma, then it can limit the significance
of groups and make them ineffective.
What is Brainstorming

By using brainstorming, a powerful decision making tool, it can effectively generating radical
ideas, and help people break out their thinking patterns into new ways of looking at things.
The purpose of a brainstorming session is to work as a group to define a problem, and find,
through a team member’s intervention, the best group decision for a plan of action to solve it.
We need to understand that we are aiming the success for the team, not for an individual. While
utilizing this approach to decision making it is helpful to create some ground rules in order to
maximize efficiency. Some ground rules that we can use as following:

a. Criticism of ideas isn't allowed.

b. All ideas, no matter how wild, are encouraged.
c. The more ideas, the better.
d. Every participant should try to build on or combine the ideas of others.

Brainstorming involves quickly recording a broad list of ideas, which can then be expanded
and evaluated. During a brainstorming session, ideas should be generated as quickly as possible
in order to develop the most creative and varied list of alternatives. Participants in the
brainstorming process should come from as wide a range of disciplines as possible. This brings
a broad range of experience to the session and helps to make it more creative.

There are several different brainstorming processes, such as round robin, nominal technique,
and Post-It Note brainstorming.

It is important to let people have fun brainstorming. Encourage team member to come up with
as many as ideas as possible. During the brainstorming process, the team leader should monitor
session closely, do not let criticism and judgment cramp creativity. Some idea may appear
strange, but it can be valuable if you take the idea further. A conflict of ideas on any aspect can
often be productive, and the team can work together to find the solution. Brainstorming can
be an awesome decision making tool and can bring about great results. It is important, however,
to realize when one would and when one would not choose to use this technique. There are
certain situations in which such an overwhelming response is not appropriate. Brainstorming
can be pretty time consuming because we need to collect every team members’ ideas. When
we are facing some situations that are urgent and must be dealt with immediately,
brainstorming will not be appropriate. For Example, an inspection company performs the pre-
shipment inspection for wasted material, and releases certificates that it is required for custom
clearance in China. There are situations when inspection team find problems in some containers
in the late afternoon, but the shipment needed to be shipped the next day. The team didn’t have
time to brainstorm for ideas; it has to act quickly and used the first solution that it was available.

What is Reverse Brainstorming?

Instead of asking how to solve the problem, reverse brainstorming focuses on the idea of what
causes the problem or how to achieve an opposite result of what is expected. This method helps
the team to understand the problem and highlight the ideas that can be used to solve it among
other ideas discussed during the meeting. For example, the team thinks how to increase the cost
instead of how to reduce it…etc.

THE OBJECTIVES OR APPLYING THE REVERSED

BRAINSTORMING

Reverse brainstorming provides unusual thinking methods to reach solutions that ordinary
thinking methods do not achieve. As creative thinking requires a special flow of ideas, reverse
brainstorming can help teams to create using unique thinking methods. Reverse brainstorming
can be applied directly during the discussion meeting or it can be used if ordinary brainstorming
fails to reach the desired solution for the problem or the targeted creative approach.

WHAT ARE THE STEPS OF THE REVERSE BRAINSTORMING?

Reverse brainstorming session works in a way to achieve the target through five main steps.
The team goes through each step and discusses it as a group. These steps include the following:

1: Clearly identify the problem that needs to be solved by the end of the group meeting

2: Reverse the expected process. For example ask the stakeholders questions such as “how
can we make the problem worse?” instead of “How can we solve it?”

3: Collect all the reversed solutions. All the ideas are acceptable without no criticism

4: After reaching the cases that make the problem worse, flip these cases to reach the best
fixes for the problem.

5: Judge and evaluates the results to reach one best solution.

The above steps start and end in a similar matter to the ordinary brainstorming process.
However, the inner steps are reversed to reach the best solution through understanding the
worse cases. These steps are discussed during the stakeholder meeting using simple tools
such as a whiteboard, erasable markers with different colors and sticky notes.

AN EXAMPLE FOR APPLYING THE REVERSED BRAINSTORMING

One of the practice examples of applying reversed brainstorming could be a design company
that is working on improving the website design for a specific client. The problem is that
website visitors do not stay in the website for enough time or interact with the website
content as expected. Based on this scenario, the reversed brainstorming session flows as
follows:

The first step is to identify the problem needed to be solved. The website users do not engage
or interact with the website content as expected.

In the second step, the team flips the problem. For example. The team asks a question about
how to drive the users away from the website and reduce the interaction level.

In the third step, the team thinks of the methods that can drive the user away from the website
rather than visiting and interacting with it. For example, the team manager asked the designers
to think in methods to drive the user away from the website. The answers can be as following:

• Build complex navigation so users cannot find desired content

• Choose a disturbing color theme and hard to read fonts
• Host the website on a slow server
• Use large files that are hard to load
After building an Idea about the methods that can drive the user away from the website, the
fourth step reverses all these methods to reach the possible solutions for the problem such
as:

• Build an easy navigation and clear website structure

• Choose comfortable color theme and easy to read fonts
• Choose a reliable hosting service that ensures speed website loading
• Optimize the website content so users can view it properly
The fifth step determine which of these methods are not applicable to the website and how
to apply the needed methods in order to solve the user interaction problem.
CONCLUSION

The reversed brainstorming technique is one of the tools that empower companies and
organizations to solve problems through a creative approach. Identifying the problem and
how the problem can be worsened can actually help the team to understand the best solution.
The reversed brainstorming technique can also be applied to design and creative education.
It helps students to be able to think more creatively through exploring new thinking methods.
What is Stakeholder Analysis?

Stakeholder Analysis (SA) is a methodology used to facilitate institutional and policy

reform processes by accounting for and often incorporating the needs of those who have
a ‘stake’ or an interest in the reforms under consideration. With information on
stakeholders, their interests, and their capacity to oppose reform, reform advocates can
choose how to best accommodate them, thus assuring policies adopted are politically
realistic and sustainable.

Although Stakeholder Analysis originated from the business sciences, it has evolved
into a field that now incorporates economics, political science, game and decision
theory, and environmental sciences. Current models of SA apply a variety of tools on
both qualitative and quantitative data to understand stakeholders, their positions,
influence with other groups, and their interest in a particular reform. In addition, it
provides an idea of the impact of reform on political and social forces, it illuminates
the divergent viewpoints towards proposed reforms and the potential power struggles
among groups and individuals, and helps identify potential strategies for negotiating
with opposing stakeholders.

Who Are Stakeholders?

A stakeholder is any entity with a declared or conceivable interest or stake in a policy

concern. The range of stakeholders relevant to consider for analysis varies according
to the complexity of the reform area targeted and the type of reform proposed.
Stakeholders can be of any form, size and capacity. They can be individuals,
organizations, or unorganized groups. In most cases, stakeholders fall into one or more
of the following categories: international actors (e.g. donors), national or political
actors (e.g. legislators, governors), public sector agencies , interest groups (e.g. unions,
medical associations), commercial/private for-profit, nonprofit organizations (NGOs,
foundations), civil society members, and users/consumers.

Major Attributes to Consider

Four major attributes are important for Stakeholder Analysis: the stakeholders’
position on the reform issue, the level of influence (power) they hold, the level of
interest they have in the specific reform, and the group/coalition to which they belong
or can reasonably be associated with. These attributes are identified through various
data collection methods, including interviews with country experts knowledgeable
about stakeholders or with the actual stakeholders directly.

The level of influence depends on the quantity and type of resources and power the
stakeholder can marshal to promote its position on the reform. The level of interest
or salience is the priority and importance the stakeholder attaches to the reform
area. Broadly, these attributes signal the capability the stakeholder has to block or
promote reform, join with others to form a coalition of support or opposition, and
lead the direction/discussion of the reform. SA therefore provides a detailed
understanding of the political, economic, and social impact of reform on interested
groups, the hierarchy of authority and power among different groups and the actual
perceptions of the reform among different groups, all of which are important for
reform advocates to consider.

When to Conduct Stakeholder Analysis

Timing is an important factor in the implementation of Stakeholder Analysis to assure

the usefulness of the results for policy formulation. In most cases, SA should precede
the finalizing of reform proposals. In early stages of policy formulation, SA can help
gauge the likelihood of acceptance and sustainability of anticipated policy reforms. By
initiating SA prior to the introduction of the reform and continuing to modify the policy
proposal during the design process, potential obstacles to implementation and results
can be avoided. When used at the right time and in conjunction with other tools such
as qualitative political economy analyses and social impact assessments, Stakeholder
Analysis can inform task team strategies to overcome opposition, build coalitions, and
channel information and resources to promote and sustain proposed reform.

Data Collection for Stakeholder Analysis

Several methods can be employed to collect data on stakeholders in a comprehensive

and efficient manner. Prior to the actual collection, a brief review of background
literature and country studies can provide a useful understanding of the country’s
political economy. One method of collecting data is to conduct interviews directly with
the stakeholders involved in the specific policy area. The second method is to interview
local experts in the field who are knowledgeable about the issue and the important
groups and individuals involved in the policy area.

Some team members (e.g. managers) often hold extensive local knowledge and can
provide a critical first hand understanding of which stakeholders are relevant to the
reform area. However, unless resources and time do not permit, interviewing of local
and international experts in the policy area or country and/or the stakeholders
themselves is imperative.

Broad, all-inclusive interviews will lead to an effective Stakeholder Analysis process

since it will uncover many facets. The content and questions of the interviews should
focus on background information on the policy making process, information that
identifies key stakeholders from a variety of groups in the reform process, and
clarifying assumptions about stakeholders power and interest in the decision-making
 process. The number of interviews is determined by the research team, taking into
consideration field conditions and logistical constraints (e.g. sensitivity, access, time,
budget, etc.).

Analyzing Data and Designing Strategy

Data from interviews – including scaled values assigned to the attributes and relative
rankings calculated accordingly – are catalogued and presented in charts and/or matrices,
highlighting the following attributes:

• group
• their interest (or salience)
• influence (power)
• position on the reform

An important measure called “effective power” (degree of power the stakeholder

holds over other groups in relation to a reform area) is determined by weighting a
combination of a stakeholder’s salience and influence.

A clear assessment of each stakeholder’s power and likely impact on the policy making
process is conducted through several steps. The first step is to create a continuum.
Stakeholders are mapped on a continuum indicating support for the reform on a scale
of 0 to 100 from low (far left) to high (far right). The varying degrees of support are
marked on the line with a value indicating their reform preference. This implement also
provides a quick visual of the ‘lay of the land’, illuminating clusters of groups that
support, oppose or are indifferent to reform.

The next step is to organize the stakeholder data according to relative power/influence
and salience of each stakeholder to understand their potential support or opposition for
the proposed reform. Often, a matrix is used to organize and classify the stakeholder
data. One form is to map salience/interest and influence on the axes. This matrix
provides a shorthand categorization and analysis of which stakeholders will gain or lose
from a proposed reform and whether they can significantly impact the process. To guide
strategic responses, stakeholders are categorized by their power and salience in a grid
according to the following attributes:

• Promoters: Stakeholders who attach a high priority to the reform policy a priority
and whose actions can have an impact on the implementation of the policy
• Defenders: Stakeholders who attach a high priority to the reform policy but
whose actions cannot have an impact on the implementation of the policy
• Latents: Stakeholders whose actions can affect the implementation of the
reform policy but who attach a low priority to this policy
• Apathetics: Stakeholders whose actions cannot affect the implementation of
the reform policy and who attach a low priority to this policy

The above grid acilitates scenario-building and discussion and helps task teams
determine appropriate responsive strategies (e.g. which stakeholders to target for
negotiations and trade-offs, or which to buttress with resources and information, etc.).

One of the main goals of Stakeholder Analysis is to reveal, and therefore potentially
assist in reducing, the power imbalance among weaker groups which is often
revealed during policy reform process. Depending on the attributes of the
stakeholder (e.g. their level of influence vs. their salience on the issue), strategies
may be tailored to address their concerns.

Asses Stakeholders Power and Influence

Determining whether stakeholders in a position of strong influence hold negative interests

may be critical to project success. This level of understanding can best be reached by
conducting a formal assessment of each stakeholder's level of importance and influence to
the project.

Influence indicates a stakeholder's relative power over and within a project. A stakeholder
with high influence would control key decisions within the project and have strong ability
to facilitate implementation of project tasks and cause others to take action. Usually such
influence is derived from the individual's hierarchical, economic, social, or political
position, though often someone with personal connections to other persons of influence
also qualifies. Other indicators identified include: expert knowledge, negotiation and
consensus building skills, charisma, holder of strategic resources, etc.

Importance indicates the degree to which the project cannot be considered successful if
needs, expectations, and issues are not addressed. This measure is often derived based on
the relation of the stakeholder need to the project's goals and purposes. For instance, the
human resources department may be key to getting the project new resources at a critical
time, and the accounting department key to keeping the finances in order and the project
manager out of jail. The users of the project's product or service typically are considered of
high importance.

These two measures, influence and importance, are distinct from each other. A project may
have an important financial sponsor that can shut down the project at any time for any
reason, but does not participate at all in the day-to-day operations of the project. The
combination of these measures provides insight not only into how stakeholders interact, but
can help identify additional assumptions and risks.

Outline assumptions and risks.

In relation to stakeholders, risks are manifest when there are conflicting needs and
expectations. For example, the interests of a stakeholder with high influence may not be in
line with the project's objectives and can block a project's positive progression. To bring to
light key risks, the project manager needs to clarify unspecified stakeholder roles and
responsibilities, play "what-if" scenarios using unfulfilled needs and expectations, and
double check the plausibility of assumptions made.

Conclusion
Stakeholder analysis is a technique that can help project team members understand the
variety of stakeholders that have an interest in the project, and the individual nuances that
can affect project risk. In an environment where organizational or office politics often
appear to cloud a project's progression, stakeholder analysis provides the team with views
and some basic measures that can help uncover and remove barriers. Consequences of
completing such an analysis include information for additional tools that could prove
valuable for the project team: a communication management plan, a risk management plan,
and possibly a set of previously unspoken project requirements.