Read "NextGen for Airports, Volume 2: Engaging Airport Stakeholders: Guidebook" at NAP.edu (2024)

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16 | ENGAGING AIRPORT STAKEHOLDERSStakeholder Engagement Objectives4Stakeholder engagement is “a two-way communication process that provides a mechanism for exchanging information and promoting stakeholder interaction with the formal decision makers” (Cascetta and Pagliara 2013). It provides an opportunity to improve stakeholders’ understand-ing of the issues being decided by policy makers (Woodward, Briscoe, and Dunholter 2009). “Effective engagement can bring about better policy directions, improved local services, possibly new ways to initiate or plan for a particular situation, and a better understanding of the local situation by technical experts and community members” (Bickerstaff, Tolley, and Walzer 2002). NextGen is a major transformation that many industry practitioners feel is long overdue (PANYNJ 2015). This transformation will impact many stakeholders for decades to come. Proactive and effective stakeholder engagement can be seen as an investment to ensure that an optimal balance of stake-holder needs is achieved. The overall objective of stakeholder engagement is “to achieve a transparent decision-making process with greater input from stakeholders and their support of the decisions that are taken” (Kelly, Jones, Barta, Hossinger, Witte, and Christian 2004). It must convey the usefulness of the project to various stakeholders and the net benefit of the option that is ultimately selected. To accomplish these objec-tives, stakeholder engagement must be taken into account from the beginning and encompass the whole planning and design process (Cascetta and Pagliara 2013).Unfortunately, transportation planning and infrastructure design initiatives often are considered too technical for many stakeholders to comprehend. As a result, their input may be seen as a hindrance to the process and as something that ultimately adds little value. Taking this viewpoint tends to result in a decide-announce-defend (DAD) approach to implementation, which means that many stakeholders are unaware of the decisions planners have been made until an initiative has been implemented and the impacts of those decisions must now be defended (Susskind and Elliot 1983). One interviewee noted that, even though the DAD approach may be appealing, the cost of defending the decisions that were made may be greater in the long run. Deliberate stakeholder engagement actions help plan-ners avoid the pitfalls of the DAD approach (Cascetta and Pagliara 2013) by:• Identifying and categorizing stakeholders based on their degree of influence on the decision- making process and the degree to which they are directly impacted by the result;• Listening to the needs and concerns of all stakeholders;• Providing the information that stakeholders need to understand the options and that decision makers need to make informed decisions;• Consulting with decision makers to determine options for addressing stakeholder needs and con-sidering and easing their concerns; and• Engaging or partnering with stakeholders in the decision-making process.