- Linked to strategy/policy: KPIs should be linked to the purpose of the stakeholder engagement conducted for a project/activity and articulated within the stakeholder engagement strategy/plan or relevant company policy.
- Proportionality: KPIs should be proportionate to the nature and scale of the project/activity and the stakeholder engagement conducted.
- Leading and lagging: KPIs should comprise a combination of both leading and lagging indicators. Leading indicators are predictive measurements, intended to help forecast future occurrences or trends, while lagging indicators reflect past performance. Typically, KPIs predominantly comprise lagging indicators because they are generally easier to measure, however the inclusion of leading indicators will better help to guide the real-time direction of stakeholder engagement.
- Consultative/collaborative: stakeholder involvement in the development of the KPIs for a project/activity will help to sustain stakeholder relationships.
- Sufficiency of informative data: KPIs need to ensure that there will be a constant and ongoing source of data to inform evaluation efforts. Over time, this data can be used to inform the development of targets.
- Process vs outcomes/impact minded: there is a need to include KPIs that measure the engagement process (i.e. design of engagement and the nature of the engagement being conducted) as well as the outcomes achieved through engagement (i.e.
stakeholder experience, changes in stakeholder trust). - Quantitative vs qualitative: KPIs should comprise a mixture of quantitative (numerical) and qualitative (non-numerical) measures as this will provide a rounded picture of performance.
- Duration of indicators: some indicators may take longer to understand. This could be due to lags between data collection and input, requirement for additional analysis, or data collection methods that have varied timeframes (e.g. quarterly or annual surveys).
- Translatable: KPIs should enable a streamlined transition to company environment, social and governance (ESG) reporting requirements to reduce duplication of resources and materials.
Selecting from the 'KPI menu'
The KPIs identified in the following section are not intended to be adopted wholesale by companies or practitioners for every project/activity undertaken. Rather, the KPIs provided represent example indicators that can be selected and/or adapted by companies or practitioners, as considered relevant to the local context, engagement requirements and timing for a project/activity.
In other words, it is anticipated that practitioners will select from the suite of KPIs presented, rather than use all of the KPIs.