Professional curiosity and building trust with stakeholders

What role does professional curiosity have in project management? Is it our responsibility to be curious, enquiring and inquisitive when dealing with stakeholders? Do we share information about what we’re seeing, information that might be outside the immediate scope of our roles, so that patterns of adverse behaviour might be spotted or early warnings of disgruntled stakeholders might be acted on? What are the risks of team members not being professionally curious?

This is the theme in October’s “Useful Links” from the Stakeholder Engagement Focus Group (SEFG). We take a cross section through this challenging area: pointing to the need for professional curiosity in mundane activities such as project reporting, the relevance to professional curiosity in community consultation, and how to apply professional curiosity to reveal and tackle crucial issues.

“Useful Links” is a regular document produced by the SEFG, part of the APM People SIG. It is published each month on the APM Stakeholder Engagement Resources web page. The aim is to share links to tools, developments and forthcoming events that may be of interest or help to address your stakeholder engagement questions.

If you have a stakeholder related event or publication that you would like to share through “Useful Links” please contact us: SEFG@apm.org.uk

Fran Bodley-Scott
APM People SIG committee member, Stakeholder Engagement Focus Group lead