Personal Blogs

When asked to analyse stakeholders many students immediately revert to the Power/Interest grid (Mendelow, 1981). This is not always the most appropriate framework and could be used in combination with others. In this discussion, we assume that this framework has been chosen and a good way of using the framework is outlined.

The first task is to identify the stakeholders for your project. This often best completed as a group to remove potential bias as much as possible.  When identified these are placed on a grid (see Fig.1) depending on their level of interest in the project and its outcomes and their level of power in terms of them impacting the project.

Figure 1: The base-level Power/Interest model.

The next step is to use a framework like Force Field analysis to identify their disposition in terms of the project. This is shown in Fig.2. where (+) means supportive, (-) means resisting and (0) means neither supportive or resisting.

Figure 2: Stakeholder disposition

The third step is to think, again in a group if possible, where you would like to see the stakeholders in the grid. (Fig.3)

Figure 3: Desired stakeholder disposition

Figure 4 indicates the actions you might take to maintain good relationships with your stakeholders.

Figure 4: Prioritising stakeholders

This then defines how you will need to interact and communicate with your stakeholders so they can be supportive of your project. Clearly, as the project develops stakeholder disposition will have to be revisited to ensure they remain in the quadrant you want them to be in. Any drift may need some adjustment to your stakeholder management.

References

Mendelow, A.L. (1981). 'Environmental Scanning - The Impact of the Stakeholder Concept,' ICIS 1981 Proceedings, 20.

To be a good critical thinker a key skill required centres on being able to analyse and present in the form of arguments. If we consider Critical Thinking as an equation:

Critical reading

+

Critical analysis

+

Critical writing

=

Critical thinking

And then consider that:

Critical reading = argument analysis

And:

Critical writing = argument building

We can see the importance of being able to work with arguments in an academic or workplace environment.

When analysing an argument you are actually evaluating it to determine whether it is logical and persuasive. In other words, is the argument strong and is the conclusion fully supported? We will cover this as we proceed through this discussion about arguments. Firstly, let us stop for a moment and understand what an argument consists of.

Quite simply, an argument is a claim that is supported by reasons or evidence. This means that when presenting an argument, an author is trying to persuade the reader that something is true or correct by presenting supporting reasons or evidence. It does this by presenting logical reasons and evidence to support the claim or viewpoint.

The constituent parts of an argument are:

•       THE ISSUE – the problem or controversy about which people disagree

•       THE CLAIM - the position on the issue and the point of the argument

•       THE SUPPORT - reasons and evidence that the claim is reasonable and should be accepted. A reason being a general statement supporting the claim, an evidence being facts, statistics, experiences, comparisons and/or examples

•       THE REFUTATION - opposing viewpoints

•       THE CONCLUSION – a statement that confirms the claim has been supported.

An issue may have several associated arguments and each of these should have one claim and one conclusion, but several reasons and pieces of supporting evidence. The supporting statements or evidence are called premises and there re key words that indicate that a premise is about to b presented. For example:

• Because
• Since
• Supporting that
• Accounting that
• Given that
• For example
• For the reason that
• In that
• Given that
• As indicated by
• Due to
• Owing to
• This can be seen from
• We know this by
• Furthermore
• Moreover
• Besides
• In addition
• What’s more

Similarly indicator words that signal that a conclusion is about to be stated will include:

·             Therefore

·             Hence

·             Consequently

·             Ergo

·             Thus

The premises should provide a logical link between the claim and the conclusion, and a key question when evaluating an argument is,” Do the premises provide enough logical support to support the conclusion?” Below are some common errors made in logical reasoning, more often called logical fallacies.

1.     Red Herring Fallacy: where the writer tries to side-track the reader by raising an irrelevant issue.

2.     Hasty Generalisation – where a conclusion derived from insufficient or biased evidence

3.     Non Sequitur - “It Does Not Follow”

4.     Faulty Analogies – where the conclusion depends on a comparison between two dissimilar things

5.     Appeal to Authority – relying on the view of apparent authorities to settle the truth.

There are many more such fallacies and if you are interested some simple research will easily surface more.

The process for analysing/evaluating an argument quite simple and the steps are laid out below:

1. Identify the claim.
2. Outline the reasons/premises to support the claim.
3. Identify the types of evidence being used.
4. Identify the conclusion.
5. Identify any assumptions.
6. Evaluate the adequacy and sufficiency of the evidence i.e. do the premises logically support the conclusion.
7. Does the author recognise or refute counter arguments?

Assumptions have been introduced here and they consist of things the author takes for granted without presenting any proof (in other words, what the author believes or accepts as true and bases the argument on). Hidden assumptions, or ones the reader has not identified, can be used to justify an argument, in effect, “by jumping to conclusions”.  To avoid this the reader should:

·      Look for gaps in the argument

·      Work out what the missing link is in the chain of reasoning

·      Check to see whether the conclusion would still be supported without those hidden assumptions

Finally, you may think that this discussion does not align with my PEE acronym discussed in previous blog. But to compare the two:

CLAIM = Position or Point of the Argument

PREMISE = Explanation and Evidence

The only difference is we have now discussed bringing your PEE to a Conclusion!

I hope this has been useful in helping you analyse, evaluate and write better arguments.

A cycle of inquiry (see Figure 1) is an iterative process of collecting and interpreting information that will enable you to make decisions about what action to take next. It has a built in cycle that will enable you to collect more information if you feel there is not enough to make that decision about the next action.

Figure 1: The cycle of inquiry (Open University, 2016)

 A cycle of inquiry will usually be carried out for two circumstances:

1. When an unexpected event has occurred in your project and you need to take a quick decision about changes you may need to make to it – this is called refection-in-action.
2. When you think that a part of your project needs to be improved the next time it occurs in your project and you have time to reflect on what form this improvement may take e.g. how you conduct and interview or meeting, e.g. how you conduct and interview or meeting – this is called reflection-on-action.

Both may be required at different times as a project progresses.

The two important elements of a cycle of inquiry to make it effective is the information you select which will help you then reflect well when interpreting this information. In your reflections you will need to think about what theories and frameworks help you understand the information, critiquing them to identify their strengths and weakness and any adaptations you will need to make to make them work in the context of your project.

Cycles of inquiry are an important link between the theories and frameworks you have studied and the practicalities of using them effectively in your work/project context.

Another way of looking at what a cycle of Inquiry consits of has been produced as a digram by my colleague Rob Moore and is shown in the attached fil, ans asks a series of questions to help you develop your understanding of what is happening and what you need to do next.

When writing academically you are expected to make your points by constructing arguments and these change your opinion into acceptable statements. Simplistically an argument is:

Argument = Conclusion + Justification

The conclusion is a statement that something is, or should be, the case, in other words the position that you are taking either in response to a question or as the result of some research work you have carried out.

Justification is the term that refers to the evidence that supports your position and the explanation of how it supports your position.

So in effect now we have:

Argument = Position + Evidence + Explanation (PEE)

It is good practice to start with your position but then ‘weave’ the Evidence and Explanation together hopefully in one paragraph. The last sentence of your paragraph should then briefly summarise your position and what argument will follow, thus providing a link from one argument to another.

In terms of the quality of the argument you will need to ensure:

• There is evidence that the person reading your argument (or assignment) can check – obviously this means a clear reference.
• That you have thought about the source of your evidence.
•  That your argument clearly links to the question you are addressing.
•  That you have not used too many quotations in your argument – it is better to quote key phrases and then too use your own words to paraphrase the rest of the cited work.

Your argument should fit into a good essay structure that should look like:

1.     Introduction

2.     Main Body

3.     Conclusion

The Introduction, that should be around 10% of the whole word count, should:

•      Identify the main points and issues of the question being asked,
•      Provide some background to the context of your arguments,
•      State your overall position vis-à-vis the answer to the question
•      The structure the essay or report will take.

The Main Body should:

• ·      Have a suitable title (obviously not “Main Body”)
• ·      Set out the arguments that support your position in a logical and coherent manner
• ·      Include arguments that challenge your position

The Conclusion, that again should be up to 10% of the overall word count, should:

• ·      Start by restating your position.
• ·      Summarise the arguments you have made to support your position.
• ·      Clearly show how these have addresses you question you are answering.