Opening a dialogue with stakeholders
NARA held its first open meeting for interested stakeholders in the western Oregon and Washington region. The purpose of this meeting was to introduce the NARA project and leadership to all interested stakeholders and begin a partnership to establish a supply chain coalition in western Oregon and Washington.
The event was held on May 21st, 2013 at the Washington State University campus in Vancouver Washington. Invitations were extended to potential stakeholders identified by the NARA Outreach team from previous enquiries and meetings, and a news release was distributed to the local press. 22 stakeholders representing governmental agencies, non-profits and business enterprises attended the meeting.
An equal number of NARA representatives were present. Their role was to share NARA’s progress in defining supply chain assets in the western Montana corridor and receive stakeholder comments to improve the supply chain analysis process in the western Oregon and Washington region. A number of presentations were made from NARA Outreach, Education and Systems Metrics Team members followed by comments and questions from the stakeholders.
Moving forward
As a follow-up to the May meeting, the NARA Outreach and Education Team has initiated steps to enable stakeholder collaboration to the supply chain analysis. Much of the supply chain analysis will be coordinated through the IDX course. In order for the IDX team to document and analyze the regional assets, accurate information needs to be provided from regional stakeholders. In a few weeks, NARA will establish a web-based mechanism to enable two-way data transfer between stakeholder collaborators and NARA members.
To ensure that expectations between collaborating stakeholders and the NARA team are met, the NARA Outreach team will prepare a team charter to be presented to collaborating stakeholders and signed by each party that define roles, NARA deliverables and expectations.
In addition to a team charter, NARA will develop a project roadmap for the region that defines the target area for analysis, approach to how the work will be completed and lists the analyses to be performed. The team charter and project roadmap will be completed before August 1st, 2013 and be widely distributed to NARA members and regional stakeholders.
Ultimately, involving stakeholders in the research process and using their input to shape the supply chain analysis is an important step. The interest and enthusiasm demonstrated at the Vancouver meeting is an encouraging sign that regional participation is forthcoming.