Strategic Project Advisory

What is strategic project advisory?

Strategic project advisory is the supreme discipline. It combines short-term conflict resolution, medium-term stakeholder management, and a long-term, goal-oriented approach based on the Harvard method of negotiation over a period of two or more years. Complex urban-planning projects, but also internal projects to modernize municipalities and public authorities, are frequently subject to high time and cost pressure. At the same time, conflicts with citizens, environmental associations, or other authorities and the public bodies responsible for public interests (*Träger öffentlicher Belange*), but also with an organization's own staff representation and workforce, are difficult to anticipate. Conflicting interests can considerably delay these important projects or even cause them to fail. We therefore advise and support municipalities and public authorities in the strategic preparation and implementation of these projects.

Which projects are involved?

We support your complex urban-planning projects, novel climate-protection and climate-adaptation measures, contested flood-protection measures, projects for renewable-energy facilities that compete for land, and also the implementation of your municipal heat planning. If you intend to introduce new ways of working internally, such as “New Work,” modern “smart cities” applications, and “artificial intelligence” (AI), we support you with change management in order to reduce conflict potential and to bring your staff representation and staff on board at an early stage.

What we offer

We offer you overarching, goal-oriented support for your project.

Our strategic project advisory is geared to the long-term objectives of your project. Where needed, the process support can extend across the entire project duration, from the analysis phase through the strategy phase to the implementation phase. The emphasis is at the outset, and thus on analyzing conflict potential in the project environment, developing the communication strategy, stakeholder management, and designing participation processes. We likewise support you in designing the project structure, later in milestone planning and in the necessary discussions with interest groups. We prepare coordination with the political leadership level and with other authorities. When developing a prototype, we support you with agile methods. We can also advise you on piloting, rollout, and evaluation. If blockages arise, we analyze the procedural deadlock and develop with you ways out of entrenched situations.

Who is it suitable for?

Our strategic project advisory is aimed above all at municipalities and public authorities that want to draw on expertise in communication and forward-looking conflict avoidance for larger projects. In addition, companies can also make use of this service if they want to professionally shape the preparation of the permitting procedure for their project and the participation processes, for example under the Baugesetzbuch (Federal Building Code) or the Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetz (Federal Immission Control Act). We advise environmental associations on how they can actively and constructively contribute their interests to the planning and permitting of such a project.