Stakeholder

After reading this page

• you learned what a Stakeholder is
• you learned about Stakeholders in the Tygron Engine
• you learned about the differences between Stakeholders
• you learned which Stakeholders are available

What is a stakeholder?

A stakeholder is a person, group or organization that has interest or concern in a project. Stakeholders can affect or can be affected by the project's actions, objectives and policies. Some examples of key stakeholders are creditors, directors, employees, government (and its agencies), owners (shareholders), suppliers, unions, and the community which the project affects. Not all stakeholders are equal. Customers are entitled to fair trading practices but they are not entitled to the same consideration as employees are.

An example of a negative impact on stakeholders in an area is when a company needs to cut costs and plans a round of layoffs. This negatively affects the community of workers in the area and therefore the local economy. Someone owning shares in a business such as Microsoft is positively affected, for example, when the company releases a new device and sees their profit and therefore stock price rise.

How do Stakeholders relate to the Tygron Engine?

The Tygron Engine streamlines the planning process by bringing the actual stakeholder roles from the real world into our multiplayer gaming environment. Users can then select which role they want to play, in order to experiment, plan and negotiate better solutions for spatial planning, urban designs and development projects. Users can select the role they fulfill in real life, or select any of the other available stakeholders to learn about the 'other side's' interests and concerns. In the Tygron engine, the stakeholder’s interests and concerns are reflected in the Indicators. With Actions and/ or Predefined Measures a stakeholder can affect the Indicators and thus the game's outcome in a Total Score.

Different stakeholders with different interests and concerns.

As mentioned above, different stakeholders have different interests and concerns. These can be noticeable in many different areas. In the Tygron engine, each stakeholder is defined by it's concerns and available actions. A Project Developer will prioritize it's profit margin, while a Housing Cooperation will focus on reaching it's housing target and will be less (or not) focused on making any profit. Some stakeholders have a large budget, but lack property to perform their actions on, others have the tools and property, but lack the financial means to fulfill their objectives. By negotiating with each other, stakeholders are to search for any common grounds, in order to fulfill their individual and collective goals of the game.

Which stakeholders are available in the Tygron Engine?

The following stakeholders are available for users to add to their game:

• Civilian
• Company
• Education
• Expert
• Farmer
• Healthcare
• Housing Corporation
• Municipality
• Media
• Project Developer
• Water Board
• Other Authority
• Other

Not all stakeholders have to be present, and not all have to be playable too. Some stakeholders can be present in the game area without actually being playable. This can be for example because their impact on the issues in the area is minimal, or they are only marginally involved/ concerned. One stakeholder sticks out because this role has direct impact on the other stakeholders; municipality has a specific action to take - zoning permit approval - that has a huge impact on game play for the other participants.