Stakeholder Engagement

Summary: Keeping stakeholders engaged throughout the AI project is essential to building AI systems responsibly.

Type of pattern: Governance pattern

Type of objective: Trustworthiness

Target users: Project managers

Impacted stakeholders: Development teams

Lifecycle stages: All stages

Relevant AI ethics principles: Human, societal and environmental wellbeing, human-centered values, fairness, privacy protection and security, reliability and safety, transparency and explainability, contestability, accountability

Mapping to AI regulations/standards: EU AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001:2023 Standard.

Context: Stakeholders in AI projects include individuals, groups, or organizations that may influence or be impacted by the project’s outcomes. These stakeholders may have various ethical concerns regarding the development and use of AI systems, such as the trustworthiness of AI systems and the potential impact of AI on humanity.

Problem: How can we manage the needs and expectations of stakeholders?

Solution: Keeping stakeholder engagement throughout the AI project is essential to building AI systems responsibly. Stakeholder engagement allows AI systems to better reflect needs and expectations of stakeholders. There are various ways to engage stakeholders, such as interviews, online and offline meetings, project planning and review, and participatory design workshops. Choosing the most effective ways to encourage stakeholders depends on the project’s scope, objectives, and the stakeholders’ preferences. Possible methods to measure engagement may include the number of stakeholders involved, the frequency of their participation, and the quality of feedback received from stakeholders.

Benefits:

  • Improved trust: Stakeholder engagement aligns the development of AI systems with societal expectations and helps build stakeholders’ trust in AI projects.
  • Reduced risk: Stakeholders may help the project team identify and mitigate potential RAI risks before they become threats.

Drawbacks:

  • Conflicting opinions: There may be conflicting opinions from different stakeholders.
  • Increased cost: Addressing the needs and expectations from the stakeholders may incur unexpected cost.

Related patterns:

  • Diverse team: Project teams need to continuously engage in communication and collaboration with stakeholders throughout the entire project lifecycle. Diverse teams can improve the communication efficiency by increasing understanding towards the needs and concerns of different stakeholders.

Known uses: