Can I suggest that we split Stakeholders into the following categories?

StakeHolder Categories

Program Owners - These are the persons/committees responsible for the running success of the Program. These people are ultimately impacted by project failings and delays.

Organizational or Government Owners - these are the folks that will recieve the working solutions as delivered. In most instances they will share the workload of implementing the solutions and in assuming budgetary responsibility for ongoing operation.

Steering Committee members ]- Executive Stakeholders provide Governance, direction, and administrative help for the needs of the Working Teams and Project Managers. This is one of the biggest question marks for me - and getting this stakeholder list right mitigates the biggest risk to our plan - society's acceptance and agreement to implement.

Who are our Stakeholders?

Owners - Heads of State for the G8 countries? Kings and Queens? Or a smattering of representives from Sciencethe mankind?

Organizational and Government Owners - Scientific community leaders, Governmental Departments including Space Agencies, Transportation Agencies, Energy Agencies, Community Representatives?. Who would you pick to be on this list - based on track record? Or other...

Steering Committee Members- Again, this is a tough one. For this group, we need to find the brightest and most experienced "builders" on the planet. Personal Track-records count here and each member of the Committee should be in a position to bring resource to the table as required to achieve targets in keeping with the timing needs of projects.

When it comes to naming members for the Steering Committee(s), I'm almost a blank at the time of this writing - but I will make one scathing observation - US business-based Steering Committee hopefuls need not apply. I have never met, in my professional career, a single individual from that part of the world with the process know-how to get a really complex job done. I'll explain more if needed and I'll apologize to the first US Program Manager of substance that reads this - but bravado without substance is no recipe for a successful project - so its definitely much more damaging to a successful program of this magnitude and importance. If somebody can explain why this is, or refute my statement - I would love to hear from you.

Naming names ...

So - who are going to be our Stakeholders? First come the Program Owners. Its certainly true to say that humanity - the public - are the group most dramatically affected by the delays, failings, and successes of our project.

Sure, everyone wants to be invited to a "party" but its not practical for everyone to disrupt their lives to attend weekly or monthly status meetings either. In democratic countries, we have elected leaders put there to represent our interests in this way. But unfortunately, in many countries these folks are confined to defer to what I call an "Operational mindset" - and not "Strategic" 10+ year long goals. Put plainly - in many democratic systems, politicians - are obliged to vote for changes that improve conditions for special interests, corporate sponsors, and campaign contributers first - and to voters second.

In a democratic system such as this, voters get second consideration AND its usually in keeping with immediate social issues as measured by monthly and weekly opinion polls. Keeping the masses appeased in short term pursuits keeps them their faces in the public eye and is probably their best chance to be re-elected. Blame no-one but yourselves for this by-the-way - you were the ones watching E-TV instead of voting for a stratigically minded leader. (Well not you actually; these voters tend to frequent more intellectual fodder like People Magazine and Cosmo - than to spend their time here in the Air Car Magazine forums ).

Government leaders must be accountable for both Operational AND Strategic Targets ! - so make a change in the way you cast your vote next time around

Where the G8 leaders should be an easy pick for our Program Owners, I find I'm not so certain. The United Nations have "too many cooks in the kitchen", and their processes are nebulous and so often ineffective - so this isn't the resume of the team I am looking for.

Monarchs would be great Program Owners because they can be trained from a young age in the process and then devote 50 years of service to the future and advancement of society. Queen Elizabeth has seen 11 Prime Ministers during her reign as Queen of England - now that's what I call "in it for the long term". For better or worse however, these institutions hold less and less sway world-wide in our "modern" times - and their authorities haves diminished markedly during our current 40 year technology slump. Co-incidence ?

I've set up a Poll on the Air Car Magazine's front page asking readers who they see are the ideal "Owners" of our Plan for the Future. I hope you will spend a minute to vote - or simply respond to this story in the forums...

So with no further delay, but with great trepidation, I hereby appoint the G8 Leaders (and replacements) as my recommended Air Car Future Project Owners ... Wow - that'll impress 'em. In alphabetical order, Stakeholders include:


* Angela Merkel - German Chancellor

* George Bush - President of the United States

* Gordon Brown - Prime Minister of the United Kingdon

* Nicholas Sarkosy - President of France

* Romano Prodi - Prime Minister of Italy

* Stephen Harper - Prime Minister of Canada

* Vladimir Putin - President of Russia

* Yasuo Fukuda - Prime Minister of Japan



Steering Committee Members - this list is a little bit easier for me. I think that there are enough Space Agencies worldwide to represent the scientific and project management best-practises required to keep our Program on track. These organizations - with my previous caution about NASA - have probably got the resources required to keep Project Teams outfitted as needed to get the job done.

The Steering Committees - we'll need one for "Space" and "Science" category projects (see the Requirements list spreadsheet), Enery projects might be governed by Directors of various World Energy Boards. In either case, Steering Committees should be comprised of Senior Directors from each named Agency as follows :

* Lets confirm that I'm on the right track before researching these names. I would rather list offices and titles rather than individuals here as well.


Please add any addition info or opinions to our forum discussion of this article.

Working Team Members - Scientists, Engineers, and experienced, expert Program Builders with a track record of ontime, on-scope and on-budget project delivery - send me your names and I'll add them to the list. .

* Edward Tilley



Thanks for reading...