E Engagement.
Engagement is the second BEARINGS letter and the first inside the Assess phase. It maps the human system around the program — sponsors, approvers, decision-makers, affected populations — and sets engagement expectations before the plan gets drafted.
Purpose
Programs that skip stakeholder analysis discover their political structure the hard way — usually at Gate A, when someone with veto power surfaces late and reopens the whole proposal. Engagement forces that conversation up front: who decides, who approves, who needs to be consulted, and who needs to be kept informed.
Worksheets
Where it fits
Engagement sits in Assess before Gate A. It feeds directly into Aims (who defines the objective), Routes (who weighs in on trade-offs), and Governance (who gets which R/A/C/I).