Specialised participatory methods

A World Café is a conversational process designed to foster dialogue, active engagement and constructive possibilities for action. The idea is to set the context and clarify the purpose of the exchange; create a hospitable space; explore questions that matter; encourage everyone's contribution; connect diverse perspectives; and listen for insights and share discoveries.

To start, four or five people sit at café-style tables and discuss different questions. There are usually three rounds of conversation of approximately 20-30 minutes each. All participants are encouraged to record key ideas on their tablecloths or index cards.

Once the initial round of conversation is over, one person remains at the table while the others carry key ideas, themes and questions into new conversations on other tables. The table host welcomes new guests and briefly shares the main ideas, themes and questions from the initial conversation, encouraging the new arrivals to contribute ideas from their previous tables.

By the end of the second round, all of the tables will be cross-pollinated with insights from earlier conversations. In the third round of conversation, people can either return to their original table to share discoveries, or continue to travel to new tables.

Sometimes a new question that helps to deepen the exploration is posed for the third round.

After several rounds of conversation, the whole group will have a conversation so that patterns can be identified, collective knowledge can grow, and possibilities for action can emerge.

The Open House was developed as a constructive alternative to public meetings. Open Houses provide a forum in which interested people can obtain information and register their views. The venue is usually a well-known local space, (eg: a room in a library, school or church). Open Houses typically run over long periods of time (eg: 2-9pm or two to three days) so that a wide cross-section of the community can attend.

Display panels are used to present key information about the proposal. Visual and text information should give visitors a clear understanding of the proposal. A brief automatic slide presentation or short video can enhance the written information. A table with handout material is usually provided. Refreshments may also be provided.

The primary feature of an Open House is free-flowing conversation directed by the visitors. People can come whenever they wish, stay as long as they wish, and discuss whatever topics interest them in whatever order. As a result, the staff of your government agency can talk with a large number and broad cross-section of the population.

The systematic gathering of feedback is critical. Staff wear name tags, which may also indicate a topic. They also carry pads of response forms for recording individual comments, concerns, questions and suggestions. When questions are raised that cannot be answered, the person's name, address and phone number are noted for later follow-up.

You can ask visitors to complete a short survey as they leave the Open House. This helps you to gather quantitative data (eg, the ranking of alternatives) and background data for cross tabulation (eg, the geographic location, sex, age and occupation of respondents).

It is important to avoid overcrowding (which can effectively turn an Open House into a public meeting). If the Open House is run during the week, staffing can usually be lighter during the day than in the evening.

Use your active relationships to spread the word. You need to advertise an Open House widely.

The roadshow is a variation on the Open House. Staff transport displays from place to place, setting up and running the Open House format in a range of locations suitable to the target audience. 

Alternatively, displays may be permanently set up in a vehicle that travels between different locations. The principles are the same as for the Open House. This is a demanding technique in terms of organisation. The event must be well publicised in every location the roadshow visits.

Citizens' Juries involve the recruitment of a team of jurors to consider a particular issue. The jury is selected, using a mixture of random and stratified sampling, to be broadly representative of the community. The jury is brought together for a number of days to discuss aspects of the issue as a group. They may seek written and/or verbal submissions from the wider public to assist in their deliberations, and may call on expert advice to clarify specific aspects. At the end of the process, the jury's conclusions are recorded, with the draft signed off by the individual jurors before being submitted to the commissioning authority.

Deliberative methods, of which there are many, involve citizens working together to understand each others' views on issues that they care deeply about. Deliberation draws attention to the deeply held convictions and motives that pull communities in different directions.

The process encourages citizens and communities to look for the common ground and work constructively towards solutions.

In the view of the National Issues Forum in the US:
‘Public deliberation is simply people coming together to talk about a community problem that is important to them. Participants deliberate with one another – eye-to-eye, face-to-face, exploring options, weighing others' views, considering the costs and consequences of public policy decisions.’

Deliberative dialogues are most often based on a discussion booklet featuring several solutions to a community problem. Participants are invited to discuss the options, weighing up the options and deciding which trade-offs they can and can't live with. People participate as citizens rather than as experts, even if they know much about an issue.

An outcome of a deliberative process may be common ground around acceptable policy options. Deliberative approaches are good for issues where there are several (at least three) approaches to an issue. Deliberation is less suited to technical problems.

Deliberation can also occur online through email lists and other internet technologies.

Open Space Technology (OST) is a workshop process for people with a genuine concern or passion for an issue. It normally takes place over one to three days, depending on the complexity of the issue. The size of the group is immaterial, provided there are enough people to get the job done.

To start, participants form a circle. The facilitator explains the theme of the workshop and the OST process, and then participants set the agenda. Anyone can write down a topic they wish to discuss. Topics are stuck on a wall (the ‘bulletin board’) and a time and meeting place are set for each item.

The person who chooses the topic convenes the group. Participants decide when and where they wish to contribute to the process, moving between groups as they wish. In each group the discussion is recorded, and a copy is given to each participant at the end of the workshop.

Throughout the workshop the facilitator is not obviously present, other than to open and close the space and ensure that it is held together. The process is managed and recorded by the participants. By the end of the workshop, people should have made some clear decisions and developed a plan for action.

In Future Search, a group of between 30 and 65 people meet for up to two and-a-half days. There is semi-structured dialogue in mixed groups of around eight people each. The groups explore what has happened in the past and look at what is shaping the present environment. From this, participants develop ideal common scenarios for the future, and plan a process of action.

Appreciative Inquiry builds change within organisations by focusing on what is already working well.

Workshops start with a topic that is important and specific to the group. Questions are asked about positive experiences, for example ‘describe a time when you feel the group performed well’. In small groups or pairs, participants ask one another the questions, then share their answers with the whole group. From this, common threads of success start to emerge and the group discusses possible ways to move forward, developing ‘provocative propositions’ as actions for the future.

Possible applications could include community and officials discussing improvements to service delivery.

Participatory Appraisal (PA) enables a wide cross-section of people to share information and opinions about their lives and environment. People who typically have little power are assisted to gain confidence and speak out.

Facilitators use a series of methods to facilitate analysis and discussion, including:

• institutional analysis diagrams
• historical trend diagrams
• local livelihoods analysis diagrams
• matrix scoring of priorities or criteria.

Facilitators must take time, be respectful and open, and not interrupt. They need to have confidence that local people, whatever their circumstances, are capable of performing their own analysis.

Policymakers can be included in the PA process. Face-to-face interaction of this kind can be valuable for gaining understanding of issues.

There are many applications of PA, including:

• planning and design
• identifying and prioritising indicators
• natural resource management
• institutional change
• environmental and social impact assessment.

Open Agenda Conferences encourage participants to put forward issues and create action plans. While the conference can have a pre-set theme, the agenda is set by the participants according to their interests and energy.

Key local players to be included in deliberations can be identified through the conference. The initiators identify key individuals who they perceive to be influential. These people in turn identify others they consider to be influential.

The method can be used for single agencies, multiple agencies, new organisations, large corporations or entire communities.

The Charette is a technique for generating and prioritising ideas. It is especially useful when a group has decided what they want to do, but is unsure of how to go about it.

To begin, the group is divided into sub-groups for each issue to be addressed. Each sub-group nominates someone to record the discussion. The sub-groups brainstorm as many ideas as possible. The recorders write all the ideas on large sheets of paper. After about 10 minutes, the discussion is stopped. Each recorder takes their sheets of paper with them and moves on to the next sub-group.

The next sub-group reviews the recorded ideas, refines them and adds their own. This rotation continues until each sub-group has discussed each of the issues. The last sub-group in the rotation prioritises the items on the list. The total group is reconvened and the recorders report on the priorities set.

 

Sustained Dialogue is a process focused primarily on relationships rather than specific issues. The process seeks to transform relationships where conflict has meant issues affecting both parties cannot be dealt with thoroughly.

Sustained Dialogue is a structured, moderated process that probes the dynamics of relationships to identify problem areas and ways forward. Each side shares their feelings, fears and hopes and, in turn, listens to the other side, with the aim of building respect and breaking down misconceptions.

Typically each side of the dialogue is made up of representatives of interest groups or sectors. The process has been used in places of ethnic conflict and in post-war reconstruction

The Change Lab is a workshop approach to solving tough problems by involving key stakeholders and using creative and generative practices.  It is about developing new and innovative ways of thinking and communicating.

A Change Lab is conducted using the U-process. The U-Process, co-developed by Joseph Jaworski and Otto Scharmer, is a social technology for addressing highly complex challenges – for solving complex problems or realising complex opportunities. It is an innovation process, a theory, a set of practices, and a language for producing extraordinary breakthroughs within and across the worlds of business, government, and civil society.

In using the U-Process, an individual or team undertakes three activities or movements to transition from the current reality to a new reality.

• Sensing the current reality of the system of which they are part, carefully and in depth.
• Presencing and reflecting to allow their “inner knowing” to emerge, about what is going on and what they have to do.
• Creating - acting swiftly to bring forth a new reality.

Connected to these three phases, the U-Process outlines seven ‘capacities’ that enable the process of re-generation and which again apply both at an individual and a group level. These practices are: suspending, redirecting, letting go, letting come, crystallising, prototyping, and institutionalising.

The U-Process is simultaneously a cutting-edge technology and a distillation of ancient wisdom. It’s a process that many creative people - business and social entrepreneurs, inventors, artists - use when they generate breakthroughs. The U-Process takes what has previously been an individual, tacit, intuitive, and largely un-replicable practice, and embodies it in a methodology that can be used collectively and consciously to open up and make visible concrete fields of opportunity.

When used collectively, the U-Process creates shared learning spaces within which teams of highly diverse individuals become capable of operating as a single intelligence. This mode of operation allows them to share what each of them knows, so that together they can see the whole system and their roles in enacting it. The resulting “system sight” enables extraordinarily effective individual and collective leadership. From this place of greater clarity and connection, teams are able to co-create breakthrough innovations that address their most complex challenges.

While the U-Process may appear to be a linear process (sense – presence -create), it actually has a holistic quality to it, where each part reflects and contains the whole. The capacities and movements are related to each other and while one may be in focus at a given time, the others are always present.