List of methods with brief descriptions
These events involve a large number of citizens (between 500 and 5,000) in deliberating on local, regional or national issues and make use of modern technology, including wireless voting pads and networked laptops. They combine the benefits of small scale face-to-face discussions with those of large group decision making.
Appreciative Inquiry builds a vision for the future using questions to focus people's attention on past and future success. These questions are then taken to the wider community. Issues addressed often revolve around what people enjoy about an area, their hopes for the future, and their feelings about their communities.
Area forums are meetings held in a locality, often held by the local council. Often the meetings are attended by local councillors, together with senior representatives from the local authorities, the Police, Primary Care Trusts and other key local organisations, to debate key topics and answer residents' questions face-to-face.
Blogs are online journals or noticeboards where individuals or organisations can provide commentary and critique on news or specific subjects such as politics, food and local events. Some blogs function like personal online diaries.
Citizen advisory groups involve 10-30 members of the public who sit as a committee to inform and advise decision making.
A Citizens’ Panel is a large, demographically representative group of citizens regularly used to assess public preferences and opinions.
A Citizens’ Summit is a generic term for large-scale deliberative public meetings that use communications technology to facilitate discussions.
Citizens' juries consist of a small panel of non-specialists, modelled on the structure of a criminal jury. The group set out to examine an issue of public significance in detail and deliver a "verdict".
Community development is a long term approach of building active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect. Moreover, it is about changing power structures to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in the issues that affect their lives and enabling the community itself to develop solutions to the problems that are set internally.
A consensus conference is made up of a panel of citizens who question expert witnesses on a particular topic at a public conference. Their recommendations are then circulated widely.
Conversation Cafe is an informal dialogue method which invites people to take part in discussions about topical issues in an informal setting.
The term coproduction refers to a way of working whereby decision-makers and citizens, or service providers and users, work together to create a decision or a service which works for them all. The approach is value-driven and built on the principle that those who are affected by a service are best placed to help design it.
Customer Journey Mapping is a tool for visualising how customers interact with people and organisations in order to make a purchase or experience a service.
Deliberative Mapping involves both specialists and members of the public. It combines varied approaches to assess how participants rate different policy options against a set of defined criteria.
A deliberative poll measures what the public would think about an issue if they had an adequate chance to reflect on the questions at hand. Deliberative polling observes the evolution of the views of a citizen test group as they learn more about a topic and is more statistically representative than many other approaches due to its large scale.
Deliberative workshops is a generic name for small-scale dialogue events where the focus is on deliberation.
A Delphi Survey is a series of questionnaires that allow experts or people with specific knowledge to develop ideas about potential future developments around an issue. The questionnaires are developed throughout the process in relation to the responses given by participants.
Democs is a conversation game that helps small groups to discuss public policy issues. No speakers or experts are needed, as pre-prepared cards contain all of the necessary facts. It works best for six people over two hours, but it is flexible.
A Design Charrette is an intensive, hands-on workshop that brings people from different disciplines and backgrounds together to explore design options for a particular area or site.
A good approach for resolving conflict and disagreements, building and improving relationships between groups with diverse opinions and involving those who are often in danger of being excluded from decision-making.
ePanels are a way for councils or other organisations to carry out regular online consultations with a known group of citizens.
E-petitioning is the modern day adaptation of the centuries old right to voice an opinion through petitioning government.
Focus groups are guided discussions of a small group of citizens. They are normally one-off sessions although several may be run simultaneously in different locations.
Forum Theatre is an interactive form of theatre that encourages audience interaction and explores different options for dealing with a problem or issue. Forum Theatre is often used by socially excluded and disempowered groups.
A Future Search conference is a way for a community or organisation to create a shared vision for its future. It engages a large group of stakeholders who take part in a highly structured process lasting ideally two and a half days.
Mystery shopping a way of auditing services through the involvement of trained user volunteers. Mystery shoppers have been described as ‘under-cover’ service users.
Online consultations utilise the internet to ask a group of people their opinion on an issue (typically a policy in the development stages). An unlimited number of participants can be sent information about the subject or download it online and respond via email or comment on the website.
An Online forum is a web tool which allows discussions to be held online. It allows participants to post their own comments online which distinguishes it from one way communication tools such as email bulletins.
Open Space Technology is often referred to as "Open Space". It is a meeting framework that allows unlimited numbers of participants to form their own discussions around a central theme.
A form of quantitative survey that measure the opinion of a sample of people.
Participatory Appraisal is a broad empowerment approach that seeks to build community knowledge and encourages grassroots action. It uses a lot of visual methods, making it especially useful for participants who find other methods of participation intimidating or complicated.
Participatory budgeting is an umbrella term which covers a variety of mechanisms that delegate power or influence over local budgets, investment priorities and economic spending to citizens.
The Participatory Strategic Planning process is a consensus-building approach that helps a community to join together in explaining how they would like their community or organisation to develop over the next few years.
Participants make a 3D model of their local area and add suggestions of the way they would like to see their community develop. They then prioritise these in groups and create an action plan for decision-makers to take away.
User Panels are regular meetings of service users about the quality of a service or other related topics. They help to identify the concerns and priorities of service users and can lead to the early identification of problems or ideas for improvements.
‘Real time’ webchats are based on instant messaging (e.g. MSN). This is a new and informal way to engage and gather information from different stakeholders and answer specific questions they may have.
Participants are specifically invited to contribute to the discussions, but normally anyone can observe the proceedings online even if they cannot contribute.
The term wiki is used to describe a piece of software that allows multiple dispersed authors to edit the content of web pages.
The World Café is a method which makes use of an informal café for participants to explore an issue by discussing in small table groups. Discussion is held in multiple rounds of 20-30 minutes. The event is concluded with a plenary.
