NCDD Public Engagement Process
Peggy Holman
peggy at opencirclecompany.com
Fri Apr 17 13:33:24 PDT 2009
Friends,
Below is a request from the National Coalition for Dialogue and
Deliberation to review "a set of core principles for public engagement
that most people and organizations in this field can get behind."
Sandy Heierbacher, Executive Director of NCDD, was inspired to begin
this project from a desire "to influence Obama's Open Governance
Directive, which will instruct executive departments and agencies to
take specific actions to implement the principles of transparency,
participation, and collaboration set forth in one of three memoranda
President Obama signed on his first day on the job."
Sandy was invited to participate in a meeting at the White House by
Beth Noveck, the woman in charge of crafting the directive, who
"acknowledged and commended the effort in a nationally broadcast
webinar." In other words, the core principles developed by NCDD may
well influence how government in the US interacts with its citizens.
As such, I think it bears attention from this, and other
conversationally oriented communities of practice.
The OS list has over the years demonstrated a lot of wisdom about
bringing people together for effective dialogue and collaboration. I
want to encourage us to reflect on these principles and offer some of
that wisdom to NCDD. The effort has been underway for a couple
months, so we are coming late to the process. The principles plus
endorsements are to be sent to the White House on May 1. This means
that anything we say will likely not be incorporated into the
document. That said, I think it is important to consider what is
being shared and use the inquiry that the creation of this document
has begun to consider what, if any, influence we want to have on where
this work goes from here.
Below are:
1. The "short form" of the principles - www.quicktopic.com/43/D/igJmYvyvLxQi.html
2. The "long form" of the principles - www.quicktopic.com/43/D/yP8nKZtRurb.html
3. Sandy's message putting the principles and the request for comment
in context
4. The original message from Sandy that launched the project
By all means, post your comments at Quick Topic. In addition, I
encourage us to reflect on these principles on this list for two
purposes:
* To surface what we might contribute to the larger effort
* To see what it surfaces about our own thinking as a community of
practice.
appreciatively,
Peggy
P.S. The Open Space Institute-US discussed this effort on our monthly
board call today (April 17). Before we took any action, we wanted to
know your thoughts.
******************************************************************************
1. The "short form" of the principles - www.quicktopic.com/43/D/igJmYvyvLxQi.html
CORE PRINCIPLES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT (draft version 3.0, 4/1/09)
Developed collaboratively by members of leading public engagement
organizations
There are many ways that people can come together to deal with issues
that affect their lives. We believe that public engagement involves
convening diverse yet representative groups of people to wrestle with
information from a variety of viewpoints, in conversations that are
well-facilitated, providing direction for their own community
activities or public judgments that will be seriously considered by
policy-makers and/or their fellow citizens.
It is our stance that quality public engagement must take into
consideration seven core principles if it is to effectively build
mutual understanding, meaningfully affect policy development, and/or
inspire collaborative action among citizens and institutions.
The following seven principles overlap and reinforce each other in
practice. They serve as ideals to pursue and as criteria for judging
quality. Rather than promoting partisan agendas, the implementation of
these principles generates authentic stakeholder engagement around
public issues.
1. Planning and Preparation
Plan, design, and convene the engagement specifically to serve both
the purpose of the effort and the needs of participants.
2. Inclusion and Diversity
Incorporate diverse voices, ideas, and information to lay the
groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.
3. Collaboration and Shared Purpose
Support organizers, participants, and those engaged in follow-up to
work well together for the common good.
4. Listening and Learning
Help participants listen, explore and learn without predetermined
outcomes -- and evaluate public engagement efforts for lessons.
5. Transparency and Trust
Promote openness and provide a public record of the people, resources,
forums, and outcomes involved.
6. Impact and Action
Ensure each participatory effort has real potential to make a
difference.
7. Sustained Participation and Democratic Culture
Promote a culture of participation with programs and institutions that
support ongoing quality public engagement.
This list represents a consensus in the field of dialogue and
deliberation, but most practices tend to emphasize or apply these
principles differently or to reach beyond this basic consensus in one
way or another. To learn more about such diverse understandings and
applications, consult the online version of these guidelines.*
Finally, we believe the use of technology should be generally
encouraged whenever appropriate to enhance and not impede these seven
values -- and also that these seven principles apply to both online
and offline efforts. However, there is not yet consensus in our field
on standards for the use of technology that would warrant the
inclusion of specific online or electronic guidelines in this document.
--
*An elaboration of these basic principles can be found at www.quicktopic.com/43/D/yP8nKZtRurb.html
. You are welcome to add comments to that document as well, although
this simpler list of principles is what we are seeking endorsements for.
The dialogue that generated this document can be found at www.thataway.org/2009/pep_project/
(in addition to more details about this project). In the future,
NCDD will provide more organized online details regarding variants of
this document and statements of values, guidelines, and principles
from other organizations and practitioner groups.
*************************************************************
2. The "long form" of the principles - www.quicktopic.com/43/D/yP8nKZtRurb.html
Core Public Engagement Principles -- Explanatory Text for Version 3.0
Note: Although we are NOT seeking endorsements for the expanded text
under the titles and one-line descriptions, we DO still want your
feedback and ideas on that text. Feel free to comment more generally
on this text on the Public Engagement Principles Project forum at www.thataway.org/2009/pep_project/
-- or comment on specific sections (and others' comments on specific
sections) here.
1. PLANNING AND PREPARATION
Plan, design, and convene the engagement to serve the purpose of the
effort and the people who will participate.
In high quality engagement: Participation begins when stakeholders,
convenors, and process experts engage together in the planning and
organizing process, with adequate support. Together they get clear on
their unique context, purpose, and task, which then inform their
process design as well as their venue selection, set-up, and choice of
participants. They create hospitable, accessible, functional
environments and schedules that serve the participants' logistical,
intellectual, biological, aesthetic, identity, and cultural needs. In
general, they promote conditions that support all the qualities on
this list.
What to avoid: Untrained, inexperienced, or ideologically biased
organizers design programs that do not fit the purpose of the effort
or the community involved, or that do not respect and engage the
relevant stakeholders. The venue is inaccessible, ugly, and confusing,
and the poorly constructed schedule is inflexible or rushed, with
inadequate time for doing what needs to be done. Logistical, class,
racial, and cultural barriers to participation are left unaddressed,
effectively sidelining marginalized people and further privileging
elites, majorities, "experts," and partisan advocates.
2. INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY
Incorporate diverse voices, ideas, and information to lay the
groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.
In high quality engagement: Convenors and participants reflect the
range of functional stakeholder or demographic diversity within the
community or on the issue at hand. Alternatively, participants are
randomly selected to represent a microcosm of the public. Participants
have the opportunity to grapple with data and perspectives that fairly
represent different "sides" of the issue. Participants feel they are
respected and their views are welcomed, heard, and responded to.
Special effort is made to enable normally marginalized, silent, or
dissenting voices to meaningfully engage -- and fundamental
differences are clarified and honored. Where necessary, anonymity is
provided to enable important contributions.
What to avoid: Participants are mostly "the usual suspects" -- perhaps
with merely token diversity added. Biased information is presented,
and expert testimony seems designed to move people in a specific
direction. People have little chance to speak out and, when they do,
there is little sign they are actually heard or safe. Participants,
stakeholders, or segments of the public feel their interests,
concerns, and ideas -- and they, themselves, as people -- are
suppressed, ignored, or marginalized. Anonymity is used to protect
abuses of power, not vulnerable critics.
3. COLLABORATION AND SHARED PURPOSE
Support organizers, participants, and those engaged in follow-up to
work well together for the common good.
In high quality engagement: Organizers involve public officials,
"ordinary people," community leaders, and other interested parties as
equal participants in conversations where differences are explored
rather than ignored, and a shared sense of a desired future can
emerge. People with different backgrounds and ideologies work together
on every aspect of the engagement -- from planning and recruiting, to
gathering and presenting information, all the way through to sharing
outcomes and implementing agreed-upon action steps. In official
deliberations, there is good coordination among relevant agencies
dealing with the issue being deliberated.
What to avoid: Unresponsive power-holders deliver one-way
pronouncements or preside over adversarial, disrespectful, or stilted
conversations. Patronizing experts and authorities feel they already
have "all the answers" and "listen" only to appease. Engagement has no
chance of impacting policy because relevant decisions have already
been made or are already in the pipeline, or because those in power
are not involved or committed. Loud voices, mainstream views, or
suppressive "rationality" dominate, and other voices and modes of
expression are silenced or tolerated. Engagement feels pointless,
lacking shared purpose and a link to action.
4. LISTENING AND LEARNING
Help participants listen, explore, and learn without predetermined
outcomes -- and evaluate public engagement activities for lessons.
In high quality engagement: Skilled neutral facilitators and simple
guidelines encourage everyone involved to share their views, listen,
and be curious in order to learn things about themselves, each other,
and the issues before them. Shared intention and powerful questions
guide participants' exploration of adequate, fair, and useful
information -- and of their own disagreements -- in an open and
respectful atmosphere. This exploratory atmosphere enables them to
delve more deeply into complexities and nuances and thereby generate
new understandings, possibilities, and/or decisions that were not
clear when their conversation began. There is an appropriate balance
between consulting (a) facts and expertise and (b) participants'
experience, values, inner wisdom, vision, intuition, and concerns.
Participants and leaders take away new skills and approaches to
resolving conflicts, solving problems and making decisions. Careful
review, evaluation, and a spirit of exploration and innovation improve
subsequent engagement work and develop institutional and community
capacity.
What to avoid: "Public participation" exercises go through the motions
required by law or the dictates of PR before announcing a pre-
determined outcome. Participants get on soapboxes or are repressed;
fight or conform; get overridden or overwhelmed; and are definitely
not listening to each other. Facilitation is weak or too directive,
interfering with people's ability to communicate with each other
openly, adjust their stances, and make progress. Assertive,
mainstream, and official voices dominate. Available information is
biased, scanty, overwhelming, or inaccessible -- and experts lecture
rather than discuss and clarify. Lack of time or inflexible process
make it impossible to deal with the true complexity of the issue. And
organizers and facilitators are too busy, ideological, or insecure to
properly review and evaluate what they've done.
5. TRANSPARENCY AND TRUST
Promote openness and provide a public record of the people, resources,
forums, and outcomes involved.
In high quality engagement: People's attitudes and actions engender
trust. Relevant information, activities, decisions, and issues that
arise are shared in a timely way, respecting privacy where necessary.
Process consultants and facilitators are helpful and realistic in
describing their place in the field of public engagement and what to
expect from their work. People experience planners, facilitators, and
participants with official roles as straightforward, concerned, and
answerable. Members of the public can easily access information, get
involved, stay engaged, and contribute to the ongoing evolution of
outcomes or actions the process generates. Video proceedings of
government-sponsored deliberations are available online, both in real
time and archives.
What to avoid: It is hard, if not impossible, to find out who is
involved, what happened, and why. Research, advocacy, and
answerability efforts are stymied. Participants, the public, and
various stakeholders suspect hidden agendas and dubious ethics.
Participants not only don't trust the facilitators but are not open
about their own thoughts and feelings.
6. IMPACT AND ACTION
Ensure each participatory effort has the potential to make a difference.
In high quality engagement: People sense -- and can see evidence --
that their engagement was meaningful, influencing government
decisions, empowering them to act effectively individually and/or
together, or otherwise impacting the world around them. Communications
-- media, government, business, and/or nonprofit -- ensure the
appropriate publics know the engagement is happening and talk about it
with each other. The effort is productively linked to other efforts on
the issue(s) addressed. Because diverse stakeholders understand, are
moved by, and act on the findings and recommendations of the program,
problems get solved, visions are pursued, and communities become more
vibrant, healthy, and successful -- despite ongoing differences.
What to avoid: Participants have no sense of having any effect --
before, during, or after the public engagement process. There is no
follow-through from anyone, and hardly anyone even knows it happened,
including other people and groups working on the issue. Participants'
findings and recommendations are inarticulate, ill-timed, or useless
to policy-makers -- or seem to represent the views of only a small
unqualified group -- and are largely ignored or, when used, are used
to suppress dissent. Any energy or activity catalyzed by the event
quickly dies out.
7. SUSTAINED ENGAGEMENT AND DEMOCRATIC CULTURE
Promote a culture of participation with programs and institutions that
support ongoing quality public engagement.
In high quality engagement: Each new engagement effort is linked
intentionally to existing efforts and institutions -- government,
schools, civic and social organizations, etc. -- so quality engagement
and democratic participation increasingly become standard practice.
Participants and others involved in the process not only develop a
sense of ownership and buy-in, but gain knowledge and skills in
democratic methods of involving people, making decisions, and solving
problems. Relationships are built over time and ongoing spaces are
built in communities and online, where people from all backgrounds can
bring their ideas and concerns about public affairs to the table and
engage in lively conversation that has the potential to impact their
shared world.
What to avoid: Public engagements, when they occur, are one-off events
isolated from the ongoing political life of society. For most people,
democracy means only freedoms and voting and perhaps writing a letter
to their newspaper or representative. For activists and public
officials, democracy is the business-as-usual battle and behind-the-
scenes maneuvering. Few people -- including public officials -- have
any expectation that authentic, empowered public participation is
possible, necessary, forthcoming, or even desirable. Privileged people
dominate, intentionally or unintentionally undermining the ability of
marginalized populations to meaningfully participate.
*************************************************************
3. Sandy's message putting the principles and the request for
comment in context
>
> Begin forwarded message:
From: Sandy Heierbacher <sandy at thataway.org>
Date: April 6, 2009 12:59:44 PM EDT
To: NCDD Discussion <NCDD-Discussion at lists.thataway.org>, Member List <NCDD-MemberList at lists.thataway.org
>
Subject: update on PEP project - and what you can do now
Hi, NCDDers! As you know, NCDD has been hosting a collaborative
online conversation aimed at developing a set of Core Principles for
Public Engagement that most people and organizations in this field can
get behind. We've been working on this as transparently as possible
at www.thataway.org/2009/pep_project/ and many of you have
participated. I've found it to be a fascinating, fun, and challenging
process -- but it's not over yet.
We are doing this, in part, to influence Obama's Open Governance
Directive, which will instruct executive departments and agencies to
take specific actions to implement the principles of transparency,
participation, and collaboration set forth in one of three memoranda
President Obama signed on his first day on the job ( www.thataway.org/?p=1404
). We feel that presenting a united front to the administration on
basic principles for quality public engagement will increase our
chances of being heard in the crafting of this directive. Beth
Noveck, the woman in charge of crafting the directive, recently
acknowledged and commended our collective effort in a nationally
broadcast webinar.
At this point, we invite and encourage all of you to do several
things...
1. Determine whether your organization would be interested in
endorsing the latest version ("version 3.0") of the basic principles
and their one-sentence descriptions, as attached. Let Sandy
Heierbacher (sandy at thataway.org) know if your organization is likely
to endorse the principles (we'll send you the final version on April
27th to make sure your endorsement is official). OR, let us know (by
emailing Sandy or adding comments to the QuickTopic doc posted at www.quicktopic.com/43/D/igJmYvyvLxQi.html
), what would need to be changed in order for your organization to
endorse the principles.
2. Provide feedback on the longer document posted at www.quicktopic.com/43/D/yP8nKZtRurb.html
(the basic principles plus explanatory text about what to strive for
and what to avoid). You can also post your feedback on version 3.0 on
the PEP forum as you have in the past, but QuickTopic allows people to
comment on specific text, and to comment on each other's comments more
clearly, so we'd prefer you use QuickTopic if you're willing (it's
super-easy; just click on the little "c" to the left of what you want
to comment on (you don't even need to log in or register!).
3. Forward this message to colleagues, networks, organization leaders,
etc. who you think should get involved in endorsing - or further
honing - the principles!
For more info about the project, our timeline, and next steps, see the
detailed post titled "4-1-09 PEP Project Update and Timeline" up on
the PEP forum at www.thataway.org/2009/pep_project/
Hope to see most of you involved in this project, in one way or another!
Best,
Sandy
Sandy Heierbacher
Director, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD)
e: sandy at thataway.org
p: 717-243-5144
w: www.thataway.org
---
NCDD's discussion and announcement lists are generously provided by L-
Soft ( www.lsoft.com ) and are powered by L-Soft's LISTSERV mailing
list management software ( www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html ).
Learn more about NCDD's email lists in the community section of the
NCDD website ( www.thataway.org/community/lists/ ). Please read this
mailing list's rules ( www.thataway.org/community/listrules ) before
you post.
*************************************************************
4. The original message from Sandy that launched the project
From Sandy Heierbacher on Feb. 25:
We are facing an unprecedented opportunity in the fields of public
engagement, conflict resolution and collaboration. President Obama has
demonstrated his commitment to participation, transparency and
openness in his administration in numerous ways we've all taken note of.
There are a number of established associations and organizations in
the U.S. that unite professionals and promote the practice and
principles of consensus, dialogue, participation, collaboration,
conflict resolution and other means of achieving largely the same end.
We suspect that many of these groups will try to communicate with the
administration about how to best move forward, but we are concerned
about the fact that although most of us speak the same basic language
to describe this work, we tend to use many different dialects. This
could weaken each of our cases, and overwhelm members of the
administration rather than support them.
Rather than each of us contacting the administration separately with
mixed messages and various levels of success, we believe we could make
a greater impact working together. Can we collaborate or unify to
present a collective source of principles, practices, talent and
resources that this administration and nation will need in the next
four years?
As a first step, a few of us have decided to lead a transparent effort
to encourage people in our field to collectively agree (as much as
possible) on principles or standards for public engagement. We've
begun by posting a bunch of existing sets of principles on the NCDD
site in forum software that anyone can contribute and respond to.
Please join us today at http://thataway.org/2009/pep_project/ - click
on the right tab to sign up, then click on "discussions" to get back
to the main page. We ask that you:
1. Respond to the principles, articles, etc. that are posted. What do
you like about them? What do you disagree with? What would you change?
2. Add any sets of principles or criteria for public engagement you're
aware of that aren't yet posted.
3. Check back later after our smaller group has created a draft set of
principles based on your feedback and ideas. (I'll email these lists
again when it's time.)
We hope to end up with a set of principles most of you will feel
comfortable endorsing. Please help us get there!
* Tom Atlee, President of the Co-Intelligence Institute
* Stephen Buckley, CEO of U.S. Transparency
* John Godec, Board member of the International Association of
Public Participation (IAP2)
* Reynolds-Anthony Harris, Managing Director of Lyceum Patners & Co.
* Sandy Heierbacher, Director of the National Coalition for
Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD)
* Steve Pyser, Editor of the International Journal of Public
Participation
* Stephanie Roy McCallum, Immediate Past President of the
International Association of Public Participation (IAP2)
______________________________
Peggy Holman
The Open Circle Company
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA 98006
425-746-6274
www.opencirclecompany.com
For the new edition of The Change Handbook, go to:
www.bkconnection.com/ChangeHandbook
"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get
burnt, is to become
the fire".
-- Drew Dellinger
*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20090417/d6327837/attachment-0015.htm>
More information about the OSList
mailing list