Events bring large groups of different people into one discussion space. This offers a blank canvas to use an approach for your event that fits your engagement objectives.
Here are some ideas:
- Webinars/ Q&A sessions – these focus on information giving rather than engaging with participants and seeking their feedback.
- Deliberative discussions – these focus on seeking feedback and involve smaller groups within a larger event discussing the same topic, or different themed topics. This enables participants to consider an issue in depth, challenge each other’s opinions and develop their views/arguments to reach an informed position. Feedback from these smaller groups is often shared with the whole event to understand if a consensus is developing.
- Appreciative Inquiry – takes a more co-production approach. It follows a specific format and is typically used at an early stage in a project (to vision) when there are no ideas or solutions. The conversation focuses on recognising positives. Participants often need to be prepared beforehand to work in this way and you should dedicate time within the event to explain the methodology.
- Participatory budgeting and Citizen’s Assemblies – these focus on supporting decision making, taking a more co-production approach. They bring groups of people together to discuss an issue or issues and reach a conclusion/ decision about what they think should happen/ how money should be spent.
Identifying roles and responsibilities
Whichever type of event you plan to have, you will need to identify people to undertake these roles:
- Point of contact – communicating with participants before and after the event so that they are booked in, have all of the information and event details that are needed. They follow up after the event to seek feedback and share outputs and outcomes from the day.
- Host – leads the event on the day, keeps the event to time, introduces different speakers and parts of the event (e.g., breakout rooms or other activities).
- Facilitator – responsible for leading conversations (including in breakout sessions) from the ICS’ perspective and asking the key questions.
- Note taker/chat monitor/ recorder – responsible for accurately capturing feedback during breakout sessions, monitoring the chat (if this is being used) and for finalising information after the session. Sessions may be recorded, and transcription software used with the participants permission.
- Reviewer – responsible for reviewing the outputs from the event and analysing the key themes and trends to be presented in a feedback report.
Depending on how many events you plan to have, and how many participants you anticipate attending, these roles might be performed by one or many people.
Creating a session plan
A session plan, prepared in advance, provides everyone within an event a running order of who is responsible for what, when. It sets out the roles and responsibilities, key topics to discuss and key contacts. It is a more detailed version of your agenda.
Read the how to guide on developing good questions to support you to think about what you want to ask. Events primarily focus on asking qualitative questions. However, if you are running activities such as polls, voting or doing participatory budgeting (where a decision needs to be made), using quantitative questions is fine.
To make participants feel more comfortable and prepared, consider whether you want to share the questions you will be asking and the agenda with them in advance.