CONFLICT MATTERS / FIELD GUIDE 04
Design the process
Make participation meaningful and possible.
When to use it: Use before a team meeting or a stakeholder process with contested choices.
1. Clarify the purpose
Are people learning from one another, developing options, weighing tradeoffs, making a decision, or addressing harm? Do not make one meeting carry every purpose.
2. State the participation promise
Say what is open to influence, what is fixed, who decides, and how input will be considered and communicated back.
3. Plan with affected people
Identify who is missing and what would make participation possible. Consider language, timing, accessibility, history, power, and alternatives to speaking in a large group.
4. Choose the format last
Match the agenda, information, facilitation, and follow-up to the purpose and people. Check the design with participants; revise when the context changes.
“After people give their time and perspective, what will they be able to see about how it mattered?”
Leave with: A purpose, an influence statement, an access plan, and a feedback commitment.
Practice: Review an upcoming meeting. Identify one promise that is unclear and one person or group whose input could improve the design.
Work through a situation
Several groups want a community room on the same evening. The board will decide. What can affected groups really shape?
What you will be able to do
Explain purpose, decision authority, participant influence, access, and feedback before choosing a format.
Questions for reflection
Who is missing? What participation promise could you honestly make?
Try it between sessions
Check one design choice with an affected person and revise it.
My next step
New process canvas synthesized from Jack Becker’s DPS scope of work, engagement planning, and training workbooks. Influence clarity is informed by IAP2; its Spectrum and categories are not reproduced. IAP2’s foundations. Working curriculum · Emergent Matters. Sources & acknowledgments.
Use the browser print dialog to print or save this guide as a PDF.