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Process Design & Hosting
Notes from the Co-creation of CSAW, the Climate and Sustainability Action Week at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland and online.
During the co-creation of the CSAW Pilot, FoAM is conducting a series of training and mentoring sessions for the EPFL co-creation team. The purpose of these sessions is to learn some some basics of participatory design and hosting/facilitation as well as respond to specific questions by the team, and provide advice for the diverse challenges the team is facing. Each session focuses on a different aspect of process design, collaboration, participatory approaches to complex problems, etc.
Working notes
SEP 2020 - FEB 2021
- Framing what matters and articulating core questions for a participatory event
- A few relevant futuring techniques:
- Mapping Critical Uncertainties before deciding on a theme
- Identifying what is Known, Presumed and Unknown about a topic of interest
- Applying Causal Layered Analysis to mapping a problem space
- Exploring possible consequences, impacts and implications in a Futures Wheel
- Articulating a Collective Purpose (template)
- The Conundrums of Decision Making and Open Space Principles for co-creation meetings
- Event flow and experience design for participatory events
- Flow exercise for the CSAW Pilot
- Gathering Online during a pandemic
- Session descriptions:
- Examples of Running Sheets for facilitators
- Mockup of a Session Handout for participants
- A possible Handout structure
- A few basic principles for Hosting in a hurry
- Visualising the process and outcomes
- Different Approaches to Project Mapping
Other topics discussed during mentoring sessions
- Engaging co-creators with CSAW and each other
- Designing, facilitating and coordinating co-creation sessions
- Clarifying the purpose, core questions and theme for the event
- Connecting the purpose, the theme and the formats of the event
- How to avoid Solutionism and move towards systemic interventions (including methods from complexity, systems thinking, permaculture, cooperative games, etc.)
- COVID planning and working with contingencies
- Feedback on the detailed event flow, programme, session and atmosphere design
- Selecting participants and forming teams
- Balancing learning and doing, theory and practice
- Possible outcomes and deliverables
- Care packages and gifts for participants and speakers that reflect the theme and purpose of the event
- Challenges of co-ordination of heterogeneous groups and moderation of (online) plenary discussions
- Check-in and Check-out practices, including pre-performance rituals from music and performing arts
- Team facilitation over multiple days, juggling diversity of feedback and consistency of support
- Engaging public presentation formats e.g. Pecha Kucha, Open Lab, Fuckup Nights, Role Playing / Prehearsals, etc.
- Keeping the facilitation team focused and energised over multiple days, including quick breathing exercises
- Ongoing debriefing and feedback after co-creation and review meetings
Related
Our approach to mentoring in CSAW is based on FoAM's experience with:
- Process facilitation, in which we combine different participatory techniques to guide discussions and co-creation towards effective collaboration and long term thinking.
- The Lab approach, which creates space for groups to investigate complex real world challenges and to collaboratively develop a range of experiments through iterative action research.
- Futuring techniques that explore problems and solutions from the vantage point of multiple futures, encouraging the participants to imagine and prototype how things could develop otherwise.