Participatory methodoogies:comparing Metaplan and Open Space

Technology

Adriana ValenteIrpps-Cnr, Rome, ItalyBiohead-Health Citizen MeetingMarrakech, November 26th 2007

Participatory methodoogies

Different methodologies: citizen juries, consensus conference, scenario workshop, focus group, metaplan, open space technology, interactive technology assessment,..

In common:enable somehow the participation of the group you are analysing or working with

Different characteristics: representativity, independence, impact on policies, kind, level and omogeneity of participants,…

Among these, metaplan and OST:

•Are rather easy to develop and unexpensive•Are very good to rise tacit knowledge (spec.Metaplan) or build an agenda within a partecipatory methodology (spec. OST)(less good for other purposes, eg: assessing, participate “bilancio”,judging or chosing policies, informed survey…)•Minimise the intermediation of the researcher / are really participatory•May be rather fast (2 hours for metaplan and 4 for OST)•Allow people (students, teachers…) to get awareness and very fastly reason about a question and organise their knowledge about it (metaplan) or define an agenda and develope priorities inside(OST)

METAPLAN:

Methodology of visual communication that allows a group (also big, we managed with more than 40 students) to interact around a question.allows everybody to participation stimulate hearing and attention to others’ ideas allows to collect many points of view on a subject  makes it easy and fast to organise all ideas

Work activities

1.      Introductio and presentation of the key sentence for example, the sentence may have this structure: for me, in my own experience, XXXX is (is not) a problem because.. and what I think should be done is….  2.      Organisation of groups, that work all on the same question,and organisation of space. For each group there is a white poster with the sentence, a marker, some post-it

  First part of the work: thinking and expressing key ideas. Each participant has been given a number of post-it: for each participant 5 (more, if less participant, less, if more participant): participants are told to write a clear idea related to the question (no more than 10 words). First the work should be individual (15 min). Papers are placed on the poster.. Each group choses a coordinator

Second part of the work. Classification of the collected ideas. Each group reads the post-it and define criteria with wich to order them. The defined criteria is used to organise post-it on the poster. about 20 minutes .

Third part of the work. Ideas are chosen. Each one has some “votes” (points to write to post-it) to assign to the ideas that consider most interesting . Post-it may be consequentely re-organised. 20 minutes.

Communication and presentation. Each group discusses the results, participants may motivate and better explain ideas and preferences and modify choises. They decide how to present to the others their work.Results are briefly presented (5 minutes) and discussed. 30 minutes + presentations.

Documentation may just consist of posters, photogtaphs, videos or a report of synthesis may be produced

Open space technology“Open Space Technology is a self-organizing practice that enables groups of any size to address complex issues.. people are invited to take responsibility for what they care about… it realizes a marketplace of inquiry, where people offer topics of interest, reflect, learn and work together…”   (from Cipast definition of OST)

Harrison Owen, creator of OST:“it enables people to experience a very different quality of organization in which self managed work groups are the norm,.. and personal empowerment a shared experience”

Setting up a workshop

Room organisation is not much different from Metaplan:Venue: one room large enough to hold a circle (or concentric circles) of chairs seating all participants, possibility to ri-organise the space for group discussionResources: movable poster and post papers;

         Setting the agenda

“traditional way”:Moving from a general question (like in metaplan), the facilitator invites anyone to come to the center of the circle, grab a marker and a sheet of paper, and write down his/her specific question. "My name is _____, my issue is ______," and then the next one, while they tape their sheet to the wall and assign it a place (from a pre-arranged set of space/time choices) and a time (only if OST is between many people and takes time). This allows creating an agenda in a short time. Then, all people moves to the wall and signs up for the group they want to join.

Discussion sessionsand report

The large circle is re organised in small circles, in the corners of the room or elswere, each group working on the priority chosen from the agenda. The difference from work inside groups of Metaplan is that here priorities already arose, and each group must go into details in constructing a shared plan of initiatives to overcome the specific priority chosen.The proposer (or another) is also responsible for recording the main points and conclusions reached in the session. Final version of the group report may also be done later.If there is time, a general presentation from all groups and a joint discussion may be done, otherwise the reports may be sent to all participants.

Hybrid methodologies

Half between metaplan and OST:

Start immediately with sub groups; First, all groups define among them some possible priorities to deal with.Than, priorities of all groups are collected, grouped and similarities are armonised or eliminated (the researcher helps in this; pc in network may be used)Priorities are voted by all participantsThe most voted (1-2-3?)become possibilities to be explored again in subgroupsPeople change place, chosing the group in which to workAnd then the activity goes on as in normal OST (discussion, report)

         Results

- in a very fast way, important issues are identified, coming from people active participation- new ideas grow up, connected to the research hypothesis, but impossible to acquire otherwise;- people feel the project as “own” project”; - people priorities are clarified inside themselves and outside;-The schedue of the project reports is enriched by teachers’ “own” report (or by the student’s work)-Teachers are better involved from the beginning in the final stage of dissemination