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Section D:
Choosing The Method, A Guide to Community Consultation and Research Methods

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Choosing The Method, A Guide to Community Consultation and Research Methods:

Face To Face Interviews
Telephone Interviews
Self Completion Questionnaires
Focus Groups
In Depth Interviews
Community Visioning
Mystery Customers
Consulting Representative Groups
User Complaints and Comments Scheme
Public Meetings
Road shows exhibition open days
Citizens Jury
Service User Groups
Planning For Real
Workshops
Fish Bowl Technique
Useful Contacts

Workshops

Summary	Workshops are used by the Transportation and Planning Department as an alternative to the more confrontational public meeting and are structured to stimulate discussion and ideas around specific issues as part of an informed debate. They are generally used at an early stage in the formulation of policy so that different viewpoints and innovative solutions can be properly examined and incorporated. It is made clear that the purpose of the workshop is not to defend existing policy but to look to the future and do things differently if necessary. Workshops may run for a half day with the actual discussion taking up 11/2 - 2 hours. Participants are invited to represent a cross section of interests and divided into groups of about 10, each with a facilitator. The groups are deliberately structured to include a broad spectrum of backgrounds and agendas. The facilitator ensures that the debate centres around the key issues and that each participant has a chance to contribute. At the end of the session all groups come together and compare their conclusions to see if there is a consensus emerging. Top
Examples	As part of work on the Bradford City Centre Strategy, workshops have been held on the future of towns and cities with a wide range of organisations and internally with relevant Council officers. A series of workshops is being held in Saltaire to gauge public reaction to the proposal to make Saltaire a World Heritage Site. Top
Useful for	for Has proved more fruitful in getting feedback from interested organisations than the alternative of public meetings or written comments. Similar to focus groups in that it can raise issues that had not been thought of. Mixing groups from different backgrounds helps each to better understand the others point of view e.g. house builders/property developers can be in the same discussion group as representatives of wildlife groups or residents groups. . Top
Not useful	Success of method depends on whether participants can be considered representative, the terms of reference for discussion and abilities of facilitator to control the session. Analysing the discussion is time consuming. Top
Equal Rights	The workshops have included disabled participants so choice of venue is important for accessibility. Ethnic minorities are deliberately targeted for the contribution they can make to the discussion from their perspective. Top
Costs	A typical workshop might cost £500-600 to run. This includes room hire and refreshments but not staff time for organisation Top
Time Scale	Two months to organise and evaluate. Top
Contact	Dave Preece	01274 434552
	Transportation and Planning










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Section C

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Section E


		Introduction and Framework Section A Section B Section C Section D Section E

Maintained by:

Mike Barnett

ERDF