Facilitating Public Deliberations

As we draw this podcast series to a close, it's fitting to take a global perspective on public deliberation with Claudia Chwalisz who leads the OECD's work on innovative citizen participation.  Claudia is co-authoring a number of influential reports, convening a global network and maintaining an online digest, Participo. LINKS Catching the Deliberate Wave report Leading Deliberative Democracy short course Doing Deliberative Democracy short course     Music acknowledgement

Bobbi Allan was randomly selected for a public deliberation in early 2018. Coincidentally, she has a background as a facilitator so can offer an unusual perspective as she describes the residual effect of a deliberative experience.

This conversation is with Rhiann McLean (in Scotland) and Max Hardy (in Australia).  Both are dedicated to amplifying the voices of people with disability—through research and public deliberations." LINKS Research Voices Citizens' Jury Video of the Research Voices Citizens' Jury Report from Research Voices Citizens' Jury NDIS Citizens' Jury Video of NDIS Citizens' Jury   Music acknowledgement

Kara Dillard is an Assistant Professor at James Madison University in the US. She is also the operations specialist for Common Ground for Action (CGA), an online variant of National Issues Forum (NIF). In this episode, Kara explains this short-form process, as well as its strengths and challenges. As a moderator training specialist for NIF she offers insight into the difference between online and face-to-face facilitation. LINKS Kettering Foundation Amy Lee, Department of Political Science, Ohio State University Common Ground for Action: A 90-min Forum in a 5-min Video   Music acknowledgement

Dr Kath Fisher is an extremely experienced professional facilitator. She is also an academic at Southern Cross University (Lismore, Australia). In this episode, Kath shares some of her journey and offers a number of useful techniques that she uses routinely in public deliberations. Documents Kath referred to in this episode A summary of the report produced from the CSIRO project A copy of an excellent consensus decision making resource she uses in her facilitation An example of a feedback/evaluation form she uses for evaluating citizens' juries You can find these documents on the newDemocracy Foundation website page for this podcast: https://www.newdemocracy.com.au/category/library/podcast/   Music acknowledgement

Abbie Jeffs has a background in urban planning and public policy but was an excellent facilitator in a successful consultancy, Straight-Talk, for many years. She's now working for a public sector organisation—a loss for the field of public deliberation—although Abbie remains a strong advocate. She has much wisdom to impart in this episode and several terrific tools.   LINKS Bliss Browne's 'Imagine Chicago' Tuckman's stages Visit  to newDemocracy's podcast page to access Kaner's diverge/converge guide to participatory decision-making. Music acknowledgement

Lucy Cole-Edelstein has over 30 years' experience as an engagement practitioner, as a facilitator and process designer. She established and ran a successful consultancy, Straight-Talk, for some of those years and later sold her company to RPS with whom she now works. In this episode, Lucy shares several activities that build the group's skill set and pave the way for the choice-work that is integral to public deliberation. Visit newDemocracy's podcast page to access the DOPE test handout.   Music acknowledgement

Jason Diceman is an experienced facilitator based in Toronto, Canada. He created a very useful tool, Feedback Frames (previously in the form of Idea Rating Sheets and, earlier, Dotmocracy templates). His latest invention enables score-voting on participant-generated ideas, rather than a crude survey or voting tool.  It's being used throughout the world and deserves attention from those who facilitate public deliberations.   Music acknowledgement

This is a conversation with Nicole Hunter, Keith Greaves and Kimbra White, the founders of MosaicLab.  It covers what happens in the room with a face-to-face long-form deliberation when MosaicLab facilitators are at work. This episode contains an enormous amount of practical advice: the physical space, co-facilitation, templates, report writing, managing data and conflict, as well as many of the creative activities they use routinely.   LINKS Evaluation of youth jury Critical thinking video   Music acknowledgement

Rosa Zubizarreta is an American group facilitation practitioner and theorist and the founder of DiaPraxis. This episode is a companion piece with a previous episode that featured Jim Rough, the original designer of Dynamic Facilitation and Wisdom Councils. In the conversation with Rosa, the focus is on relational facilitation: attending to the emotional work of deliberation to order to enable a group to fully realise its goals. LINKS Rosa's website DiaPraxis is where many of her writings can be found Citizens Council: What are they, and why are they so popular in Austria? Better Angels Project, now called Braver Angels De Bono's Six Thinking Hats   Music acknowledgement

In a California sawmill in the early 1980s, Jim Rough developed "Dynamic Facilitation". This "group process" has now been taught in seminars all over the world and forms the basis for the "Wisdom Council Process", a new way to spark collective wisdom in large systems of people. Wisdom Councils have been used in multiple countries and are now embedded in two Austrian states, Voralberg and Salzburg. This podcast episode explores Dynamic Facilitation, Wisdom Councils, and two styles of thinking: "deliberation" and "choice-creating". LINKS Center for Wise Democracy Dynamic Facilitation website Conversation between Ned Crosby (originator of Citizens' Juries and Jim Rough originator of Wisdom Councils) Facilitating Inclusion: Australian Wisdom Councils as Democratic Innovation between Consensus and Diversity, Hans Asenbaum. Austrian Wisdom Councils Music acknowledgement.  

Dominik Hierlemann is a Senior Expert, Participation in Europe at Bertelsmann Stiftung. Dominik heads the project Democracy and Participation in Europe. He facilitates large-scale public deliberations in Europe with multiple languages and diverse cultures. In this episode, we explore the unexpected benefits that can arise from that when facilitation is done well.   Music acknowledgement.

Linn Davis leads Healthy Democracy's program development and process design. He coordinates Healthy Democracy's complex public processes, trains its facilitation teams, and consults on deliberative projects in the U.S. and abroad. In this episode, recorded prior to the pandemic's impact, Linn explains the Citizens' Initiative Review (CIR) and the skills needed for excellent facilitation in volatile political circumstances.   Music acknowledgement.

Laurie Drake is an experienced facilitator working as the Director of Research and Learning with MASS LBP in Canada. She comes to facilitation, as many do, via teaching and this explains her strong focus on the learning elements of deliberative processes. Laurie is passionate about the power of deliberative mini-publics to improve democracy broadly and for individuals. In Episode 8 we interviewed Peter MacLeod also from MASS LBP about their approach to designing and delivering deliberative processes.   Music acknowledgement.

Dr Chris Foreman graduated in 1999 with a Masters in theoretical physics from Edinburgh University. He spent four years doing defence research in the UK, first with DERA and then QinetiQ in satellite communications before returning to education in Cambridge in 2004 to complete a Masters in Nanotechnology and a PhD in Protein Engineering at Cambridge University UK graduating in 2010.  He took two postdocs - one in bio-inspired manufacturing and one in computational simulations of proteins. He moved to the US for a research position at Northwestern University in 2016 and currently he researches how to build computers out of chemicals with a view to changing the way that we manufacture materials to be more like biology.  In 2015, during his second postdoc, he became local area co-ordinator for 38 Degrees in Cambridge and organised and facilitated many public seminars, injecting scientific reasoning into helping locals discuss topics of interest to them. On transferring to the US he became a Fellow of the RSA and in that capacity is the director of Deliberation Gateway—a national RSA-US network supporting the conversion of the US democracy to deliberative democracy. He is also on the co-ordination committee of Democracy Without Elections—a new grassroots organisation that is the US off-shoot of the Sortition Foundation, and he is the founder of Community Deliberation Network—a local society at Northwestern University which promotes and teaches the proper use of deliberation. He has recently co-authored a book entitled Brave Green World which is published by MIT Press and will be available in March 2021. LINKS What unmet needs could be met by deliberation? Deliberation Gateway   Music acknowledgement.

Unusually for a town planner, Anna Kelderman does her own facilitation of engagement processes and sees it as a natural and effective way to do town planning. She wishes more of her planning colleagues would do their own public deliberations with diverse groups to co-design their futures. In this episode, Anna shares what she has learnt and some of her project successes in Western Australia.

A slice of history since this was recorded with Scott Newton a year-and-a-half ago when he was less experienced with public deliberations than he is now. However, it's illuminating to hear the voice of a rookie. Even though Scott was familiar with facilitating workshops and public meetings, this conversation follows his first foray into the world of public deliberations, co-facilitating a citizens' jury. Scott is a very accurate observer of group process and the key role of the facilitator. LINKS Here's a link to another conversation – one that Scott had with a CJ participant: https://www.futureseeds.news/the-art-of-consensus/   Music acknowledgement.

Arantxa Mendiharat was relatively new to the field of deliberative democracy when this was recorded in May 2019. She was also involved with an exciting project in Madrid that she helped design and implement — a combination of direct and deliberative democracy that was written into the city's laws. Arantxa has gained a great deal of experience and knowledge since then and plays a significant role in the international network, Democracy R&D, as well as establishing, with others, a new NGO in Spain, Deliberativa (in Spanish only).   LINKS newDemocracy R&D Note: Learnings from Madrid: Institutionalising deliberative democracy through its Observatorio de la Ciudad   Music acknowledgement.

Max Hardy was one of the earliest adopters in Australia of deliberative methods such as citizens' juries. Currently, he is working primarily with local and state governments and government authorities. After many years Max has retained his early enthusiasm for facilitating public deliberations, in particular collaborating with citizens in order to deal with complexity. Here Max shares some of the important lessons that he has learned over several decades. LINKS Jason Diceman's Feedback Frames   Music acknowledgement.

Marcia Dwonczyk has been facilitating for decades and it shows. Her tremendous experience will be invaluable for those who are new to facilitating public deliberations. Marcia's primary role is on the Leadership Team of the international Partnership Brokers Association but she has also facilitated a number of public deliberations in Australia. Here she compares and contrasts the differences between working with diverse stakeholders and randomly-selected strangers, supporting each group to explore their common ground.   LINKS The Partnership Brokers Association Handouts: The Dynamics of Group Decision Making, The Role of the Facilitator in Deliberative Processes and Symposium Roadmap and Process Skeleton - can be found on the newDemocracy Foundation podcast webpage     Music acknowledgement.