Planning check · 15 minutes
Before you invite participation.
A short check for anyone preparing a consultation, workshop, group conversation or shared decision.
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1. Name the purpose
- What are you asking people to help understand, shape or decide?
- Why is participation useful at this point?
- What could be different because people took part?
2. Make the boundaries visible
- What is genuinely open to change?
- What is already fixed, and why?
- Who has formal authority for the final decision?
3. Think beyond the easiest people to reach
- Who will experience the consequences most directly?
- Whose time, access, confidence or previous experience may make participation harder?
- What support or different route could make taking part more possible?
4. Plan the response before collecting input
- Who will consider what people contribute?
- When and how will you explain what changed?
- How will you explain what could not change?
- What will be reviewed later?
A useful final test: could someone understand the promise of this process before deciding whether to take part?
Sources and further reading
Developed from Conversa Civic material on power, fair process and visible follow-through, alongside Involve’s planning guidance and its introduction to public engagement in decision-making.