About 15 years ago, I discovered an innovation from Australia called Photolanguage, a set of black and white image cards depicting various slices of Australian life. While the Photolanguage process is rooted in the popular education and humanist psychology movements of the 60s and 70s, I and other facilitators have adapted these image cards to …
What’s on your desk right now that you’ve fiddled with today? It’s okay, we all do it. And our experience suggests that all those paper clips, squeeze balls and clicking pens could be helping us to pay attention to our work.
A few weeks ago we discussed the importance of question design in my role as a facilitator hired to swiftly—yet very effectively—guide groups through various planning and prioritization sessions. In Part 1, we focused on Appreciative Inquiry, a model that can help structure this question design process by tapping into each participant’s potential to innovate …
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is one model that can help structure these questions, tapping into each participant’s potential to innovate toward successful outcomes. It grounds participants in the best of what has been, in order to envision the best possible future.
Our voice in the national conversations about Logic Models and Virtual Meeting Spaces The American Evaluation Association (AEA), the premier organization for evaluators in North America, asked us to contribute to its daily blog twice in recent days. One was during AEA’s Logic Model theme week in March, a nation-wide dialogue on the relevance …
So you’ve just been tasked with gaining engagement and input from community stakeholders throughout the state for a strategic planning process. You have six months. Budget came in low. Oh yes, and you’ve got to plan and coordinate the whole thing in monthly meetings with client representatives from every region. “Ack!” you’re saying. “What did …
The news clip below is from a defining moment early in my career in 1993, when I was at the Contra Costa County Public Health Department, joining forces with Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights and other local health departments—maybe even with you!—to fight big tobacco. RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris were then creating local “front groups” …
No, I didn’t run off and join the circus—but I’ve learned how to use some familiar tools in new ways. Planning and evaluation are often what makes our phone ring and our inboxes light up. A group of talented but overextended staff realize they need to be more strategic with their resources, and are looking …
Fellow consultant Laurin Mayeno published the following post on her website, www.mayenoconsulting.com, on September 27, 2013. It resonated with our work interests so much that we have re-posted it here, with her permission: Happy Fall! I have the great privilege of doing work that I love, both as a consultant and as a volunteer. One …
Ellis Planning Associates draws from various community engagement and participatory planning approaches. A few of these methods are described here. Consensus Workshop Method/Modified Delphi Technique This method is used when there is a need to generate group creativity in a short amount of time, to catalyze integrated and strategic thinking, and/or to build team …
