Designing Participatory Events (DPE)

Ensuring events are productive and successful – 2 day course

Who this course is for

Group Facilitation Methods is a pre-requisite for this course, and prior facilitation experience is recommended. The course is suitable for all those who want to make the best of the skills and methods they have by improving their process design and event planning to best meet the needs of a group and its task.

This might include team leaders and managers within organisations, those working with Boards, management teams, partnerships and external stakeholders, youth and community workers and independent facilitators.

Questions this course answers

“How do I know which method to use for what? How can I adapt and combine methods and techniques to ensure an appropriate process? How do I know who should be involved and when? How can I plan to ensure that all aspects of an event encourage participation and contribute to the group’s success? How can I tell if I, & they, have succeeded?”

This course introduces some powerful tools for planning and designing participatory events, to enable participants to apply the skills and methods they have to best meet the needs of their own particular groups and situations. It offers an opportunity to work individually or small teams, with support from experienced facilitators, to design a facilitation solution of your own.

What you will gain

By the end of the course, you will have

• understood some key tools and techniques for designing participatory events, and developed confidence in using them through practice
• explored ways to evaluate participatory events
• shared experiences with other facilitators about planning and designing successful processes and events
• further developed your links with others to promote future collaboration and support as facilitators

Tools and techniques covered in the course will include:

• Participatory Event Design – a framework that helps you tailor a process and plan an event that will enable your people to achieve their desired product
• Frameworking & Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation – tools for stakeholder analysis and planning stakeholder involvement
• how to apply “ORID” - the four levels of the Focused Conversation method, to designing complex, tailored facilitation processes
• an introduction to some tools and techniques for monitoring and evaluating participatory processes

Learning style

The course uses a combination of short interactive presentations and practical exercises, with facilitated group reflection and discussion.

Check our course dates or book now.