Choosing a strong and clear topic for deliberation is crucial. A poorly chosen topic can lead to low interest/participation, confusion, and inadequate time for proper discussion.

What if only small numbers of people sign up to your process?
What if people sign-up but think the topic is really something else?
What if your question is big and complicated but you only give people a short timeframe to learn about it?

These scenarios are all common and all reflect a disconnect between the objectives of the engagement process and the needs or expectations of the community.

When we plan for engagement, every element of the design centres around the topic being discussed, and in a deliberative engagement process, this is called the ‘remit’.

It’s critical to carefully define and understand the scope, context, and core challenge of the topic being considered. If you try to enage around a topic that is poorly defined, too general or doesn’t go to ‘what is hard’ you are unlikely to deliver a successful process.

Let’s explorE how to set a clear remit, and THE BIGGEST REMIT MISTAKE WE SEE ORGANISATIONS MAKE

SETTING A CLEAR REMIT

Setting a good challenge or ‘remit’ for a deliberation is fundamental to achieving so many elements of your deliberative process. This includes the following:

A good response rate to your invitation.
Better feedback that really helps you write your plan or solve the dilemma.
Ability to set the right amount of time for participants to grapple with the complexity of the question/issue at hand.
Clarity around what the outcome needs to consider.
Clarity around what information you need to bring into the process and more importantly what you need to leave out.

Setting a strong, clear question or ‘remit’ that goes to the heart of your project/issue, seems easy but is actually quite tricky.

It requires us to think slowly and carefully about the topic, unpack what is hard to solve, difficult to make a decision on, or simply unknown. This is best done in a facilitated co-design session that incorporates key people - project managers, decision-makers and even key stakeholders.

By getting clear on the following, you can start to design a topic that really helps get the most out of the process:

Context

What is the context for this conversation? Why are we here? What has happened in the past, what is the problem you face today?

Scope

What is in scope and out of scope? What is negotiable and non-negotiable?

5 Why’s

What is your initial idea of what the ‘challenge’ is that you are trying to solve? Then ask yourself 5 ‘Why’ questions to help you get to the ‘real’ core of the issue. This means asking ‘why is that important?’, ‘why is that an issue?’. Keep repeating this until you feel you have reached the end.

The Question

Once you have your ‘core challenge’, frame it as a question. Go straight to the problem you want help with and keep your language plain and simple.

Keith Greaves facilitating a deliberation

THE BIGGEST REMIT mistake

Many organisations fall into the trap of thinking the question/remit is about a ‘plan’ or ‘document. This can lead to watered down feedback and potentially unhappy participants feeling that they haven’t made a difference to anything significant.

remit for review

The following example highlights a common error made when trying to define a remit:

‘Every 4 years council needs to revisit and refresh its Council Plan, Asset Plan and Financial Plan. These documents direct what council does with its money over each four-year period. Remit: What should our next 4-year Council Plan include?’

How could we improve it?

It’s important to remember a great challenge question is one that includes a short sentence of background (why we are doing this) and a short, sharp question that you find hard or want solved.
Go to the heart of what you find tricky, bring community into the centre of your problem and ask for the help you need. This means instead of thinking the challenge is ‘the plan’ it is better to think about ‘what is hard in these plans?’

remit revised

‘Two of the hardest issues to solve when we prepare our four-yearly plans are prioritising community faciliaties and services. This planning cycle, we must find $50m worth of savings to stay solvent. This is a hard decision and it means we might need to stop doing some things. What range and level of services are we prepared to pay for?’

By being brave and setting out the things you find tough, will provide absolute clarity to your organisation and to your participants about what you need, and you will get clearer and better outcomes to help you solve those problems.

READY TO DEFINE WHAT’S HARD IN YOUR ENGAGEMENT PROCESS?

We design deliberative processes that are principled, best practice and achieve positive impact for organisations and their communities.

In the planning phase, we facilitate codesign sessions with project teams, decision makers and sometimes stakeholders, which help build a clear, strategic engagement framework for your process.

The codesign process can be further enhanced through delivery of a strategic content workshop, which will help you to define what the engagement 'content' questions are for the process.

Dilemmas are 'unpacked', the questions the organisation needs to ask are identified, and what is really hard about the issue being considered is revealed, highlighting trade-offs that need to be made and decisions taken.

This is a really worthwhile investment before a deliberation, and will feed into the development of your content for engagement (the content and background materials your participants will work with).

WANT MORE?

Interested in deliberative practice? We have resources for organisations and engagement professionals at every stage of the deliberation journey.

From a simple deliberation ready test through to a local government deliberation guide and our book Facilitating Deliberating - A Practical Guide, we are here to support you to enhance your practice and help you to do decision-making differently.

Plus we have a huge range of videos, downloads and publications - and they almost all FREE! Hooray. A great place to start is a deliberative democracy resource hub.

Work WITH US

We’re here to help. We offer strategic content workshops as:

standalone sessions
part of a co-design process to strategically plan for engagement
an element of full service engagement process design and delivery.

By investing in some upfront strategic work, you will reduce risk and increase impact.

LEARN WITH US

We can also build your capacity - enabling your team to grapple with what’s hard, define the problem and identify dilemmas.

Our half-day strategic questions for engagement training helps you to strategically question any project’s parameters and the learnings can be applied to a range of contexts or meetings.

Translate your new skills into clear remits, effective engagement plans and strategic content your participants can engage with meaningfully.