We specialise in tailoring methods to the project, the client and the communities of people involved. We also believe in having flexibility in our processes so that we can learn from the process as it unfolds and ‘tweak’ our processes as required.
Red Road Consulting does not have a “product” or “model” that we will try to sell you… we do have a toolbox full of a wide range of techniques and ideas and we will work with you to develop one or more complementary processes that will help to creatively and effectively:
Gather information (around people’s aspirations/fears/needs, their reflections on place and space, their suggestions for solutions to identified problems, their recommendations for protecting what is working well, etc.)
Disseminate information (around prior consultation advice, process timelines, what people can expect from processes, technical information that might support informed involvement, the negotiables and non-negotiables, budgets and what things cost, design/planning/policy development principles, etc.)
Facilitate ‘preferred futures’ negotiation (bringing stakeholders together to work collaboratively and in a mediated manner to develop collective vision, design recommendation, activities to include on site, issues prioritising, actions, etc.)
Facilitate inclusive community-based consultation (to enable the traditionally excluded or silent voices -- e.g. children, people from CALD backgrounds, people with disabilities, time poor residents, people with ‘challenging behaviours’, etc. -- to participate)
Facilitate specialised processes (for example, the co-design processes of a Design In or the project scoping tasks of an Induction Workshop, etc.)
Methods We Specialise IN :
Red Road Consulting is an innovator in the field and we do like to design processes that reflect specific Client need and expectation. However, we can broadly suggest the following types of process as ones in which Red Road Consulting is particularly specialist in:
Community and Professional Capacity Building
We have recent and longstanding experience in staff development processes that aim to build capacity within an organisation and across organisations in partnership. This enables staff to continue the assessment, design and implementation of community planning analysis and practices. We also have a great deal of experience in facilitating parallel capacity building process that occur with local people interested in honing their skills as community-based researchers and facilitators or as members of Reference or Accountability Groups.
Literature/theory and practice reviews
As a strategic planning consultancy, Red Road Consulting is well placed in relation to cross-disciplinary practice and theoretical reviews (being expert in the processes of policy development versus being expert in a specific industry).
Red Road Consulting has had a great deal of experience in scoping theory and practice related to engaged practice and community planning and we view community planning as both a process and an outcome concerning “the Three Ps”:
People – developing broader connections with different groups, organisations, and people in the process of sustainable engagement
Place – deepening our knowledge about place, the community, and the trends
Partnerships – strengthening capacity and knowledge so as to facilitate pro-active strategic and / or service delivery partnerships between Council, agencies and the community
The goal of any literature/theory and practice review is to highlight emerging thinking about practice and to illustrate how that thinking can be best applied to the needs of the Client and Red Road Consulting has had extensive experience in policy/practice review, theory review and in the construction of guides and tools that help make such reviews more useful to practitioners.
Search Conferences
A Stakeholder Search Conference is often used in the initial stages of a planning project. It can assist to identify a community’s attributes, gain an understanding of all relevant issues and allow participants adequate time to develop and refine ideas. Search Conferences are a specific approach developed to enable stakeholders to create a shared future vision for a community planning process.
At a smaller scale, Induction Workshops function in the same capacity and are an approach we suggest as a more facilitated approach to preliminary Project Reference Group meetings with the consultant team.
The SpeakOut
The SpeakOut (a model we developed in Adelaide in 1990 with Sarkissian Associates Planners) is an interactive, staffed exhibition, a hybrid event combining some of the characteristics of a meeting and some of an exhibition or “open house”. It is used to provide an informal and interactive “public meeting” environment where a wide range of people have a chance to participate.
The SpeakOut is designed to facilitate structured “drop-in” participation, where participants come to the venue, find the issues on which they wish to “SpeakOut” and have their say, with their participation enabled (and recorded) by a trained facilitation team.
This approach works well where specific community feedback or input is sought. It is the most effective method when wide community participation is sought and is a less structured time format than a formal public meeting or workshop.
Targeted consultation
Small group work is a cornerstone of Red Road Consulting’s business practice and we see all group processes as a way to harness creative energy, to “drill down” and gather deeper detail regarding specific issues or concerns and to build relationships, trust and cooperation. In relation to community planning activity, we have combined specific activities (for example, policy mapping activities) into traditional group activities to great effect in several past projects. We also have a creative “tool box” of more task-based consultation activities (e.g. week with a camera, guided tours, story telling methods, etc) which can be very effective with specific target groups.
These sorts of focused and activity (e.g. policy mapping) oriented small groups work particularly well when:
- a more structured way to gather information from all sorts of people about how they feel about an issue is needed;
- there are contested or complex issues where consensus is the goal and negotiation is a critical mechanism, and;
- group dynamics may be valuable in prompting new directions/information through discussion.
Small groups have consistently been ranked by projects as one of the most valuable exercises and are particularly useful in relation to accessing the views and thoughts of traditionally ‘silent’ stakeholders (young people, for example) and/or with groups of people whose collective “dialogue” needs to be understood (project partners who may have varying needs/requirements, for example).
The “Design In” or Action Planning Workshop
A “Design In” is a hybrid community visioning/collaborative design technique.
Red Road Consulting has designed and conducted a series of “Design In” processes in Melbourne, aimed at developing collaborative visions (and related actions) of neighbourhood spaces. A “Design In” is an intensive “round table” redesigning process and can be applied to spatial redesign or to policy redesign and action planning. It is a creative way to encourage shared vision and action plan to emerge in a negotiated and thorough fashion.
In suggesting a “Design In”, this proposal embodies an approach to community planning (and action planning specifically) that acknowledges that moving from “issues” to “action” is a political activity and needs to be undertaken collaboratively and in an environment where actors can realistically commit to actions within their areas of responsibility/expertise. In sharing this task, all actors can understand where actions “come from” and participate in their refinement and adoption.
Analysis and reporting
Red Road Consulting is a leader in the field of Australian participatory planning practice and has a commitment to creating, for our own practice, processes that are cutting edge and related to ‘emerging’, ‘best’ or ‘promising’ practice. A critical part of this commitment to practice (and to Clients) is a thorough analysis and reporting.
As a result, reflective/analytical tasks such as developing policy advice from complex consultation data, providing planning and policy advice, recommending actions for strategic community planning/engagement and other reporting tasks are all based on contemporary understandings of consultative and communicative activity within the planning and development sector with strong theoretical underpinnings.
In terms of the report format, Red Road Consulting reporting generally stresses both the textual (with an emphasis on using plain language where possible) and the graphic forms of reporting (which tends to be a more efficient way of conveying complex information, process information, etc), based on our experiences in working with diverse stakeholders with diverse needs from reports (and diverse literacies is reading policy).
© 2010 Red Road Consulting