Guide-Engagement

Engagement Plan & Guide

Fill-in-the-blanks

Use planning as a forcing mechanism to create better PPCE, alignment, and resource allocation.

A compilation and overview outlining the Public Participation and Community Engagement (PPCE), outlining the PPCE goals, tactics to play, schedule, and resources. Creating this at the beginning of the Scope & Plan phase allows your team to not only be prepared, but it acts as an alignment tool within your team and with any leadership. Getting sign off from leadership is important here not only because resources are involved and must be tasked to the PPCE program, but aligning stakeholders allows everyone to believe in the outcomes. 

1. Goals, Outcomes, and Agency Priorities

Clearly enumerate the goals and outcomes of the PPCE, how they relate to your project’s goals, and how they relate to the agency’s priorities. The goals should clearly enumerate specific quantitative goals (e.g. number of people to engage with, number of session sites, locations, etc) and qualitative outcomes. Often this objective is directly connected to your project, policy, is legislatively-driven, or directed by stakeholders. Are you looking for a specific number of respondents? A specific quality of feedback? What type of engagements are you looking for? How are you connecting this PPCE program to relevant executive action such as EO13985 Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.

Use any formulation of goals you are used to, but if you need a suggestion, you could use the SMART formulation: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

2. PPCE objectives

Once your goals are set, then you are able to outline how PPCE can achieve those goals and outcomes. Be realistic in how to match the PPCE objectives to the Goals and Outcomes. What types of tactics will meet your goals through lessons learned, public feedback, and co-design?

Deeper dive
Frame Your Design Challenge by IDEO.org

3. Stakeholder identification and engagement

Create a stakeholder map which clearly outlines internal stakeholders, external stakeholders, and groups that need to be made aware of this work. This map is a bit of a mix between a map and a RACI chart. Also note which phase of the project would be most appropriate for each stakeholder (ie. you might need to only touch base with a stakeholder at the beginning and at the end of the process).

4. Community Profile Composition

Identify the community profile so you can compare this to who you have spoken to during the PPCE program. Connected to Stakeholder Mapping, the profile helps identify and chart the composition of the community you are gaining feedback from, in order to compare it to the respondents you will speak with during the PPCE. This allows you to compare how inclusive and equitable the PPCE is, and how far you are deviating from the community of the project study area. See Know Your Community for more information on how to create the Community Profile.

 

5. Accessibility, Equity, and Inclusion

At least one in four Americans live with a disability, and often that disability isn’t visible. You shall design and provide all PPCE sessions to align with all legal and ethical guidelines to create conditions for the most people to participate. Designing with accessibility as the foundation not only helps people with a disability, but caregivers with kids, the tired, people with changing abilities, people with caregiving responsibilities, and people with temporary limitations from illness or injury.

It’s the right thing to do. So do it.

Accessibility recommendations

Below are some minimum recommendations when you plan and implement PPCE sessions. These are the minimum, and we urge you to exceed the minimum in order to provide the widest funnel for participants. Guidelines and requirements continue to be updated, please review applicable updates to the Americans with Disabilities Act: https://www.ada.gov/

  1. Provide materials in accessible formats
    Avoid using inaccessible formats such as PDFs or images without HTML or plain text alternatives. Ensure participants can access the consent form, compensation instructions, and any prototypes or testing materials in their preferred format.
  2. Encourage participants to use their preferred tools and supports
    Make accommodations for participants to bring their own assistive technology. If a caregiver typically helps the participant with their tasks, provide accommodation during the session. 
  3. Be flexible in your facilitation style
    Provide instructions in plain language. Ask one question at a time, with as few words as possible. 
  4. Offer multiple ways to respond
    When choosing PPCE tactics, offer multiple methods which allow respondents to choose how they want to accomplish a task or respond, such as verbally, via written word, in chat, by phone, or cameras off.
  5. Support neurodiversity
    Provide options and variety to respondents whose brains and nervous systems work differently than dominant societal norms. See GSA/18F Supporting neurodiversity in research for more guidance.
     

Software Accessibility

Where possible use software which provides accessibility and accommodations. Look to ADA Title II Accessibility of Web Content and Mobile Apps for guidance. 

Equity

If you are in the Federal Government, you must follow Executive Order 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.” EO 13985 aims to advance “equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality.” Specific portions of the executive order are particularly important for PPCE:

Sec. 2 Definitions; For purposes of this order:

(a) The term “equity” means the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.

(b) The term “underserved communities” refers to populations sharing a particular characteristic, as well as geographic communities, that have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life, as exemplified by the list in the preceding definition of “equity.”

 

Sec. 8 Engagement with Members of Underserved Communities

Engage with participants in communities who have been historically underrepresented in the Federal Government and underserved by, or subject to discrimination in, Federal policies and programs.

Address any barriers that limit full and equal participation for underserved communities and individuals seeking to enroll or access PPCE sessions.

Inclusion

Inclusion is defined in Executive Order 14035 as, “...the recognition, appreciation, and use of the talents and skills of employees of all backgrounds.” Design for inclusion throughout the PPCE program, from team composition to types of sessions, to locations, to how you publish your final reports. 

When creating your PPCE team make sure that team composition is as inclusive as you can make it. If you only have one gender or race/ethnicity in your team, reevaluate why this happened, and see if you can expand the team to be more inclusive.

Providing a wide engagement spectrum when you choose PPCE tactics also provides the setting for more inclusive feedback.

Deeper dive
User Experience Guide: Bias
by GSA/18F:

On recruiting community members

When recruiting for research participants, often you will be looking for a specific behavior or profile. Hold in your Engagement Plan & Guide room for both the median community member, and pathfinder users (sometimes called edge users or extreme users).

For example: if you were recruiting for respondents to give feedback for an environmental justice PPCE session in Long Island City, New York, you should certainly try to meet the Community Profile, but also explore people at the edge who can teach you something. This might look like (but not limited to):

  • Participants who live in the NYCHA housing for more than 20 years, who have seen the neighborhood change
  • New residents to the neighborhood who have English as a second language
  • Members of the movie and entertainment industry who are competing for available industrial space
  • Spend time within your project team to review what types of behaviors and needs are most interesting to learn about, most connected to the agency programs, and that you have the least knowledge about.

6. PRA Considerations

The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) and the associated required clearances of feedback methods with OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is a continual point of friction in the information gathering process. Many of the tactics in this toolkit can be used in public meetings which are generally exempt from PRA requirements. Where possible make each tactic and research instrument available in public meetings.

PRA clearance can take anywhere from 3-to-6 months, so following the tactics are a good way to efficiently connect with the public without additional clearance requirements. Please see individual tactics in the toolkit for PRA considerations, consult PRA Considerations in the Appendix, work with your in-Agency legal and ORIA desk officer for final clearance.

For more information

PRA Considerations

7. Timeline and milestones

Clearly enumerate all existing timelines and milestones (many of them will be set for you), and back into how much time you can allocate for this PPCE program. Add extra time for logistics and scheduling. Everything always takes longer than you want.

8. Resource allocation

Identify people, their skills, resource allocation, and interests so you can select the right tactics, and get it done. Understand what budget you have for each tactic, and if there is any budget available to compensate participants (cash, transit cards, etc), and what budget there is for marketing (if any). Identify what spaces and locations you could use.

9. Final Deliverables & Artifacts

Define what final deliverables and artifacts will be created during the course of the PPCE process. We imagine there would be a final report which looks a lot like a deck (Powerpoint or Google Presentation) and an executive summary (Word or Google Docs), in addition to any other multimedia artifacts such as video, audio, or images.

10. Consent process

Identify and outline how you will gain active consent from participants. Define what this means, the script, and what release forms you will use. Confirm with required internal legal teams. Use existing cleared consent forms where possible.

11. Selecting Tactics

Select tactics from the playbook which align with your goals, the Community Profile, timeline, and available resources. There isn’t a right or wrong set of tactics to use, but our recommendation is to make sure you create a spectrum of engagement opportunities, across time and place so you set the stage for the most inclusive and equitable PPCE sessions possible.

12. Discussion Guide

A discussion guide is a general question bank which the facilitator can pull from based on the person (or people) at hand. This isn’t a rote question and answer list, but rather a roadmap which you get from the beginning of the conversation to the end. This is very important especially when your team is using different tactics which allow for a large range of engagement time with respondents. By putting together the guide in the beginning, you can put all the team’s assumptions, questions to be answered, and topics which require confirmation onto the table so you can choose the best tactics to answer these questions.

Structure your questions so that you begin broad, then get concrete by asking participants to provide solid examples of those behaviors, attitudes, examples, and expectations. Ask open-ended questions letting participants explain themselves. Ask a lot of “How” and “Why” questions. Get comfortable with silence:  pauses help participants build and clarify answers.

Note: PRA considerations will have a bearing on how you might revise and use a single or multiple discussion guides, and might create a limit on what you can ask participants. See PRA Considerations Appendix.

13. Scripts

Develop standard scripts based on the Discussion Guide for use during PPCE sessions. Make sure you design scripts which take account of the following topics:

  • Give clear explanations of who you are, what you are doing, what the information  will be used for, and how you can help.
  • Make sure that there is zero ambiguity which gets in the way of informed consent
  • Share details as soon as possible about what the research is for, how information will be used, shared, protected.
  • Introduce each person accurately, what you do, and who you work for.
    Answer direct questions truthfully, even if the truth is that you cannot share more information.
  • Don’t go in with preconceptions or judge the person and their responses.
    Close an interview session with gratitude and thank you’s. Offer to sign-up to an email newsletter.

Note: Again, PRA might impact how you speak with participants, but it’s good to align language in the beginning of the PPCE program.

 

14. Interview recommendations

Here are some recommendations on how to facilitate PPCE engagements

  • Never forget that you are a guest and you are asking for respondents to give you a gift of their thoughts, time, and expertise. Ask permission as often as you need.
  • Reassure the participant that there are no wrong answers.
  • Remind participants they can share as much or as little as they want, and they can end the session at any time.
  • Ask respondents how they prefer to be identified rather than assuming.
  • Be genuinely curious about what they have to share.
  • Engage. Make eye contact. Observe body language.
  • Don’t get distracted. Don’t seem distracted.
  • Probe inconsistencies, but always kindly.
  • Don’t fill the awkward silences. Don’t interrupt.
  • Don’t make promises you can’t keep, follow through on the ones you do.

15. Documentation

Listen. Don’t judge, give advice, or contradict. You want participant’s real thoughts and opinions and you are probably not an expert on everything. Observations and 
quotes are most important. During sessions make sure you capture, note, and ask participants their problems, needs, what they think, and how they behave.

Take only the information you need, avoid gathering information participants haven’t agreed to. Limit video, photography, social media information to the most important parts. Don’t collect unnecessary data: the goal of PPCE isn’t to data collect, it’s to synthesize information and provide insight and guidance that leads to action. Decide what bits you might want to film before you start the session (based on the guide) OR record specific clips that are of interest as you go.

Agree on where digital artifacts such as audio, video, and photos will be stored. They could live on a cloud storage system or an external hard drive. Be consistent in naming conventions of folders and files, as you will be generating lots of digital artifacts over the course of the PPCE sessions.

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Tactical Democracy is a toolkit to help you make meaningful person–to–person engagement in order to empower successful communities.

Learn about the Mindsets you need, how the Players behave and act; what Situations might be best to
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