What makes a good process? - Activity

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An activity for developing your outcome improvement process 

This practical resource is aimed at helping community groups and public bodies come up with ideas for how to work together once a participation request has been agreed.  

It should be used along with the accompanying worksheet and ideas for a good process. 

Getting in there early 

If you are a community group making a participation request, it will be good to get in there early and put in your participation request form (or accompanying email) that you want to work together to come up with a good process.  

You could then use this resource, or another one – see some ideas at the end.  

What you need 

  • A group, or groups, of around 5 people.  

  • The accompanying worksheet, with its three separate headings – resources, approaches and activities. This should help you to organise the terms in a way that’s more helpful to you, but you can also think of your own way to organise the terms. Some ideas are a visual, a definition, a word cloud, a map or a poster. 

  • Ideas for a good process – ideally separated. For instance, you could use scissors to cut them into different cards or make them into virtual post-its on Google Jamboard. You may not need the full definition on each card, but it is good to have these handy since many of the terms are not familiar to everyone. 

  • Blank cards or post-its for people to come up with their own terms and ideas. 

  • Pens or online way of entering ideas 

  • Translation, written or other support if required. 

 

How it works 

In your group 

  • Take turns to pick a card, or idea, that interests you or that you think is important. 

  • You can come up with your own alternatives on the blank cards provided. 

  • Each person tells the rest of the group why they chose their card. 

  • Discuss in your group whether it is an important resource, approach or activity. 

  • The groups should then decide which of these they agree are important and place them under the appropriate category (resource, approach or activity).

  • Repeat as necessary. 

 

Taking it further 

Once you have finished the activity, you may want to think a bit more about the following kind of questions: 

  • Who will facilitate or lead activities? 

  • When and where will they be carried out? 

  • Where will resources be found? 

  • How do we start, and then stick to, an approach? 

These and other questions are important to consider when forming a working agreement. See our working agreement resource for more. 

 

Other tools 

  • Steps to Success, from the Social Studios Participation Request Toolbox, which enables those involved to share individual hopes and feeling surrounding the issue or concern and how you will work together. 

  • Growing Collaboration, again from the Social Studios Participation Request Toolbox, which helps you to consider a range of ideas to address challenges and take steps towards achieving outcomes. 

 

Links to More Information 

As suggested above, once you have agreed on what resources, approaches and activities will make a good process, use our working agreement template to get these written into stone!