Notes from the Co-creation of CSAW, the Climate and Sustainability Action Week at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland and online.

During the co-creation of the CSAW Pilot, FoAM is conducting a series of training and mentoring sessions for the EPFL co-creation team. The purpose of these sessions is to learn some some basics of participatory design and hosting/facilitation as well as respond to specific questions by the team, and provide advice for the diverse challenges the team is facing. Each session focuses on a different aspect of process design, collaboration, participatory approaches to complex problems, etc.

SEP 2020 - FEB 2021

• Framing what matters and articulating core questions for a participatory event
• A few relevant futuring techniques:
  • Mapping Critical Uncertainties before deciding on a theme
  • Identifying what is Known, Presumed and Unknown about a topic of interest
  • Applying Causal Layered Analysis to mapping a problem space
  • Exploring possible consequences, impacts and implications in a Futures Wheel
• Articulating a Collective Purpose (template)
• The Conundrums of Decision Making and Open Space Principles for co-creation meetings
• Stakeholder Mapping
• Event flow and experience design for participatory events
  • Flow exercise for the CSAW Pilot
• Gathering Online during a pandemic
• Session descriptions:
  • Examples of Running Sheets for facilitators
  • Mockup of a Session Handout for participants
• A possible Handout structure
• A few basic principles for Hosting in a hurry
• Visualising the process and outcomes
  • DIY Graphic Harvesting training
  • Different Approaches to Project Mapping

Other topics discussed during mentoring sessions

• Engaging co-creators with CSAW and each other
• Designing, facilitating and coordinating co-creation sessions
• Clarifying the purpose, core questions and theme for the event
• Connecting the purpose, the theme and the formats of the event
• How to avoid Solutionism and move towards systemic interventions (including methods from complexity, systems thinking, permaculture, cooperative games, etc.)
• COVID planning and working with contingencies
• Feedback on the detailed event flow, programme, session and atmosphere design
• Selecting participants and forming teams
• Balancing learning and doing, theory and practice
• Possible outcomes and deliverables
• Care packages and gifts for participants and speakers that reflect the theme and purpose of the event
• Challenges of co-ordination of heterogeneous groups and moderation of (online) plenary discussions
• Check-in and Check-out practices, including pre-performance rituals from music and performing arts
• Team facilitation over multiple days, juggling diversity of feedback and consistency of support
• Engaging public presentation formats e.g. Pecha Kucha, Open Lab, Fuckup Nights, Role Playing / Prehearsals, etc.
• Keeping the facilitation team focused and energised over multiple days, including quick breathing exercises
• Ongoing debriefing and feedback after co-creation and review meetings

Related

Our approach to mentoring in CSAW is based on FoAM's experience with:

• Process facilitation, in which we combine different participatory techniques to guide discussions and co-creation towards effective collaboration and long term thinking.
• The Lab approach, which creates space for groups to investigate complex real world challenges and to collaboratively develop a range of experiments through iterative action research.
• Futuring techniques that explore problems and solutions from the vantage point of multiple futures, encouraging the participants to imagine and prototype how things could develop otherwise.