Citizen consultation: engage the population in territorial projects

What is a citizen consultation workshop?

Citizen consultation is a consultation process initiated by elected officials, which aims to involve citizens in public action, by giving them a voice on a subject specific to their territory. It generally takes the form of a workshop, the ideal way to activate collective intelligence to co-construct projects in the interest of all. 

In concrete terms, the inhabitants of a neighborhood, a city or a larger territory volunteer to meet and express themselves on important issues in their locality. It can be the redevelopment of a public square, the creation of a municipal swimming pool, the securing of pedestrian areas,... In short, the subjects are varied. This is why experts can also be invited by the organizing committee, which is usually composed of elected officials and socio-economic actors or associations.

3 good reasons to choose Klaxoon to conduct a citizen consultation workshop

Klaxoon makes workshops possible both in the meeting room and remotely

Klaxoon's Board tool is a digital whiteboard with infinite dimensions that offers a very powerful communication surface, allowing not only the presentation of all types of documents, but also for everyone to express themselves easily. In concrete terms, a participant can share the idea that comes to mind by communicating it in writing, via their smartphone, tablet or computer. On the Board, this idea takes the form of a colored sticker that can be moved or linked to another idea, in order to structure the fruit of the collective thinking.

This interactive space is accessible to all, without geographical constraints. Indeed, whether the participants of your citizen consultation are gathered in a room and/or remotely, all can be gathered simultaneously to exchange. This is simply because Board is equipped with a video-conferencing solution, Live, for people who cannot physically travel to the workshop venue.

Klaxoon generates more participant engagement

It is not always easy for communities to bring together and engage individuals in such aprocess. However, a project co-constructed by citizens is more likely to be adopted by the population: it reflects their expectations. This is why it isessential to rely on the commitment of the participants and to ensure that everyone's voice has the same weight.  

However, in any group, a form of hierarchy naturally sets in. Strong personalities tend to monopolize the floor, influence the undecided and impose their ideas. As a result, the voices of more reserved profiles are heard less and some don't even dare to express themselves. With Klaxoon, this phenomenon fades away in favor of a collective commitment: everyone can share their ideas freely and projects are built in an effective group dynamic. These are ideal conditions, for collective thinking and co-construction of projects to triumph!

Klaxoon facilitates decision-making

A citizen consultation workshop is not just about collecting ideas, it is also about determining the direction to take, in line with the collective vision. To achieve this, the Klaxoon Board has a highly effective tool: Question, which can be used as a yes/no or multiple choice vote, a 1 to 5 star rating, or a word cloud.

Thanks to it, each participant can express his or her opinion in one click and you will instantly have the general trend. A totally democratic way to decide efficiently and quickly!

How to conduct an engaging citizen dialogue workshop with Klaxoon

Use the citizen consultation workshop template

Designed by Klaxoon and available in the Templates library, this ready-to-use template allows you not only to prepare the workshop, but also to facilitate it and summarize the results on a single medium: Board.

Prepare your citizen consultation workshop

Thanks to this template, you have a quickly customizable framework:

• By editing the text fields,
• By filling in ideas,
• By adding resources of any kind (an image, a video, a link to a Web page, a PDF, PowerPoint, Word document, etc.). If the added document is large and you want to share only a part of it, it is even possible to extract the desired pages.

All the elements being modular, you can also modify the proportions of the spaces, according to your needs.

Facilitate your citizen consultation workshop

As the workshop facilitator, give participants the access code that will allow them to virtually join the Board that you have prepared for the occasion. For remote participants, click on the "Live" video button to launch the video conference.

You can then introduce the people on the organizing committee, whose names, roles and photos you have already entered in the dedicated area. Take advantage of this to highlight a useful feature that makes it very easy for everyone to follow the elements you present on the Board. This is the synchronization feature, which allows everyone to see exactly what area of the screen the facilitator is exploring at the same time.

Start the workshop with a time to get to know the tool:

• First, explain how to express one's opinion during the consultation, in this case, by launching an idea or answering a Question.
• Second, provide a simple exercise to practice submitting an idea. Simply ask participants to enter the name of their neighborhood and, if they wish, their first and/or last names in the corresponding fields. Then implement a Multiple Choice Question, asking participants to click on their age range. With these two exercises, participants experience the two essential ways to express themselves via Board. In addition, you will immediately know how representative the population participating in the consultation is.

After making sure that everyone is ready to exchange, thanks to the favorable answers of a Yes/No Question, present the agenda. You can view in full screen the documents added beforehand, for a perfect visualization by all participants.   

It is time to build the project collectively, by exchanging on the topics you have predetermined (think of the "Chrono" function, to control the discussion time)!

Start by dealing with the first topic, presenting the documents that are useful for reflection. Then, ask participants to give their opinion by sending their ideas in the dedicated space.

Once all ideas have been delivered, review them and have them verbally rephrased, if necessary. To give an overall trend of the most popular ideas, ask participants to indicate which ones they like best, using the Like button, represented by a heart.

And to see at a glance the ranking of ideas according to their popularity, just switch from a Board view to a List view with one click.

To end the discussion on this first topic and move on to the next, make a collective decision, via a vote of confidence. For example, launch a 1 to 5 star Rating Question, which allows you to decide in a democratic way. 

As aconclusion, summarize the most representative ideas that emerged during the debate, as well as the decisions made.

Then, formalize the next steps of the project by listing and planning the possible actions to be carried out in one of the available calendars or tables. If necessary, propose dates for a next citizen consultation, using a multiple choice voting question. Or, ask the participants to confirm their presence at the future consultation, via a Yes/No Question. Also, specify the date on which the feedback is envisaged and in what way.

Finally, thank the participants for their contribution to this citizen approach. And in a desire to improve, think about collecting their opinions, using the Question tool: the results are instantly consolidated and available.

You now have all the cards in hand to engage the citizens of your territory in your future projects!