Are you familiar with the participatory approach? Do you know how it can help your organization? We will guide you on implementing this approach in organizational processes, particularly in hierarchical organizations. This approach is particularly beneficial for civil society organizations with traditional structures or clear commitments to their donors.
What is the participatory approach?
The participatory approach is a methodology that promotes the involvement of different areas within an organization to develop its strategic vision, analysis, or assessment. In a participatory context, we value the opinions, experience, and active participation of local communities, interest groups, and other relevant actors throughout all the stages. This includes consultation, collaboration, joint solutions, and the empowerment of communities to participate in decision-making.
The participatory approach is also used in community development, urban planning, environmental management, education, health, and others. It is an effective way to promote inclusion, equality, and sustainability in decision-making, project implementation, and politics.
What does the participatory approach look for?
The goal of the participatory process is to gather the perspectives of all areas to build a collective vision that will be reflected in the successful implementation of processes. It also seeks to actively involve all relevant stakeholders in decision-making, planning, or project execution. This approach recognizes that the people affected by a particular situation or problem have unique knowledge and experience that can contribute significantly to identifying practical solutions.
By participating in collective processes, teams can:
- Share their experience and express their concerns and challenges.
- Exchange information that leadership may be unaware of or perceive differently.
- Implement a process in which all areas participate, where deep knowledge is built on each person’s work. This is an exciting exchange of knowledge.
- Open spaces for the leadership to share their commitments to donors and challenges with the team.
What is the main benefit of the participatory approach?
Collective reflections facilitate co-creation and the organization’s adoption of the institutional vision. This exchange empowers participants, enabling them to better perform their job because they understand their contribution to the organization’s institutional mission. These processes also help to better define the roles and responsibilities for each area and organization’s member.
How to carry out participatory processes?
- Even though not every organization member must be involved in the agenda’s design, you must devote enough time for the process. This means you should inform all members promptly to allocate the required time without getting carried away with other tasks.
- The facilitation should promote horizontal leadership. This means setting an agenda and having working agreements at the beginning to create a safe environment for everyone to feel comfortable.
- Facilitators should always emphasize that all voices will be considered. Consequently, we would stimulate different work dynamics to encourage the participation of everyone since not everyone finds it easy to express their opinions in a plenary discussion. Although plenary talks are essential, we can organize discussions in small working groups that integrate people from different areas and positions or with individual writing dynamics (journaling), which can be shared in groups through playful dynamics.
- If the processes are online, the facilitators can ask the participants, between sessions, to record their points of view on a topic and share them by e-mail. We can design surveys to gather input from all participants.
- Has your organization already implemented the participatory approach? What were the outcomes? Tell us about your experiences.
At COMETA, we can assist your organization in rethinking and redefining how different teams work and participate through similar processes.
Not only will they help align everyone involved to the same vision of change, but they will also enable them to leave a more profound mark on the organization.
Let’s rethink our processes to discover the most efficient way to achieve our desired results!
