Module 3B
Hi All,
Thank you for your participation in module 3A. If you feel you want to continue with discussions regarding module 3A please say so.
This week we will deal with Module 3B - Running a SP Workshop. Please download de notes for module 3B in the group resources.
Module 3B - Running a Workshop, discusses the practicalities when planning or running a workshop. A workshop is a technique often used to present information, exchange and discuss views and evaluate options. The topics covered includes:
1. What are the benefits of organising a workshop?
2. Planning the workshop
3. Facilitation Techniques
Read through the notes to see if any of the techniques or how they are to be used are not clear to you. Think about what are the negative aspects of holding a workshop, if there are any, how would you run your workshop so as to ensure equal input from all stakeholder groups.
If any of you have been involved in a workshop then feel free to share your expereinces of it with us.
Hope to see your thoughts soon.
Regards
Oriana
RE: DLIST ASCLME: Module 3B
Dear Oriana
I have read through Module 3B carefully and think it's great at describing when a workshop needs to be organised and how to go about it.
However, I feel that the Module is not clear about instances when a workshop is not recommended, or may not achieve the intended goals. Can you give examples when a workshop may not be the best way of getting stakeholder participation, and what other means may be more appropriate? Could this include one-to-one meetings?
Regards
Vikash
Workshop
Dear Vikash,
The workshop is one of the best ways to interact with most of the different levels of stakeholders, but you are right, sometimes it is not the most appropriate technique. Sometimes you want to prepare a meeting but the audience may not understand what you want to achieve with that. In cases where you cannot organize a workshop, you can use many different ways to give information to people and to get input from them. One-to-one meetings or interviews can be one of the methods, but you can also prepare road shows, posters, film festivals and video clips with issues that may be related to their situation, and get what people say by making people interact with the team that is organizing the event. This was also suggested by a group of fishermen that attended to a workshop in Cape Town, for the BCLME project on the 5th and 6th of September 2011. They said that they would like to see more interaction with the communities and it could be done through film festivals in the community, in the schools, with the fishers, and other people.
People can perhaps fill forms, prepare groups and discuss issues, and present that to a broad audience in road shows, any many other ways of interaction.
So, it is really important to see who is your target audience before you think about which type of engagement technique is most appropriate.
Regards
Oriana
Module 3B
Thanks Oriana and the team.
The negative aspects of holding a workshop includes; who are to be the participants, what is/are the medium of communication(s) to be used, how will the interaction be done and how are the participants going to have full access to information. Because i experienced this when i attended a National Stakeholders Workshop on Community Based Adoption to climate change whereby presentations were made and the organizers chooses how many questions will come from the floor which was a poor interaction. The participants will only based their questions on the topics presented. I would like to know how the participants live with what is in line with the Theme of the workshop and also to see that there will be
use of different means of communication as people mode of understand things is not the same,time limit should be enough for the participants to make their comments and observations as these will be the points that will be used later. Here again organizers do not take or put into use the points raised at the workshop but tend to edit and beautify documents for unknown reasons.
Finally, workshop is the very good technique consider that it is well organized to the satisfaction of both parties involved. Interesting module.
Workshop
Dear Bubacarr,
Just like you, many people sometimes think that a workshop is a waste of time if not well prepared. I agree. It has to be prepared in detail so all parties can be satisfied. But I still think that it is a very effective way to communicate with stakeholders, specially when we want to get input from decision makers and people who have a say in the society. As you may be aware, the Benguela Current Commission organized a very interesting and useful workshop in Cape Town, in a National level, which will be repeated in Namibia and Angola soon, for the BCLME project. During the workshop everyone had the opportunity to say something they though it was important, and they also gave suggestions and critiques to the work that is being done. I must say I was impressed with the type of discussions, where people were not afraid to say what they think; and that is very important when you want to improve something! It really helps to see how the others look at what you are doing, and that way you can do it better.
In the workshop, many aspects related to management and communication were tackled, and at the end, all participants gain more experience and information of what is happening and how they could help to make things get better. That is the main objective of the workshop. To share opinions, and to criticize if needed.
Thank you once again for your opinion. I would like also to see you posting something similar on the general discussion, if you are interested. Lets see what people think about engaging stakeholders through workshops, and maybe we could share some knowledge with them also.
Regards
Oriana