These workshops normally consist of up to 25 people including users, designers and other relevant parties.  

The workshop is a collaborative session where those involved actively participate in designing a product, service or solution.  

The encourage collective creativity to identify innovative ideas, solve problems and create user-centred solutions through both discussions and activities.    

This simple guide to running a co-design workshop is a useful starting point.

A lived experience panel is normally a small group of individuals who share personal experiences related to a specific issue, topic, or condition.  Often including people who have faced challenges such as mental health issues, chronic illnesses, social injustices, or other significant life events, their purpose is normally to provide insights and perspectives that can inform policymaking, program development, or community initiatives.   

Panellists share their stories and experiences to helps stakeholders – often service providers and planners – gain a better understanding of the real-life implications of decisions and encourage more targeted and informed approaches to addressing the issues at hand.  

Lived experience panels are commonly used in various fields, including healthcare, social services, and education, and they can play a vital role in creating more inclusive and effective solutions.  

Our spotlight on lived experience panels has lots more information and advice.

A co-production network is a collaborative space where a range of different partners —including community members, service users, practitioners, researchers, and policymakers—work together to design and implement programs, services, or initiatives.   

The focus of these networks is to draw on the expertise and experiences of all participants to gain knowledge, share learning and co-create solutions that are relevant to participant need.  

Key features of co-production network include Collaborative decision-making, shared goals, mutual learning, and empowerment.   

A focus group is a research method used to gather in-depth insights and opinions from a small group of people about a specific topic, product, or service.   

Typically consisting of 6 to 12 participants, focus groups are essentially group discussions led by a facilitator who guides the conversation and encourages interaction among participants.  

Key features of focus groups include interactive discussions, guided questions, diverse perspectives and in-depth insights. 

User journeys and experience mapping are tools used to visualize and understand how users interact with a product, service or system.  

These methods help to identify pain/challenge points, opportunities for improvement, and overall user experiences related to identified products, services or systems. 

User journeys outline the steps a user takes to achieve a specific goal within a system or service. They typically include identifying stages, touchpoints and emotions.  They help providers understand usage and identify critical moments that influence overall user experience. 

Experience mapping takes a much broader view to user journeys and can create a visual representation of the entire user experience across multiple touchpoints and channels. It typically includes user personas, phases of interaction and insights & opportunities.  

Both user journeys and experience mapping can help providers improve user satisfaction, identify & implement positive changes, explore additional collaborations or functions, and ensure a more user-centred product, service or system. 

Community engagement events are normally open public activities designed to involve community members in discussions, decision-making, and collaborative actions related to local issues, projects, or initiatives.   

They aim to encourage dialogue, build relationships, and empower communities to actively participate in shaping their community.  

Such events should be interactive and inclusive with the opportunity for information sharing and feedback.  

The most common types of community engagement events are normally public meetings, public consultations or option events, open days and community celebrations such as festivals or galas. 

Surveys and questionnaires are tools used to collect information, opinions, and feedback from individuals about specific topics. While often used interchangeably, there are some distinctions between the two.

Surveys is a term used for a broader activity that commonly uses a variety of methods for data collection including questionnaires, interviews and observations.  Surveys can be conducted in person, online, via telephone, or through mail.  

Questionnaires are a specific type of survey consisting solely of a set of written questions – often a mixture of closed and open ended. 

Both methods contribute to gathering insights that can inform decision making, policy development and program improvement.  However, in a co-productive process they should never be the sole method of engagement and should always support and inform further more interactive methods and techniques. 

In a co-productive setting, peer support and mentoring play important roles in encouraging and supporting collaboration, shared learning, and community empowerment.  They are both valuable forms of support and guidance that involve the development of interpersonal relationships.  

Peer support involves individuals with similar experiences, challenges, or backgrounds offering support to one another by sharing knowledge, collaborating on shared challenges or identified topics and empowering each other to navigate associated activities and/or processes.  

Mentoring involves a more structured relationship where a more experienced individual (the mentor) provides guidance, support, and knowledge to a less experienced person (the mentee).  Typical characteristics of mentoring include ongoing guidance and skills development, capacity and confidence building.    

Both techniques play crucial roles in personal development, fostering resilience and building supportive networks within communities.   

Co-production agreements are normally formal structured documents that outline the terms and conditions under which all stakeholders agree to work together (in a co-productive way) to design, implement, and evaluate a project, program, or initiative.   

These agreements are normally co-produced and agreed by all stakeholders at the beginning of any process and typically include information on the following elements: 

• Stakeholder roles, responsibilities and expectations 

• Overall vision (purpose), objectives and goals  

• Decision-making processes

• Resource allocation 

• Communication preferences 

• Evaluation and accountability

• Duration and termination (including meeting and associated communications schedules) 

Developing a co-production agreement can support clarity of purpose, enhance collaboration and improve outcomes – it can also provide assurance for all those involved that collaborative efforts are structures, equitable and aligned with the values of all parties involved. 

Legislative theatre is an innovative form of participatory theatre that aims to engage community members in discussions about social issues and identify appropriate solutions to influence legislation and policy making.     

It involves community members, advocates and policymakers, working together in a creative process using role play to act out solutions to situations.  It combines elements of drama and activism to empower citizens and create a platform for dialogue. 

The main aims of Legislative theatre are to raise awareness of social issues, encourage dialogue on these topics and ultimately influence change. 

More information on this method can be found through People Powered – the global hub for participatory democracy. 

Participatory budgeting (PB) is participatory approach that allows community members to directly decide (and at times influence) on how public money should be spent. Participatory budgeting allows people to identify, discuss, and prioritise public spending projects, and gives them the power to make real decisions about how money is spent.  

This approach empowers communities to collaboratively decide on budget priorities, ensuring that community needs and preferences are reflected in spending decisions.  PB typically follows an 8-step process which has co-production at its core.  In the first step of this process, a planning group is encouraged to work in a co-productive way to deliver the overall PB process.  

More information on PB can be found at PB Scotland 

Story dialogue is an engagement method used in storytelling and facilitation that involves sharing personal stories and experiences in a structured way. It emphasizes conversation and interaction, allowing participants to engage deeply with each other’s stories.  This approach is often used in community-building, conflict resolution, and participatory processes to foster understanding and connection among diverse individuals.  

Story dialogue uses a specific structure in that one person is asked to share their story from beginning to end, no one is able to interrupt and everyone is asked to listen actively.  Identified people are then Invited to ask questions and the discussion is guided by the facilitator.  After all stories have been heard and discussed time is then set aside for reflection and synthesis where participant can reflect on each-others stories and identify any common themes or insight that can inform collective action.  

This technique builds trust, enhances empathy and leads to collective understanding of often complex issues. 

Often viewed as the ultimate example of co-production, a citizens’ assembly is a group of people who are brought together to learn about and discuss an issue or issues, and reach conclusions about what they think should happen. 

The people who take part are chosen so they reflect the wider population – in terms of demographics (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, social class) and sometimes relevant attitudes (e.g. their views on climate change). 

Citizens’ assemblies give members of the public the time and opportunity to learn about and discuss a topic. Participants hear from, and question, a wide range of specialists. These can include, for example, academics, researchers, people with direct experience of the issue, other stakeholders and campaigners.  

Through this process, they hear balanced evidence on the issue, before discussing what they have heard with one another and deciding what they think. 

Citizens’ assemblies usually last for two or more weekends and have forty or more participants. Independent facilitators are there at all times to help ensure everyone’s voice is heard. The conclusions of the citizens’ assembly are written up in a report that is presented to decision-makers. 

Citizens' assemblies have been used in various contexts around the world, including constitutional reform, climate change policy, and electoral reform, to promote democratic engagement and improve the quality of governance.