University of Illinois at Chicago

College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs

UPP 594 – PLANNING TOGETHER: TECHNOLOGIES OF COMMUNICATION PARTICIAPTION & ENGAGEMENT

Ron Thomas, AICP Fall 2007

Class Lincoln Hall 202

E-Mail: ronthom@uic.edu

Planning is a simple concept but an increasing complex public activity. Growing cultural diversity,

competing funding demands, NIMBYism, open meeting acts, the digital revolution, all place organizing,

management and commutation demands on planners. The act of planning must include a set of activities

undertaken in a sequence during a prescribed time period that will produce the desired planning outcome.

But, the planning process is often either assumed or overlooked in the face of the technical and political

demands. Much of planning theory has tended to focus on the end point and the technical constructs around

a specific issue area: i.e. transportation, environment, housing, downtown development, and such. Often

overlooked is the planning, structuring and management of the events, actions and activities leading to a

successful plan. This course will explore the strategic thinking needed for planning a plan. An emphasis

will be on the skills necessary to develop open, participatory and interactive planning approaches

characteristic of democratic governance. Strategic planning, creative problem solving, communication

skills, and interactive tools use will be some of the topics covered in an interactive, project based class

format.

Learning Objectives

1. Gain perspective on the practice and dynamics of participatory, public planning

2. Explore new tools and technologies of interactive planning

3. Develop strategic and applied skills for public planning approaches for planning from the neighborhood to

regional scales

Method of Presentation

The class will meet once a week for three hours and will combine lecture, discussion, guest speakers, public

meetings, individual and team presentations, and written exercises. Lectures will draw on the readings, but will not

duplicate them. Class time will be provided for teamwork and interaction. Report and Reflection papers are short

concept writings.

Required Texts

There are three required text for each student:

1. How to Make Meetings Work by Michael Doyle and David Strauss

2. People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts by Robert Bolton

3. Working With Volunteers: Skills for Leadership by Emily K. Morrison

4. Roberts Rules of Order

The following is the required shared reading texts for the course and each Team will read the following as

their required reading: Strategic Planning by John Bryson, Coming to Public Judgment by Daniel

Yankelovich, Citizens and Politics: A View form Main Street by the Kettering Foundation, Getting To Yes,

Fisher and Ury; Discovering Common Ground by Marvin Wisebord, Universal Traveler by Don Koberg.

You can find many course readings at the blackboard and referenced web sites. Students should not

purchase these texts until Teams have been formed in class. Other useful and relevant publications are

listed in the course bibliography.

PLANNING TOGETHER: TECHNOLOGIES OF COMMUNICATION PARTICIAPTION & ENGAGEMENT

Course Outline Ron Thomas, AICP, Professor

EXTRA SESSION — Interaction & Participation: Meeting/Workshop Field

(TBD Field trip date will vary.) – This session will be planned around a field trip to

monitor a public planning event such as a public meeting or workshop. The date, time

and place of this session will be determined based on event meeting dates. The class will

use its next regular session to discuss the field trip experience. Project Teams will

critique the experience and offer alternative approaches.

Required Reading • Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky (Chapter)

• People and Politics: Voices from Main Street, Kettering Foundation

• Interview With John McKnight.

http://www.commonfocus.org/ideas/intv_mcknight.shtml

• Community Asset Mapping: Trends and Issues Alert no. 47, Sandra

Kerka (2003) http://www.cete.org/acve/docgen.asp?tbl=tia&ID=170

• Canadian Rural Partnership, Asset Mapping: A Handbook. http://www.rural.gc.ca/conference/documents/mapping_e.phtml

1. — Origins, Overview & Organization August 29 — This session will examine

origins, values and principles of the public planning process in America. The historic

antecedents of how we practice planning will be reviewed.

Readings

• “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning,” Paul Davidoff.

• The 21st Century Comprehensive Plan, Michael Chandler, “Planning

Commissioners Journal

• Reflective Thinking, John Dewey and PBL, Bernard C. Hollister.

http://www2.imsa.edu/programs/pbln/problems/bernie/dewey.html

• Reflective Thinking. Don Clark (Required) (Blackboard)

2. — Planning as Strategy: Organizing Project Teams — Discussion will

continue on origins, values and principles of public planning, governance and

development moving from history to contemporary practice. The session will focus on

different planning methods with emphasis on the Strategic Planning Process. The class

will form semester project teams and be introduced to new organizing tools.

Readings

• Taking Charge: How Communities Are Planning Their Futures,

Thomas, et al. (Intro, Chapters 1 & 2)

• Strategic Planning, John Bryson (Chapter selections 1 & 2)

• Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz and web article

http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=136466

• Brainstorming; Procedures and Process, Phil Bartle

http://www.scn.org/cmp/cta.htm (Required)(Blackboard)

• Open Space Guide, Tom Atlee. (Blackboard) (Required)

• Visioning, Steve Ames (Extra)

3. — Understanding You. — When planner are educated in international development

and expect to travel far and cross oceans to help communities plan and development for

the future, learning to understand “foreign cultures” with skills from disciplines such as

anthropology are considered essential. With today’s increasingly diverse American

cultural milieu, planners are in foreign territory when they work outside their own

neighborhood and in urban neighborhoods like Chicago’s, chances are cross cultural

understating will be important even there. This session will introduce the basic skills,

attitudes and methods for planners to work successfully in cultures, and communities

everywhere with an introduction to Planning as Action Research.

(Guest Lecturer: Anthropologist Alaka Wali, PhD., Field Museum)

Readings

• Urban Anthropology – An Overview, Layla Al-Zubaidi

http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/URBAN.htm

• Bibliography

http://www.architect.org/bibliography/urban_anthropology.html

• Cultural Anthropology Methods

http://www.qvctc.commnet.edu/brian/methods.html

• The Anthropology of Space and Place. Locating Culture. Setha Low

and Denise Lawrence—Zuñiga

• Methods and Theory in Clutural Anthroplogy, Brian Schwimmer.

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/122/mod

ule1/methods.html

• Participatory action research and people's participation:

http://www.fao.org/sd/PPdirect/PPre0020.htm

• PAR: http://www.zenz.org/adrian/resources/par_essay.rtf

• Origin: http://worldagroforestry.org/sea/W-New/datainfo/PAR-

Phils.pdf

• PAR Resources: http://www.iisd.org/casl/CASLGuide/PAR.htm

4. — Understanding Me. — To best understand others, self-understanding is

essential. When working in a public planning process, delivering data and information is

not enough, understanding how you react to different situations, how you relate to other

people and what energizes you are core skill for anyone working with the public, building

teams and leading people. This session will use The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as an

introduction to personal styles and preferences. The self-scoring instrument will be used

voluntarily.

Readings • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator http://www.e-mbti.com/

• Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types, David

Keirsey and Marilyn Bates

• Know Myself http://www.2knowmyself.com/

• Using Myers-Briggs in the Workplace.

http://www.priory.com/mbwp.htm)

5. — Facilitation — The professional facilitator may be one of the most important new

management skills to emerge in the last 50 years. The skilled facilitator has been at the

center of reinventing many core systems in business, manufacturing, law and education.

Depending on the sponsoring agency, the same can be said for public planning. The

presence and role of the professional facilitator may be an indicator of the commitment to

public participation and civic engagement in a specific community and around a specific

planning project. Readings

• How to Make Meetings Work, Michael Doyle, David Strauss,

(Chapters 1, 2)

• Why Use a Facilitator? Interaction Associates.

http://www.interactionassociates.com/tips_detail.cfm?id=6

• Chartering a Team Using 5 Key Attributes, Interaction Associates.

http://www.interactionassociates.com/tips_detail.cfm?id=11

• Public Involvement Guidelines, US Department of Transportation.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/pubinv2.htm

• The Strategic Framework Plan for Upper Wisconsin Avenue in

Washington, DC 10 Things to Remember When Preparing a Plan,

Cindy Petkac, AICP.

6. — Managing Groups. — The facilitator is more than the stand-up discussion guide

at a public meeting. Often, the facilitator is looked to for organizing the complete process

from issues framing, and agenda design to information packaging. In these roles, the

facilitator is as much an educator as a planner. Organizing, packaging, and delivering

information are integral to successful public planning with a number of skills often

overlooked by the professional planner and also skills learned in the field.

(Guest Lecturer: Joyce Hollingsworth, Hollingsworth & Associates)

Readings

• Seven Kinds of Smart, Thomas Armstrong

• Multiple Intelligences.

http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm

(Required)

• 7 Kinds of Smart.

http://intranet.stgregorys.edu/people/staff/fosage/7%20Kinds%20of%2

0Smart.htm (Extra)

• Adult Learning Models. http://www.simulations.co.uk/adult.htm

(Required)

• http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm (Extra)

• http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/experience.htm (Extra)

• Recording. Grove Consulting video.

http://www.grove.com/learning_center/learning.html (Required)

• Flip Charts. http://www.nps.gov/phso/rtcatoolbox/fac_flipcharts.htm

(required)

• Tools to help you prepare for and conduct a Community Visioning

Meeting.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/airbags/ruralsafety/chap6-

2.html (Extra)(reference)

8. — Putting the Skills to Work — This session will focus on applying facilitation

skills including role-playing facilitation exercises. Additional participation ideas and

approaches will also be explored.

Readings

• Tools for Effective Group Discussion.

http://srpln.msstate.edu/seal/03curriculum/organizing/group/lesson.ht

m

• Framing Issues http://www.rbenjamin.com/5-

(required)2%20Framing%20Issues.pdf

• Framing a Question.

http://virgil.azwestern.edu/~dag/lol/QuestionFrame.html)

• Framing Questions. http://www.cdf-

mn.org/PDF/InformationPower/FramingQuestions.PDF#search=%22

Framing%20the%20Question%22)

• Civic Journalism

• http://www.annenberg.northwestern.edu/pubs/tabloids/tabloids08.htm

• Pew Center for Civic Journalism http://www.pewcenter.org/ and

http://www.pewcenter.org/doingcj/pubs/tcl/framework3.html

(Required)

• Kettering Foundation

http://www.kettering.org/programs/article_detail.aspx?progID=28&w

orkID=1098&catID=1098&itemID=1121)

• Good News Good Deeds

http://www.goodnewsgooddeeds.org/1intro.html

• Future Search, Marvin Weisbord.

• Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge

• Skilled Facilitator, Roger Schwarz

• Appreciative Inquiry Handbook. David L. Cooperrider

• Magic of Dialogues, Daniel Yankelovitch

7. Law and Leadership: Convergence and Conflict. — Open Meetings Act,

Public Hearing Law, Federal Requirements, public opinion and values are driving

shapers of the public planning process. The old debate between advocates of

constitutional representative government versus those for participatory democracy find

equal justification in the public planning process which requires both broad based public

support and governmental approvals, support and action. After all the debates, public

plans are just statements of intentions and without the public will and sustained

leadership to put them into action, they become the much lamented “dusty plans on the

shelf.” Public planning processes must consider both the formal and informal systems,

and values that impact community interests, private property rights, public policy and

economic interests.

(Ms. Cindy Canary, Director. Illinois Campaign for Political Reform)

Readings • The Declaration of Independence (Reference)

• The Constitution of the United States Article IV (Reference)

• Federalist Papers #1, #10, #39 (Reference)

• Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson, Richard K. Matthews (Extra)

• Servant Leader, Robert Greenleaf

• Tyranny of the Majority : Fundamental Fairness in Representative

Democracy, Lani Guinier (Chapter)(Required)

• Illinois Open Meeting Act

http://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/government/openmeet.pdf

• Citizen Advocacy Center

http://www.citizenadvocacycenter.org/aboutcac.htm

• IAP2 http://www.iap2.org/

• In Common Cause, John Gardner

• People & Politics: Voices from Main Street

8. — Conflict Resolution — One of the greatest inhibitions with both political and

processional planning leaders is the perceived fear of a hostile public. Professional

conflict resolution skills are as highly developed and those of the facilitator and can be

employed whenever there is the possibility of open conflict. In fact, many states have

established permanent conflict resolution organizations for both personal, civil conflicts

as well as community, public or environmental conflicts. Variously called conflict

resolution, alternative dispute resolution or mediation, these are a special set of

facilitation skills evolved with the rise of organized NIMBY.

(Bill Hargering, JAMS)

Readings

• Breaking the Impasse, Lawrence Suskind

• Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving in, Roger

Fisher

• Conflict Resolution Network C.R. Kit http://www.crnhq.org/

(Required)

• Association for Conflict Resolution http://www.acrnet.org/about/CR-

FAQ.htm

9. — Communication Tools — Communication ranges from being a constitutional

imperative (Freedom of the press in the 1st Amendment), to a major economic and

cultural force (what’s on your iPod?). In a democratic, pluralistic culture, good planning

and good communication are synonymous. In its most basic definition, communication

requires a sender, a medium to send the message and a receiver. This has been the

traditional one-way communication role of the mass media role, including radio,

television and newspapers. Today’s communication revolution has introduced two-way,

interactive communication to the public realm for the first time since Town Meetings

outgrew their New England roots. The full range of mass media and interactive media are

essential tools for the public planner to understand and marshal for any public planning

process.

Readings

• New Rules for the New Economy

• The World is Flat. Thomas Friedman

• Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan

• Responsive Cord, Tony Schwartz

• Communication as a Design Tool, JAE, Ron Thomas, Editor

• AICP Case Study, Imagine Houston, Ron Thomas AIPC

• PlaceMatters http://www.placematters.org/

10. — Communication Skills — The planner as communicator should be core

competency to reach the diverse audiences across ethnic, cultural, gender and

generational lines. In addition to the tradition skills of sound writing and practiced public

speaking, the successful communicator needs the skills of the psychologist,

anthropologist and salesperson to listen, hear and understand before attempting to deliver

important (and often complex) planning information. This session will introduce the

Meyers-Briggs Type Indicators as a tool for assessing personal communication

preferences and styles.

(Guest Lecturer: Elizabeth D. Richter. The Richter Group)

Readings

• Hidden Dimension, Edward T. Hall

• People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve

Conflicts, Robert Bolton

• The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work,

Leisure, Community and Everyday Life, Richard Florida

• You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,

Deborah Tannen

• Race Matters, Cornell West

11. — New Technologies. — Planning arenas – larger, more diverse, more politically

sensitive – demand tools, skills and methods far beyond the planner appearing with some

maps on an easel. Fortunately, new tools and technologies have emerged to help with the

reach and sophistication to transcend some of these time/space/scale barriers. (Daniel

Clark, All Together Planning, Inc.)

Readings

• “Taking Democracy to Scale: Tools for Planning at the Speed of

Change,” Ron Thomas from Urban Sprawl: A Comprehensive

History, David C. Soule.

• PlaceMatters Planning Process Map.

http://www.placematters.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid

=85

• AmericaSpeaks. www.americaaspeak.org

• All Together Planning. www.alltogetherplanning.com

• Powerful Facilitation, Covision Site. Lenny Lind

http://www.covision.com/howitworks/index.html

12. — Teams & The New Management Paradigm — In the last few decades ideas

about management has been tuned on its ear as the idea of the “learning organization”

and team-based management has emerged over the traditional top-down power and

control approach. The idea of the empowered worker has migrated into the public realm

with the idea of the empowered public. In these cases, organization reform has found its

laboratory in leading business and its consultants have found the opportunities to bring

these practices to the public sector. These practices are important for not only planning

and other governmental agencies but also for organizing and managing community and

other public groups involved in the planning process.

Readings

• 5th

Discipline, Peter Senge

http://www.solonline.org/FifthDiscipline/introduction/

• Bowling Alone: The collapse and Revival of American Communities,

Robert Putnam

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/DETOC/assoc/bowling.html

• Discovering Common Ground. Marvin Ross Weisbord.

http://www.futuresearch.net/method/whatis/index.cfm

• W. Edwards Deming

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/DETOC/assoc/bowling.htmlhttp://en.

wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

• Wisdom of Teams http://highperformanceteams.org/hpt_twot.htm

• Reinventing Government, John Osborne.

http://government.cce.cornell.edu/doc/summary.asp?id=osborne1997

13. — Process Design: Putting it All Together — Increasingly, the professional

planner has ceded or had taken the role of planning the plan. Marketing, public relations,

management and political professionals are more often in a position and with the skills to

think about sequences, messages, public opinion, timing and results as planners have

concentrated on the technical, data and regulatory aspects of planning. Process is an

essential and integral aspect of successful public planning, and the most successful

planners are those in command of the whole system of integrated planning processes

often characterized as “system thinking.”

Readings

• Universal Traveler, Don Koberg

• Dialogue, Daniel Yankelovich

• What is Appreciative Inquiry, David L. Cooperrider and Diana

Whitney http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/intro/whatisai.cfm

• Discovering Community Power: A Guide To Mobilizing Local Assets

And Your Organization’s Capacity, John P. Kretzmann And John L.

Mcknight, Co-Directors

• Winning Through Participation, ICA

• Successful Public Meetings, Elaine Cogan

• YES! Journal, Issue 2, Ron Thomas, Steve Silha (guest editors)

• Scenario Planning

o http://www.analysys.com/default_acl.asp?Mode=article&iLeftArti

cle=84&m=&n

o http://www.well.com/~mb/scenario/#What_is_Scenario_Planning

o http://scenariothinking.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

o http://www.unido.org/file-

storage/download/?file_id=16957#search=%22Scenario%20Plan

ning%22

o http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/Planning/scenplan/index.htm

14. — Large Scale Process Design - Even as the existing regional planning

organizations struggle to meet the growing issues of planning challenges at all scales

from brownfields development to regional sprawl, planning is being challenged to engage

more people and livability, ideas for change abound and the arguments for change

demand attention. Several of these trend shifting paradigms might be characterized as

“Small is Beautiful,” “Bigger Is Better,” and “The World Is Flat.” begin action sooner.

International corporations have been inventing and reinventing themselves for sometime

and have innovated many techniques for large organizations, often with staff dispersed

worldwide. A number of the leaders of these large-scale change processes have begun to

find ways to apply these innovations to the public sector.

(Emily Axelrod Group, Axelrod Group)

Readings

• Whole-Scale Change: Unleashing the Magic in Organizations,

Dannemiller Tyson Associates

• AmericaSpeaks http://www.americaspeaks.org/

• The Axelrod Group http://www.axelrodgroup.com/

• A Guide to Community Visioning: Hands-On Information for Local

Communities, Steven Ames

• Searching for the Uncommon Common Ground. Marvin Weisbord

• New Dimensions on Race in America (Uniting America), Angela

Glover Blackwell http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1242)

• Large Group Interventions: Engaging the Whole System for Rapid

Change (Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series), Barbara

Benedict Bunker:

http://www.coachingandmentoring.com/BookReviews/LargeScaleInterv

ention.html

• Background And Theory For Large Scale Organizational Change

Methods Robert H. Rouda

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~rouda/background.html

15. — Team Presentations (No Exam) – Team Projects will culminate the final

sessions of this course. Your Team will develop a detailed project plan proposal for your

selected agency project that would provide the explanation of, rationale, and justification

for the project with a mapped-out detailed planning process. Describe the outcomes and

benefits to the agency and the targeted communities and public. In the planning process

proposal include a detailed participation component, outreach strategy,

media/communication strategy and action research strand in support of these

components. Utilize course readings, and bibliography for authoritative support. Personal

experience and point of view should be considered in forming your editorial style. The

intent of your proposal is to gain support from your agency’s board, interest from funding

sources, recruitment of partner agencies and interest from the media.

PLANNING PARTICIPATION & PARTICIPATORY PLANNING: A BIBLIOGRAPHY & RESOUCES (With publisher/seller notes and my comments added as notes in italics. RT and Course Texts in blue.)

An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations & Communities. Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff This is a detailed how-to book on the planning, managing, facilitating and follow-up of future searches, with numerous examples. (The Future Search has found popular applications in the public arena. If you want to consider a Future Search process, this is your guide to this large group method – see “Discovering Common Ground: below. RT) Appreciative Inquiry Handbook. David L. Cooperrider The handbook is clearly written and introduces not only a new paradigm in thinking about organizational change work it also supports change agents in their endeavor to create sustainable and learning organizations. Great practical materials and tools across the spectrum of AI are designed with a lot of ideas how to apply any AI initiative. (Appreciative Inquiry is one of those simple but transformational approaches to collaborative and community-based work and an ally of Asset Mapping and planning. A “must know” approach for community oriented planners, RT)

The Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace (ICA). Brian Stanfield (Editor) Communication within many organizations has been reduced to email, electronic file transfer, and hasty sound bytes at hurried meetings. More and more, people appear to have forgotten the value of wisdom gained by ordinary conversations. The Art of Focused Conversation convincingly restores this most human of attributes to prime place within businesses and organizations, and demonstrates what can be accomplished through the medium of focused conversation.Developed, tested, and extensively used by professionals in the field of organizational development, The Art of Focused Conversation is an invaluable resource for all those working to improve communications in firms and organizations.

Art of the Long View. Peter Schwartz This book is about using future scenarios to make better current decisions. As Peter Schwartz alerts us, "Scenarios are not predictions." They represent instead, possible alternative dimensions of the future that reflect the driving forces of that future. This is particularly valuable now because unpredictability is growing. "Unpredictability in every field is the result of the conquest of the whole of the present world by scientific power." Perhaps the greatest benefit of these practices is that "scenarios are . . . the most powerful vehicles . . . for challenging our 'mental models' about the world and lifting the 'blinders' that limit our creativity and resourcefulness." So you can think of scenarios as a stall-busting technique for overcoming the miscommunication, misconception, and disbelief stalls, as well. (A “must read” for all planners and a foundation work for strategic planning. Schwartz almost single-handedly launched the now widely touted scenario approach to strategic planning. At it’s most basic; the book also legitimizes the range of human learning and knowledge as relevant and applicable to professional planning activities that is often limited by accepted paradigms to database research. RT) Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking. Neil Browne, Stuart Keeley This book helps readers bridge the gap between simply memorizing or blindly accepting information and the greater challenge of critical analysis and synthesis. It teaches them to respond to alternative points of view and develop a solid foundation for making personal choices about what to accept and what to reject as they read and listen.

(The key to successful facilitation and public participation is agenda design and discussion framing. These are often learned skills and under-documented in the published literature. This is a helpful guide to framing the right questions and having the right kind of discussion in your planning interactions. RT) Becoming a Learning Organization: Beyond the Learning Curve (Addison-Wesley Series on Organization Development) Joop Swieringa, Andre Wierdsma The authors' approach to organizational development derives from their ten years of work as organizational consultants at The Netherlands School of Business, where they have custom designed courses assisting corporations to meet radical shifts in their business environments. The term learning organization is sometimes linked with TQM, but Swiennga and Wierdsma are also concerned with collective learning on the part of organizations to survive mergers, structural redesigns, market transitions, and the like. Principles in the book can be applied to public institutions, which are equally vulnerable to changes in the operating environment. The authors amplify an existing model by defining single-, double-, and triple-loop learning. Single-loop learning occurs at the rules level; that is, the insights underlying organizational behavior are not questioned. In double-loop learning, the rules governing organizational behavior may be changed. Triple-loop learning questions and changes the essential principles on which the organization is founded. (This might be considered the definitive professional exploration of the concept, and functioning of the Learning Organization. Important for the serious LO student. Also see the concise learning loop definitions in the above review. RT) Breaking the Impasse: Consensual Approaches to Resolving Public Disputes, Lawrence Susskind, Jeffrey Cruikshank Breaking the Impasse offers a guide to consensus building strategies for resolving public disputes. The authors frame their discussion of public disputes in terms of distributional versus constitutional disputes. The authors describe possible obstacles to agreement and techniques for getting past those obstacles. (From two of the gurus in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) at Harvard's conflict center. This is another must read for any planner who might ever expect to encounter any public opposition to proposed plans and projects. RT) Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets. John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight Building Communities from the Inside Out guides readers to a new, asset-based approach to community building that proves everyone has a gift to share. The book offers practical advice, helpful tools, and powerful stories that help us see communities in new ways--as treasure troves of talent. Kretzmann and McKnight's front-line experience working with neighborhoods across America has created a vital tool for transforming city blocks into neighborhoods and isolated residents into change agents. (A user friendly but serous book that provides one of those seminal innovations in the planning and community development fields. Kretzmann and McKnight – neighbors at Northwestern University – have created the paradigm of Asset Planning that others have built on. This approach frames planning as a positive people-oriented endeavor building on community assets rather than on a problem fix – or deficit - approach. RT) The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems. Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, Steven Cady Originators and practitioners of such change methods as Future Search, Real Time Strategic Change, Gemba Kaizen, and Open Space Technology outline the distinctive aspects of their approaches, detail roles and responsibilities, share stories illustrating their use, and answer frequently asked questions. A comparative chart allows readers to evaluate the methods to find the one that seems best for them. (This a literally a big book. It does provide a useful one-stop-shopping reference for the range of interactive, participatory methodologies. RT)

The Charrette Handbook: The Essential Guide for Accelerated, Collaborative Community Planning. Bill Lennertz, Aarin Lutzenhiser The Charrette Handbook, published by the American Planning Association, is the first comprehensive step-by-step guide for how to plan and hold a successful charrette. The handbook is based on the National Charrette Institute's Charrette Planner certification training curriculum. The Charrette Handbook is a useful guide for any community looking to engage citizens in the planning process. (Charrettes are the architcet’s contribution ot interactive, participatory collaborations. For me charrettes imply a three dimensional design focus that has been an important workshop method for the last 40 years and a hundred year before that as an architect’s working culture. The charrette handbook advances the practice; however the method is much more flexible than the prescriptive approach proffered by the Charrette Institute. RT) Citizens and Politics: A View from Main Street America. The Harwood Group This report, based on in-depth interviews with citizens in ten cities across the nation, explores citizen attitudes on politics. It discusses how we can bring Americans back into the political process and begin to restore public confidence in politics. (With some time behind it, this national study by the Kettering Foundation, articulated the inadequacies of normal public hearings for satisfactory citizen involvement and it has helped frame the higher standards for meaningful, effective and sustained citizen engagement in public and civic life. RT) Collaborating for Change: The Conference Model by Emily M Axelrod (Author), Richard H Axelrod (Author), David L Cooperrider (Editor), David Whitney (Author), David L. Cooperrider (Author) Conferences create an open exchange of information, increased understanding of the system under consideration, new agreements and actions, and enhanced relationships among participants. A key Conference Model feature is linking an integrated series of conferences usually spaced four to six weeks apart. The complex problems facing organizations today do not lend themselves to instant answers. Crucial to creating high-quality solutions to complex issues is the ability to examine them at increasing levels of depth. A series of integrated conferences provides that mechanism. Multiple conferences also create a critical mass of people supporting the change by involving more and varied participants over time. Conference Model applications include redesigning processes, creating organizational futures, developing new organizational cultures, integrating organizational units/processes, creating self-directed work teams, improving union-management cooperation, and creating organizational alignment with new strategic directions. Collaborative Research. A Practical Introduction to Participatory Action Research (PAR) for Communities and Scholars. Field Museum, Center for Cultural Understanding and Change Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a way for professional researchers and community residents to collaborate on investigations into issues - such as housing, healthcare, and environmental conservation - with the goal of achieving positive social change. PAR values both scholarly and community-based perspectives to address questions related to living conditions, services, and policy, in order to make life better for people living in a given community, as defined by that community. The richness of the collaborative approach can lead to small-scale shifts, such as organizing to remove litter from a city block, as well as improvements on a larger scale, like reducing air pollution in a neighborhood, city, or state. (A wonderful community service publication of the Field Museum that defines participatory action research and should be a core text in all planning curriculum. With the exception of John Forrester’s very academic “Deliberate Practitioner” nothing else I have seen provides a more useful working model for the planner as practitioner of PAR. RT) Coming to Public Judgment. Daniel Yankelovich.

When political leaders have problems, they consult experts (economic, military, scientific and so on), who assume that if the public knew as much as they do, all would acknowledge that they're right. Not so, says Yankelovich: the public has its own perspectives and priorities (though how these are formed remains unclear). Moreover, it is possible to improve the quality of what he calls ``public judgment'' (mass opinion that is thoughtful and accepting of the consequences of its conclusions, as opposed to the off-the-cuff opinion that polls often measure), not simply through better information but through a better process of forming judgment. Yankelovich offers a three-step model for achieving this: consciousness-raising (learning about the problem); working through (confronting the need for change); and resolution (forming coherent and responsible solutions). (An important book for all working in the public planning arena, especially those working at or aspiring for top management levels. Yankelovitch, a leading pollster, articulates the falsies of making public decisions based on superficial public opinion polls. He also warns leaders, especially elected officials of their isolation from their constituents interests when depending too much on surrounding experts to filter their information. Yankelovih makes a clear and compelling call for our democratic institutions to create ways and means for the public to be engaged in mutually informative ways to arrive at informed positions or “public judgments.” RT) The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems by Peggy Holman (Author), Tom Devane (Author), Steven Cady (Author) Originators and practitioners of such change methods as Future Search, Real Time Strategic Change, Gemba Kaizen, and Open Space Technology outline the distinctive aspects of their approaches, detail roles and responsibilities, share stories illustrating their use, and answer frequently asked questions. A comparative chart allows readers to evaluate the methods to find the one that seems best for them.

Civic Engagement in American Democracy. Theda Skocpol, Morris Fiorina. Brookings Institute. The book opens with an eagle-eye look at the roots of America's special patterns of civic engagement, examining the ways social groups and government and electoral politics have influenced each other. Other chapters examine the impact of advocacy groups and socioeconomic inequalities on democratic processes and probe the influence of long-term social and cultural changes on voluntary associations and civic participation. The book concludes by asking why social liberation has been accompanied by new inequalities and the erosion of many important forms of citizen leverage and participation. (Another useful work bringing perspective on the public sector dynamics where most planners work. RT) Covert Processes at Work : Managing the Five Hidden Dimensions of Organizational Change. Robert J Marshak, Ed Schein (Foreword) Organizational change initiatives often fail because they focus exclusively on the rational, overt aspects of change, overlooking the powerful role played by concealed or irrational factors. It’s well known that these covert processes—such as hidden agendas, blind spots, office politics, tacit assumptions, secret hopes, wishes and fears—frequently sabotage change efforts, but up until now nobody has offered a rigorous, consistent way of identifying and dealing with them. Drawing on over thirty years of experience as an organizational change consultant to global corporations and government agencies, Robert J. Marshak shows precisely how to bring these hidden processes to light and deal with their negative impact. Marshak identifies five different dimensions of covert processes, presents an integrated model to explain the ultimate source of all of them, and shows how to diagnose whether any covert processes might be at work in your organization. He then offers specific tools and techniques for engaging and managing these "under-the-table" processes and for creating the kind of organizational environment in which such hidden dynamics are unable to flourish. Covert Processes at Work is a comprehensive and practical guide that managers, leaders, and consultants can use to deal with the hidden dynamics that are often at the root of many organizational problems.

The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes. John F. Forester Citizen participation in such complex issues as the quality of the environment, neighborhood housing, urban design, and economic development often brings with it suspicion of government, anger between stakeholders, and power plays by many--as well as appeals to rational argument. Deliberative planning practice in these contexts takes political vision and pragmatic skill. Working from the accounts of practitioners in urban and rural settings, North and South, John Forester shows how skillful deliberative practices can facilitate practical and timely participatory planning processes. In so doing, he provides a window onto the wider world of democratic governance, participation, and practical decision-making. Integrating interpretation and theoretical insight with diverse accounts of practice, Forester draws on political science, law, philosophy, literature, and planning to explore the challenges and possibilities of deliberative practice. (Professor Forester, one of the leading champions of participatory planning and a protégé of Edward Schoen at MIT – a pioneer of action research – has published the lone advocacy work for planning as an action research endeavor coming form a major figure in planning academics. RT) Designing the City: A Guide For Advocates And Public Officials. Adele Fleet Bacow Written in a clear and engaging style, Designing the City is a practical manual for improving the way communities are planned, designed, and built. It presents a wealth of information on design and decision-making, including advice on how citizens and activists can make their voices heard, and numerous examples of effective strategies for working with all parties involved in neighborhood and community development. (Adele Bacow, veteran advocate of planning livable places, predating many of today’s new urbanists, has produced this useful work articulating ways to integrate planning, urban design and participatory engagement. RT) Discovering Common Ground: How Future Search Conferences Bring People Together to Achieve Breakthrough Innovation, Empowerment, Shared Vision, and Collaborative Action. Marvin Ross Weisbord This book brings together cases from around the world on a breakthrough approach to strategic planning, empowerment, consensus building, and whole systems improvement. Hundreds of organization and interest groups in business, government, and the nonprofit sector have used this approach to create shared vision, innovation, commitment, and collaborative action that exceed what people thought possible. Includes contributions by 35 international authors. (Marvin Weisbord, with his former business partner, Peter Block, has been a leader and pioneer in advancing the practice of team-based management, learning organizations and total quality management practices with leading businesses and institutions. Present at the creating of the National Training Laboratory with mentor Kurt Lewin, he revisits the origins of these innovative participatory management practices and articulates his version for large scale change methods, branded as Future Searches. Increasingly Future Searches have become an established approach to vision planning activities for public planners. RT)

Democracy in Practice: Public Participation in Environmental Decisions by Thomas C. Beierle (Author), Jerry Cayford (Author) In spite of the expanding role of public participation in environmental decisionmaking, there has been little systematic examination of whether it has, to date, contributed toward better environmental management. Neither have there been extensive empirical studies to examine how participation processes can be made more effective. Democracy in Practice brings together, for the first time, the collected experience of 30 years of public involvement in environmental decisionmaking. Using data from 239 cases, the authors evaluate the success of public participation and the contextual and procedural factors that lead to it. Thomas Beierle and Jerry Cayford demonstrate that public participation has not only improved environmental policy, but it has also played an important educational role and has helped resolve the conflict and mistrust that often plague environmental issues. Among the authors' findings are that intensive "problem-solving" processes are most effective for achieving a broad set of social goals, and participant

motivation and agency responsiveness are key factors for success. Democracy in Practice will be useful for a broad range of interests. For researchers, it assembles the most comprehensive data set on the practice of public participation, and presents a systematic typology and evaluation framework. For policymakers, political leaders, and citizens, it provides concrete advice about what to expect from public participation, and how it can be made more effective. Democracy in Practice concludes with a systematic guide for use by government agencies in their efforts to design successful public participation efforts.

Design for Ecological Democracy by Randolph T. Hester Over the last fifty years, the process of community building has been lost in the process of city building. City and suburban design divides us from others in our communities, destroys natural habitats, and fails to provide a joyful context for our lives. In Design for Ecological Democracy, Randolph Hester proposes a remedy for our urban anomie. He outlines new principles for urban design that will allow us to forge connections with our fellow citizens and our natural environment. He demonstrates these principles with abundantly illustrated examples--drawn from forty years of design and planning practice--showing how we can design cities that are ecologically resilient, that enhance community, and that give us pleasure. Hester argues that it is only by combining the powerful forces of ecology and democracy that the needed revolution in design will take place. Democracy bestows freedom; ecology creates responsible freedom by explaining our interconnectedness with all creatures. Hester's new design principles are founded on three fundamental issues that integrate democracy and ecology: enabling form, resilient form, and impelling form. Urban design must enable us to be communities rather than zoning-segregated enclaves and to function as informed democracies. A simple bench at a centrally located post office, for example, provides an opportunity for connection and shared experience. Cities must be ecologically resilient rather than ecologically imperiled, adaptable to the surrounding ecology rather than dependent on technological fixes. Resilient form turns increased urban density, for example, into an advantage. And cities should impel us by joy rather than compel us by fear; good cities enrich us rather than limit us. Design for Ecological Democracy is essential reading for designers, planners, environmentalists, community activists, and anyone else who wants to improve a local community. (Randy’s book is one of the all too few books on a truly integrated participatory planning process. RT)

Designing Public Consensus: The Civic Theater of Community Participation for Architects, Landscape Architects, Planners, and Urban Designers. Barbara Faga, Alexander Garvin (Foreword) Designing Public Consensus is an insightful and useful resource for architects, planners, and urban designers, with case study examples illustrating approaches for working with small towns, large cities, government agencies, citizen activists, community groups, and other stakeholders. By examining the public process implemented by EDAW and a variety of design firms in urban design projects of different scales, Faga reveals the lessons learned by the design practitioners. Throughout the case studies, first-person accounts by the designers, government officials, clients, and other stakeholders reveal the moments of brilliance as well as the good

intentions gone wrong.

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!: Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter. Marvin Weisbord, Sandra Janoff Most people think meetings are all too often a waste of time. But Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff say that’s only because of the way most meetings are set up and run. In Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! they offer ten principles that will allow you to get more done in meetings by doing less. The key is knowing what you can and can’t control. You can’t control people’s motives, behavior, or attitudes. That’s one area where most meeting leaders’ attempts to "do something" actually end up doing nothing at all. But you can control the conditions under which people interact, and you can control your own reactions. Based on over 30 years of experience

and extensive research, Weisbord and Janoff show exactly how to establish a meeting structure that will create conditions for success, efficiency, and productivity. And, equally important, they offer advice for making sure your own emotions don’t get in the way — for knowing when to "just

stand there" rather than intervene inappropriately, unproductively, or futilely.

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. Steven Johnson An individual ant, like an individual neuron, is just about as dumb as can be. Connect enough of them together properly, though, and you get spontaneous intelligence. Web pundit Steven Johnson explains what we know about this phenomenon with a rare lucidity in Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. Starting with the weird behavior of the semi-colonial organisms we call slime molds, Johnson details the development of increasingly complex and familiar behavior among simple components: cells, insects, and software developers all find their place in greater schemes. Most game players, alas, live on something close to day-trader time, at least when they're in the middle of a game--thinking more about their next move than their next meal, and usually blissfully oblivious to the ten- or twenty-year trajectory of software development. No one wants to play with a toy that's going to be fun after a few decades of tinkering--the toys have to be engaging now, or kids will find other toys. Johnson has a knack for explaining complicated and counterintuitive ideas cleverly without stealing the scene. Though we're far from fully understanding how complex behavior manifests from simple units and rules, our awareness that such emergence is possible is guiding research across disciplines. Readers unfamiliar with the sciences of complexity will find Emergence an excellent starting point, while those who were chaotic before it was cool will appreciate its updates and wider scope.

Environmental Dispute Resolution. Lawrence S. Bacow. Michael Wheeler Environmental Dispute Resolution is a self-contained text suitable for use in a graduate-level course and accessible to students of law, planning, management, public administration, and engineering. The organization of the text reflects the order in which negotiation issues arise in practice: the nature of environmental conflict, dispute resolution theory, incentives to negotiate, joint problem solving, data negotiation, two-party versus multiparty, negotiation, prospects for compliance, mediation techniques, mediating large disputes, mediation ethics, negotiated rulemaking, and institutionalizing negotiation. (All planners should be familiar with the applications and methods of alternative dispute resolution in the public planning arena – often generally labeled Environmental Dispute Resolution. Bacow and Wheeler are well established practitioners of ADR for planning activities and this book is a solid basic introduction to the field and of value to any practicing planner – if for no other reason than to know what kind of help is available and when to bring it in. RT) Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. Sam Kaner, Lenny Lind, Catherine Toldi, Sarah Fisk. Duane Berger In cross-functional environments, where diverse perspectives are intentionally brought together to produce high-quality thinking, a highly skilled facilitator can add great value—and Sam Kaner is one of the best. The Facilitator's Guide provides a full set of models and tools to enable an organization to reap the benefits of a well facilitated, participatory decision-making process. (A current guide to facilitation practices that constructively adds to the understanding of the facilitation practitioner. RT) The Fifth Discipline. Peter M. Senge Peter Senge, founder of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management, experienced an epiphany while meditating one morning back in the fall of 1987. That was the day he first saw the possibilities of a "learning organization" that used "systems thinking" as the primary tenet of a revolutionary management philosophy. He advanced the concept into this primer, originally released in 1990, written for those interested in integrating his philosophy into their corporate culture. The Fifth Discipline has turned many readers into true believers; it remains the ideal introduction to Senge's carefully integrated corporate framework,

which is structured around "personal mastery," "mental models," "shared vision," and "team learning." Using ideas that originate in fields from science to spirituality, Senge explains why the learning organization matters, provides an unvarnished summary of his management principals, offers some basic tools for practicing it, and shows what it's like to operate under this system. The book's concepts remain stimulating and relevant as ever. (This is a “must read” for everyone interested to the leading edge of management practices and organizational development. Senge has articulated the most important management publication to advance the concept of the learning organization and the participatory practices at its core. RT) Future Search: An action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations & Communities. Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff This book describes a three-day program to help organizations develop a future plan. Their conference is designed to unite groups of people from different areas of an organization so they can create a program together that they all support. Typically, the conference includes 50 to 70 people who review the past, explore the present environment, create future scenarios, identify common ground and make action plans. The program encourages dialogue and working together as peers. (This is a convenient, hands-on guide to accompany Weisbord’s other works for those applying Future Search methods in their planning projects. RT) Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad. Frances Moore Lappe This determinedly optimistic manifesto-cum-workbook by the author of Diet for a Small Planet begins with the question, Why are we as societies creating a world that we as individuals abhor? Lappé posits that U.S. culture is grounded in a worldview of scarcity, creating a society of competitive materialists who practice a Thin Democracy of electoral politics in a one rule market economy that returns wealth to wealth and leads to an ever-increasing concentration of power. Yet she believes there is no reason we can't create a values-guided, empowering democracy based on the premise of plenty, where individuals and communities take charge of public life and engage in active listening, conflict mediation, dialogue and judgment. Full of charts comparing Thin Democracy constructs with Living Democracy alternatives, and ending with a study guide for community Group Talk, the book includes numerous examples of people practicing Living Democracy, from Nobel Prize–winner Muhammad Yunus, instigator of the international microcredit movement, to School Mediation Associates, which teaches conflict resolution and peer mediations skills. Unfortunately, Lappé's coverage of many of these inspiring stories is unintelligibly thin, too often referring readers to her Web site for backup. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Roger Fisher, William L. Ury We're constantly negotiating in our lives, whether it's convincing the kids to do their homework or settling million-dollar lawsuits. For those who need help winning these battles, Roger Fisher has developed a simple and straightforward five-step system for how to behave in negotiations. (Still the standard read and introduction to constructive negotiation methods useful far beyond the practice of public planning. RT) Great Meetings!: How to Facilitate Like a Pro. Dee Kelsey, Pan Plumb. Kippy Rudy This book which has proven especially helpful to those responsible for planning and conducting meetings but also to those who need to improve their presentation skills in other situations such as when meeting with a supervisor (e.g. to provide a progress report) or with a client (e.g. to make recommendations concerning new initiatives). (Like a number of publications on this list, it is currently out of print but available from after-market sources, this is a very useful, layperson’s guide to facilitate, participatory planning. This was a guide I have used as the text and handout in volunteer facilitator training programs. RT) The Handbook of Large Group Methods: Creating Systemic Change in Organizations and Communities by Barbara Benedict Bunker (Author), Billie T. Alban (Author)

This book offers an exceptional look at large group process, brought to life by powerful stories from real organizations and communities. There’s no better way to understand the methodology and its potential. This extraordinary collection of stories demonstrates the power of large group processes in a variety of organizational settings. I can’t imagine a better way to understand the methodology and its potential to impact organizations of all kinds. How to Make Collaboration Work: Powerful Ways to Build Consensus, Solve Problems, and Make Decisions. David Straus, Thomas C. Layton Collaboration is an everyday practice that many people find to be a frustrating, even exhausting, experience. How to Make Collaboration Work provides a remedy: five principles of collaboration that have been tested and refined in organizations throughout the world. Author David Straus shows that these methods can help any group make better decisions and function more effectively. The five principles are: Involve the Relevant Stakeholders, Build Consensus Phase by Phase, Design a Process Map, Designate a Process Facilitator, and Harness the Power of Group Memory. Each principle addresses the specific challenges people face when trying to work collaboratively, and each can be applied to any problem-solving scenario. (Here one of the authors of “How to make Meetings Work” has updated his practice in the context of team-based collaborations. This should be added to any basic library on participatory planning. RT) How to Make Meetings Work. Michael Doyle and David Straus The Interaction method is a new, tested way to stop wasting time and get things done at meetings. Although it may lack a comprehensive array of practical exercises and techniques for all situations that arise in meetings or during facilitated focus group sessions, it is by far the best reference. Once you read, re-read, and fully understand the basics that Doyle and Straus are presenting, you can modify and add your own experience and methods. (Still, after 30 years, the core introduction to the facilitated process. If a planner has time and interest in only one or a limited number of works on public participation, this remains the most useful introduction to the field. It is one of the four core guides for this course. Many more specialized resources are now available, but a solid, general level of knowledge for planning practitioners is provided here. The other three core readings to accompany this are ”Working with Volunteers,” “People Skills,” and “Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations.” Armed with these and applying their information wisely will keep the practicing planner on a successful participatory course. RT) Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World. Margaret J Wheatley When Margaret J. Wheatley's Leadership and the New Science was initially published in 1992, it outlined an unquestionably unique but extremely challenging view of change, leadership, and the structure of groups. Many readers immediately embraced its cutting-edge perspective, but others just could not understand how the complicated scientific tenets it described could be used to reshape institutions. Now Wheatley, an organizational specialist who has since coauthored A Simpler Way, updates the original by including additional material (such as an epilogue addressing her personal experiences during the past decade) and reconstructing some of her more challenging concepts. The result is a much clearer work that first explores the implications of quantum physics on organizational practice, then investigates ways that biology and chemistry affect living systems, and finally focuses on chaos theory, the creation of a new order, and the manner that scientific principles affect leadership. "Our old ways of relating to each other don't support us any longer," she writes. "It is up to us to journey forth in search of new practices and new ideas that will enable us to create lives and organizations worthy of human habitation. (Meg Wheatley has bridged science, systems thinking, leadership and democratic participation in her very important cross-sector works that bring the deeply theoretical into practical applications. RT) The Public Participation Handbook: Making Better Decisions Through Citizen Involvement. James L. Creighton

Internationally renowned facilitator and public participation consultant James L. Creighton offers a practical guide to designing and facilitating public participation of the public in environmental and public policy decision making. Written for government officials, public and community leaders, and professional facilitators, The Public Participation Handbook is a toolkit for designing a participation process, selecting techniques to encourage participation, facilitating successful public meetings, working with the media, and evaluating the program. The book is also filled with practical advice, checklists, worksheets, and illustrative examples. (Jim is a pioneer in the planning and participation field and one of the organizing founders of IAP2. RT) The Skilled Facilitator and The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook: Tips, Tools, and Tested Methods for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches. Roger Schwarz The Skilled Facilitator: Practical Wisdom For Developing Effective Groups, Roger Schwarz draws on his own extensive facilitation experience and insight to bring together theory and practice, creating a comprehensive reference for consultants, peer facilitators, mangers, leaders -- anyone whose role is to guide groups toward realization their creative and problem-solving potential. The Skilled Facilitator provides essential materials including simple but effective ground rules for governing group interaction; what to say to a group (and when to say it) to keep it on track and moving toward its goal, proven techniques for starting meetings on the right (and ending them positively and decisively), practical methods for handling emotions (particularly negative emotions) when they arise in a group context, and a diagnostic approach for helping both facilitators and group members identify and solve problems that can undermine the group process. The Skilled Facilitator provides a clearly defined set of basic principles to help facilitators develop sound, value-based responses to a wide range of unpredictable situations. It also includes advice on how to work with outside consultants and facilitate within one's own organizations, along with a groundbreaking section on facilitative leadership. (“The Skilled Facilitator” has, for many, eclipsed “How to make Meetings Work” as the “go to” book for facilitators. RT) 7 (Seven) Kinds of Smart: Identifying and Developing Your Multiple Intelligences Thomas Armstrong Based on psychologist Howard Gardner's pioneering theory of "multiple intelligences," the original edition of 7 Kinds of Smart identified seven distinct ways of being smart, including "word smart," "music smart," "logic smart," and "people smart." Now, with the addition of two new kinds of smart--"naturalist" and "existential"--7 Kinds of Smart offers even more interesting information about how the human psyche functions. Complete with checklists for determining one's strongest and weakest intelligences, exercises, practical tips for developing each type of smart, a revised bibliography for further reading, and a guide to related Internet sites, this book continues to be an essential resource, offering cutting-edge research for general consumption. (I consider this one of those useful “must reads” for planners working with the public. It is a popular portal to the extensive field of learning research and most useful to anyone seeking to be an effective communicator, giving insights to why that well researched set a data tables might not make an effective presentation to the public on next Thursday’s planning commission meeting. This point of view exposes my bias that public planning must always be aware of its public education responsibility and participation only heightens that opportunity. Hence the plannier is best served with at least a basic understanding of learning methods. RT) Smart Communities: How Citizens and Local Leaders Can Use Strategic Thinking to Build a Brighter Future. Suzanne W. Morse Everyone who is working to bring about positive change in their communities, from college presidents to next-door neighbors, will be grateful that Suzanne Morse is sharing her vast experience in community building in this highly readable and helpful book. It provides a roadmap for any community, large or small, that wants to create a better future by working together for effective change. (Suzanne Morse has been a leading practitioner of action research and community-based planning. Here she brings this experience into a well-written guide to its practice for planners. RT)

Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People. Jim Rough This is one of the most brilliant and compellingly comprehensive books I have read in recent time, and certainly one of less than 100, probably less than 25, and perhaps even one of the ten most important books available in English. Everyone, including corporations, is starting to realize that Green is Good (see my list on Natural Capitalism), and that the Earth is at a tipping point. The ten high-level threats are Poverty, Infectious Disease, Environmental Degradation, Inter-State Conflict, Civil War, Genocide, Other Atrocities (e.g. kidnapping for body parts or child soldiers), Proliferation, Terrorism, and Transnational Crime. What this author has done is pioneered the concept of Wisdom Councils at every level of society, a leap ahead of citizen involvement initiatives like Citizen's Councils formed in Denmark to study issues of national importance for legislative action. This book suggests a strategy for bringing "all" together as "We the People" where We assume our rightful role as intelligent top authority. A Special Kind of Leadership: The key to learning organizations. Ron Short This short book approaches leadership from a systems perspective, providing a solid theoretical basis for the need for openness and learning. "No one leads... unless others follow" and therefore "in critical ways, the designated leader is dependent." The book confronts the dilemma of the dependent leader by placing responsibility for experience, and the skills needed to learn from the experience, in the hands of the individual learner. Learn why openness, and learning from others, is critical to the team's productivity. This book is ideal in building the foundation for team building. (The concept of the Learning Organization is simple at its core but can become theoretically complex as applied to complicated organizations. The little book is a clear, practical introduction to the applied principles of the Learning Organization. RT) Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement. John M. Bryson Shows leaders and managers of public and nonprofit organizations both how and why they should use strategic planning to improve the performance of their organizations. This expanded edition includes many examples to illustrate both successful and unsuccessful planning efforts, while new chapters address planning implementation, strategy evaluation and reassessment, and key leadership roles vital to effective strategic planning. In addition, the author presents a planning process used successfully by many public and nonprofit organizations--the Strategy Change Cycle--along with detailed guidance on its application. (A core reading for all planners, this is is a most useful guide to strategic planning. I consider strategic planning one of the triumvirate the new planning along with Action Research, strategic planning, and team-based management. these three transformative provide a whole system for for today’s successful interactive planning practice. This is a core reading for this course. It is one of the four core guides for this course. Many more specialized resources are available for the information covered, but a general level of knowledge for planning practitioners is provided here. The other three core readings to accompany this are ”How to Make Meeting Work,” “People Skills,” and “Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations.” Armed with these and applying their information wisely will keep the practicing planner on a successful participatory course. RT)

Successful Public Meetings: A Practical Guide for Managers in Government by Elaine Cogan Public meetings can be unpredictable, messy, hostile--or satisfying and effective. In this practical guide, Elaine Cogan, an experienced meeting designer and facilitator, spells out the key elements of successful public meetings, including selecting the best format and venue, making presentations, dealing with disruptive and people. (A straight forward guide to public meeting planning. RT)

Taking Charge: How Communities Are Planning Their Futures: A Special Report on Long Range/Strategic Planning Trends and Innovations Ronald L. Thomas, Mary C. Means, Margaret A. Grieve. Introduction by Neil Peirce An early overview and introduction to the emergence of vision driven, community-based strategic planning methods. In this study we have attempted to make the case for for visioning as a complete planning process and methodology that is more than an added on feel-good activity attached to the normal expert driven planning methods. Case studies, based on a national survey, explore the ideas and methods of this interactive model for participatory planning. RT The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All (Paperback) by Tom Atlee (Author), Rosa Zubizarreta (Author) Tom Atlee's The Tao Of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence To Create A World That Works For All offers the reader a positive viewpoint on and for creating a democracy founded upon wisdom, citizen participation, a culture of dialogue, and in an harmonious balance that encourages the best in people. A thoughtful and philosophical work written specifically to stave off the impending self-destructive side of current civilization, The Tao Of Democracy is recommended reading for students of Political Science and Philosophy. Terms of Engagement: Changing the Way We Change Organizations by Richard H Axelrod (Author), Peter Block (Foreword) In his Foreword, Axelrod asserts that his "is the first book to challenge the widely accepted change management paradigm. It provides leaders at all levels of the organization -- all those who initiate, design,, and implement change -- with a set of principles for bringing about change in a turbulent world. It is not a methodology, nor is it a set of techniques; rather, it is a set of principles that everyone can fall back on when faced with new and different situations." In Part One, Axelrod identifies the problems with the current change management paradigm. In effect, he demythologizes conventional thinking on this subject. In Part Two, he examines four principles for producing an engaged organization, devoting a separate chapter to each. It is important to keep in mind that the nature and extent of production (or results) will be determined almost entirely by the nature and extent of engagement throughout an organization. Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future. Margaret J Wheatley It is impossible to read Turning to One Another in the wake of the devastating attack on New York City's World Trade Center and not marvel at the book's eerie and moving prescience. Of course Margaret Wheatley has already earned herself a (deserved and legit) reputation as the Oprah of "sensitive" organizational books with such titles as A Simpler Way. But this book--devoted entirely to centrality of conversation in healing everything from personal relationships to organizational dysfunction to world discord--flows so broadly and easily across the borders of genre or topic it's almost as though Wheatley intuited when writing it how the need for its message would soon skyrocket. "The intent of this book is to encourage and support you to begin conversations about things that are important to you and those near you," Wheatley writes right up front in the clean, straightforward voice that always saves her work, unlike that of so many other "New Age" gurus, from cheesiness. "It has no other purpose." She then delivers on that promise, making her points in short, succinct, finely written essays on various aspects of human understanding and connection, invoking the thinking of great humanists like Paolo Friere and Nelson Mandela, peppering her thoughts with encounters with people around the world, and then expanding on 10 "conversation starters" like "Do I feel a 'vocation to be truly human'?" "When have I experienced good listening?" and "When have I experienced working for the common good?" Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy. Lonni Guinier Guinier discusses the dilemma facing a democracy when a minority's own interests are consistently blocked by an electoral majority. While espousing a notion that is as simple as Robert Fulghum's admonition that we take turns, she also proposes complex remedial alternatives ranging from interest-based electoral districts to cumulative voting. As with many

collections of previously published writings, the individual chapters don't all fit together. This is a difficult and controversial book, full of murky ideas and writing, but it should be as widely read as possible because the success of our democracy requires the discussion of ideas. (Planners need to consider the arena they have been given to practice in. Guinier explores importance considerations in the limitation and challenges to modern democracy given the era and ethos that created it over 200 years ago. Some of her reforms and innovations point towards the application of some action research and interactive participation methods into the mainstream of democratic government. RT) Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning: A Comprehensive Analysis of Principles and Effective Practices Stephen D. Brookfield A thoroughly researched and extensively documented book, which efficiently outlines 20 years of studies on adult learning. Effective adult learning practices are explained in from six categories, voluntary engagement, respect among participants, collaboration and negotiation of needs, reflective praxis, critical appreciation of diversity, and student empowerment of self-improvement. Aside from the institutional mode of learning, external authority, set objectives, set teaching roles, prescribed evaluation, adult learning seeks to empower self directed learners with critical thinking modes. This latter kind of learning is not without risk. The risks of delusion, professional incompetence, and the perils of playing close to a kind of classroom therapy. Nonetheless, adult students bring a wealth of experience (good and bad), maturity, problem posing, problem solving, and task focus to adult learning. (If planning can be most successful as an interactive participatory process, and the most successful groups and organizations function best as learning organizations, then understanding planning as a learning activity is key. Planners, who want to succeed in this type of interactive planning, can benefit from understanding what good teachers know about organizing and managing adult learning activities. RT) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Marshall McLuhan with introduction by Lewis H. Lapham The reissue of Understanding Media marks the thirtieth anniversary (1964-1994) of Marshall McLuhan's classic expose on the state of the then emerging phenomenon of mass media. Terms and phrases such as "the global village" and "the medium is the message" are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate. There has been a notable resurgence of interest in McLuhan's work in the last few years, fueled by the recent and continuing conjunctions between the cable companies and the regional phone companies, the appearance of magazines such as Wired, and the development of new media models and information ecologies, many of which were spawned from MIT's Media Lab. In effect, media now begs to be redefined. In a new introduction to this edition of Understanding Media, Harper's editor Lewis Lapham reevaluates McLuhan's work in the light of the technological as well as the political and social changes that have occurred in the last part of this century. (A classic and essential reading for contemporary thinkers. McLuhen has framed much of the thinking that has emerges from digital technology and communication media. Here is a message no to b overlooked…. RT) You Don't Have to Do It Alone: How to Involve Others to Get Things Done. Richard Axelrod, Emily Axelrod. Its chapters address five fundamental questions: What kind of involvement is needed? How to know whom to include? How to invite people to become involved? How to keep people involved? How to finish the job? A chapter is devoted to meetings. A final chapter, "Where to Start," provides several options. The book includes helpful chapter checklists. Without question, this is a terrific practical guide to getting the right people involved and achieving your goals, whether in business or other realms of life. (From one of our courses guest lecturers, the Aelrods have been leaders in the area of facilitated. Large group change processes. This easy to use guide for the everyday manager makes the case for team-based work and participatory management. RT)

Whole-Scale Change: Unleashing the Magic in Organizations. Dannemiller Tyson Associates This book argues that the cornerstone for profound and timely change is large, interactive group meetings that fully engage the participants. This approach has been successfully applied in diverse businesses and industries throughout the world. The book covers the principles, theories, and practical applications to make change work. A guide to creating powerful processes for change, by following a combination of practical guidelines and systems theory. Shows how to rapidly engage an entire organization in a system of change, with simple, repeatable strategies for different business issues and settings. (When major companies found they must reinvent themselves quickly and profoundly in triple loop learning modes, new approaches were need to engage large numbers of people throughout the whole organization in the change process. These large group processes have profoundinly affected the public planning realm as they have increasingly been applied to public sector change by Dannemiller, the Axelrods, Weisbord and others. This is a foundation work by one of the large group change pioneers. RT) Winning Through Participation. Laura J. Spenser This is one of the earliest and finest introductions to the facilitation process available. Technologies of Participation (ToP) are practical methodologies for the experienced and new facilitator. She introduces the Focused Conversation Method, the ToP Workshop Method, ToP Event Planning and Orchestration Techniques, ToP Strategic Planning Process and many other practical applications of ToP methods. ToP methods were developed by the Institute of Cultural Affairs in the 1950's, 60's and 70's as practical ways of enabling groups to develop their own thinking and solutions to problems. They are still used in 100's of places across the world. (This model comes from ICA which is a Chicago breed interfaith, ecumenical movement that was spawned in reaction to Alinsky’s confrontational tactics and pioneered collaborative methods and facilitative interactions used widely and effectively in community-based projects of all types around the world. RT) Working With Volunteers: Skills for Leadership. Emily K. Morrison Most volunteer books talk about how to manage and supervise volunteers. This book, on the other hand, talks about working with fellow volunteers and is a good book for volunteers who are on the frontline of volunteering. This book talks about everything from group processes and leadership to motivation, listening and problem solving in order to make the individual and others a better volunteer. (This is a wonderful resource on the broad range organization, facilitation and management skills and methods. It is one of the three or four core guides for this course. Many more specialized resources are available for the information covered, but a general level of knowledge for planning practitioners is provided here. The other three core reading to accompany this are ”How to Make Meeting Work,” “People Skills,” and “Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations.” Armed with these and applying their information wisely will keep the practicing planner on a successful participatory course. RT) The Workshop Book: From Individual Creativity to Group Action (ICA Series). R. Brian Stanfield Increasingly, people working in teams face complex issues that need resolving in an efficient, participatory manner that honors the group's diverse perspectives and individual creativity. The Workshop Book outlines the best practices of the workshop method, based on the Institute for Cultural Affair's Technology of Participation

TM, and its use in consensus formation, planning,

problem solving and research. It also discusses workshop preparation and design, leadership styles, dealing with difficult behaviors, and special applications such as its use in large groups and for planning purposes. The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter. Juanita Brown),

David Isaacs), World Cafe Community, Margaret J. Wheatley (Foreword), Peter Senge (Afterword)

This book can help people break out of the linear, encapsulated world of every-day life, in which most are ensnared and help organizations and networks achieve collective intelligence and formulate future-focused plans. The book provides a means for engaging with many others in exploring important issues at a variety of levels: group, corporate, community, national, or international. It presents the World Cafe Process (Cafe or WCP), which generally consist of three rounds of progressive conversation, each lasting about 20 or 30 minutes, followed by a dialog among the whole group. This is the story of the discovery and evolution of the WCP, enabling people to foster constructive dialogue, access collective intelligence, and create innovate possibilities for action. The process has seven core design principles: set the context; create hospitable space; explore questions that matter; encourage everyone's contribution; cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives; listen together for patterns, insights, and deeper questions; and harvest and share collective discoveries. Each chapter begins with a quotation, an illustration, and a question; these give you an overview of the book's themes.

METHODS TO KNOW (KEY WORDS) Descriptions form respective web sites. Appreciative Inquiry - Appreciative Inquiry is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves, in a central way, the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential. It centrally involves the mobilization of inquiry through the crafting of the “unconditional positive question” often-involving hundreds or sometimes thousands of people. Dialogue - Not all communication is dialogue. Dialogue is shared exploration towards greater understanding, connection, or possibility. Any communication that fits this definition, the Co-Intelligence Institute considers dialogue. Communication that doesn't fit this definition, we don't call dialogue. Dialogue can at times be truly magical, dissolving the boundaries between us and the world and opening up wellsprings of realization and resonant power. In those rare, deeply healing moments of dialogue in its most ideal form, we may experience the wholeness of who we are (beyond our isolated ego), listening and speaking to the wholeness of who we are (deep within and beyond the group around us). These are moments of grace, whose frequency increases as we practice listening more deeply and exploring more openly with each other. Here are some guidelines for dialogue in its most basic form: We talk about what's really important to us. We really listen to each other. We see how thoroughly we can understand each other's views and experience.

! We say what's true for us without making each other wrong. ! We see what we can learn together by exploring things together.

We avoid monopolizing the conversation. We make sure everyone has a chance to speak. Charrette - The word charrette may refer to any collaborative session in which a group of designers drafts a solution to a design problem. While the structure of a charrette varies, depending on the design problem and the individuals in the group, charrettes often take place in multiple sessions in which the group divides into sub-groups. Each sub-group then presents its work to the full group as material for future dialogue. Such charrettes serve as a way of quickly generating a design solution while integrating the aptitudes and interests of a diverse group of people. Citizen Juries - In a Citizens Jury project, a randomly selected and demographically representative panel of citizens meets for four or five days to carefully examine an issue of public

significance. The jury of citizens, usually consisting of 18–24 individuals, serves as a microcosm of the public. Jurors are paid a stipend for their time. They hear from a variety of expert witnesses and are able to deliberate together on the issue. On the final day of their moderated hearings, the members of the Citizens Jury present their recommendations to decision-makers and the public. Citizens Jury projects can be enhanced through extensive communication with the public, including a dynamic web presence and significant media contacts. Future Search Conference - Future search brings people from all walks of life into the same conversation - those with resources, expertise, formal authority and need. They meet for 16 hours spread across three days. People tell stories about their past, present and desired future. Through dialogue they discover their common ground. Only then do they make concrete action plans. Nominal Group Technique - A Nominal Group Method session requires a group of participants and a topic for discussion that will generate a list of ideas, issues, or problems. The generated list is the basis for a ranking process wherein the average ranking for a single list item determines its priority. The session is more structured than a Brainstorming session because participants are given the opportunity to think about and write down their ideas before communicating the ideas to the group. The sections in my Brainstorming post that cover ‘Assembling the Team’ and ‘Phrasing the Issue to be Considered’ are the same for this method. Open Space Technology – Open Space Technology is one way to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired meetings and events. Over the last 20+ years, it has also become clear that opening space, as an intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organizations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity. In Open Space meetings, events and organizations, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the strategy, group, organization or community that all stakeholders can support and work together to create? With groups of 5 to 2000+ people -- working in one-day workshops, three-day conferences, or the regular weekly staff meeting -- the common result is a powerful, effective connecting and strengthening of what's already happening in the organization: planning

and action, learning and doing, passion and responsibility, participation and performance.

Search Conference - A Search Conference's goal is to produce an adaptive relationship between your organization and it's uncertain, changing environment. It's designed to identify a desired endpoint and increase the effectiveness of strategic planning by giving those actually affected by change more control over their purposes and directions. A Search Conference is a structured participatory process where groups of concerned and active individuals scan through turbulent environments for:

! A desired outcome for themselves and ! Generate a strategy for achieving it.

The process emphasizes collaborative, experiential learning and community planning - 'jigsaw' puzzle solving. This is achieved through the interaction of the participants who, drawn from a relevant domain, identify, evaluate, and adapt to trends in their environment. The process allows for the creation of shared visions and initiates the deployment of those visions by creating self-managing teams responsible for working the specifics of how to make the plan happen. Workshop - A workshop is a gathering or training session which may be several days in length. It emphasizes problem-solving, hands-on training, and requires the involvement of the participants. Often Symposium, a lecture or a meeting can become a workshop when it is accompanied by a practical demonstration.

Web Sites for Facilitation, process and OD support (See lesson plan for additional sites and resources)

01. http://www.americaspeaks.org/ - AmericaSpeaks, Carolyn Lukensmeyer

02. http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/intro/vision.cfm - Appreciative Inquiry 03. http://www.axelrodgroup.com/ - The Axelrod Group, Dick & Emily Axelrod 04. http://www.benton.org/ - Benton Foundation 05. http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-dialogue.html - Co-Intelligence Institute, Tom Atlee 06. http://www.covision.com/ - CoVision, Lenny Lind 07. http://www.futuresearch.net/index.cfm - Future Search 08. http://www.grove.com/site/index.html - The Grove Consultants International, David Sibbet 09. http://www.iap2.org/ - International Association for Public Participation 10. http://iap2.civicore.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=resources.main - IAP2 Data Base 11. http://www.iap2.org/associations/4748/files/toolbox.pdf - IAP2 Toolbox 12. http://www.interactionassociates.com/ - Interaction Associates, David Strauss 13. http://www.iaf-world.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1 - International Association of

Facilitation 14. http://www.jamsadr.com/ - JAMS (Mediation), Bill Hargering 15. http://www.jefferson-center.org/ - Jefferson Center, Citizen Juries 16. http://www.kettering.org/ - Kettering Foundation 17, http://www.charretteinstitute.org/ - National Charrette Institute 18. http://www.openspaceworld.org/ - Open Space

Some Planning Firms offering Participatory Planning Services 1. http://www.acp-planning.com/who/gianni.php - APC Planning - Ginni Longo 2. http://www.goodyclancy.com/ - Grady Clancy Associates, David Dixon 3. http://www.hshassoc.com/ - Howard/Stein-Hudson, Cathy Stein-Hudson (Transportation) 4. http://www.hfadesign.com/ - Hurley-Franks Associates, Jennifer Hurley 5. http://www.marymeans.com/ - Mary Means & Associates, Mary Mans 6. http://www.migcom.com/whatwedo.html - Moore Iacofano Goltsman, Dan Iacofano 7. http://www.robertsandkay.com/ - Roberts & Kay, Rona Roberts & Steve Kay