Engagement methods
Qualitative methods: workshops
Description
There are many different styles of workshops. What they have in common is that they involve more people than a focus group and are run over a longer period of time. A well designed workshop can involve more than one hundred people and last for a whole day.
When to use
As with focus groups, workshops can be used in a wide range of circumstances. A key difference is that they can be used to bring together the public and other stakeholders including the statutory and voluntary sectors (whole-system). Workshops have been used when:
- Consensus is needed about how to proceed on a key issue or set of issues
- More time is needed to explore an issue, or set of issues, than is possible with a focus group
- Different parts of a community need to be brought together
Strengths
- Open and inclusive
- Can create 'buy-in' and a shared purpose and commitment amongst participants
- Can be seen as a high profile commitment to community engagement
Weaknesses
- Bringing a whole system together can be difficult to manage unless there is a sufficient number of experienced facilitators. More confident people and organisations can tend to dominate
- Large workshops can take considerable time to plan and can be expensive
- The open nature of a workshop means that risks - for example, domination by particular groups, will need to be carefully managed.
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