• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Kaizen Partnership

Kaizen Partnership

Specialists in Consultation and Engagement

  • Home
  • About
    • Who we are
    • Our Values
  • What We Do
    • Community Engagement
    • Community Research and Consultation
    • Trainings and Workshops
    • Resilience Training
    • Young People and Schools
    • Free Workshops on Community Engagement
  • Projects
    • Past Projects
    • Case Studies
    • London 2012
    • Testimonials
    • Newsletters
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Engagement

Kaizen and the Street Focus Group

kaizen_superadmin · August 15, 2013 ·

Kaizen is a Japenese word that means continual improvement through small incremental steps. We chose the word Kaizen for our organisation because we believe that it is a great fit for our work in the community sector, where we should always be looking to improve what we do. No matter how successful something is, we will talk about how we can improve it the next time.

Here is a recent example of this process in action, with the result being what we think is a really useful innovation in consultation.

In most consultations it is a good thing to include some form of focus group as part of the methodology. But there is a fundamental problem with focus groups that is as follows: in general, only a very certain type of person will attend. The customary response to this fact is to widen that group by use of straight out bribery – free food, gifts or other incentives. This in turn has the result that the focus group may well be attended largely by people who are interested in the loot, not the discussion. These are serious limitations on the reliability of the information coming out of most focus groups.

We do a lot of consultations and community research. In the past year alone we have engaged and spoken with several thousand people in the community, and with a particular focus on people who don’t normally get involved with or participate in consultations. (Typically about 60% say they have never been consulted with before and another 20% or so say they have, but not much). We have engaged with people at 6am in the gym, and 2am in a nightclub; at train stations and bus stops (including jumping on the bus to continue a conversation); in parks and estates, cafes, hairdressers and a very wonderful array of other places. (If you want to see an example of the type of thing we do, have a look at pages 9-10 in this report on the consultation and engagement we did for one of the DCLG neighbourhood community budgets in East London.)

Kaizen Street Focus Group during LFB consultation                                                                                                Photo by Qavi Reyez

Now, these are one-on-one conversations, they produce great qualitative and quantitative data, and really work well. But they aren’t group discussions; and there is something different and exciting about having a discussion about the issues rather than working through the medium of a questionnaire.

There are various issues with the traditional focus group. The first is the reason above – the people attending are a self-selecting and niche group, who have the inclination, time, capacity etc for that type of process. The second issue is not about the focus group itself, but about a challenge in doing street engagement. When you are out doing street engagement there are often times and situations when you cant always isolate an individual to do a one-on-one questionnaire because they are in a group. Examples of this could be mums outside the primary school, teenagers hanging out in an estate late at night on a summers evening, a family having a picnic in the park. People in groups are in this way excluded from most street consultation, and that means their voice is not heard.

So, in response to these issues, we have pioneered what we call “street focus groups”. Just as it says on the tin, it is a focus group discussion, held on the street – with no bribery and no incentives, beyond the conversation itself.

Kaizen Street Focus Group                                                                                                    Photo by Tracy Woodford

And it works. It works really well.

This is an exciting new technique that we now use in all our consultations, and it means we can effectively have lots and lots of focus groups, with different sorts of people, in different sorts of places. These street focus groups last from between 15-30 minutes and cover a range of questions, in a semi-structured process. We may talk about just one aspect of the project or cover several – it really depends on where the conversation goes.

On a recent project for the Canal and River Trust as part of a medium size engagement (500+ people) we conducted 23 street focus groups with over 130 people participating in them. We also did 1 normal focus group, well, normal except for the fact that we held it on a moving boat which meant we literally had a happy, but captive audience for 1.5 hours.

So, its not like we are abandoning sit down focus groups of the traditional kind, but they will from now onwards be the exception not the norm for us. If there is a particular reason that has them be a reliable methodology we will use them. But I couldn’t think of ever doing a community consultation again that didn’t have street focus groups as a central part of the methodology.

There is no magic to the street focus group, and we think that it could really add benefit to lots of consultations that genuinely want to reach out beyond the usual / bribe-able suspects.

So…..

If you do consultations, then I encourage you to try it out and see what you think.

And…

If you commission consultations, then I encourage you to start asking delivery organisations to do them.

@JonnyZander

Some thoughts on community participation

kaizen_superadmin · July 19, 2012 ·

Everyone wants to involve the local community in services, projects and local initiatives. But…

What does this actually mean in practice?

How can we, as professionals in the sector, ensure that we are providing an effective and attractive menu of participation options for people to take up?

And

How can we measure the effectiveness of our participation strategy?

We have developed the following model/framework to identify and explain what we see to be the different core archetypes of community participation. It can be applied at all scales and in all sectors; from a national perspective explaining the concept of how individuals can participate in the Big Society, to a local level, in a school looking to increase parent engagement, or a local authority wanting to address anti-social behaviour.

So, what does it mean to participate in your community?

We think it means you are doing one of these 7 things:

 

 

Reactive

  • You react to things that happen and say when things go badly, or when they go well.
    • Examples of this could be calling up to report a burnt out car, telling your child’s school that they are being bullied, or writing to thank the nurses at the hospital who gave such wonderful care to your mother

Responsive

  • You respond when asked for your view or opinion
    • Examples of this could be filling in a survey about your area, attending a community meeting, being part of a focus group, voting, or having any conversation with someone who works in your area, when you are asked: “what do you think about….”

Strategic

  • You operate at a strategic level and influence policy, projects or organisations
    • Examples of this could be being a parent governor at a school, being on your local tenants association or being a trustee of a charity

Supportive

  • You support projects and schemes that are already happening
    • Examples of this could be volunteering at the local charity shop, doing your recycling, being a special constable, or staying at the nursery for stop and play sessions

Generative

  • You generate new projects, organisations or initiatives, based on seeing something is missing
    • Examples of this could be being a social entrepreneur and setting up your own organisation, to establishing a free school, to starting a new project within your organisation

Engaging

  • You engage, catalyze, connect or encourage others
    • Examples of this could be network building, introducing two people (or organisations together) or facilitating and engaging others to be a part of a project, or to change their mind

Helping

  • You help out by doing things
    • Examples of this could be assiting your elderly neighbour with her shopping, or taking a pot of soup around to someone who is ill, or picking up some litter off the street. The difference between this type and being supportive is that this is informal, not on behalf of an organisation or programme.

 

All of these things help to build community.

All of them can apply as much to organisations as to individuals; in life and online.

This is not a hierarchy where one way of participating is better than another.

It is not a progression where one way leads to another.

What we know, is that at different times, for different issues, we all will contribute and participate in our communities in different ways. This is because at different moments in our lives, different things are important to us, we have different opportunities and interact with different people.

We use these archetypal models in all our community engagement and community building projects. We find the following benefits from using it:

  • Assessment of Opportunities: The model can be used as a framework for assessing the participation offer being made to a community. Gaps can be identified and filled. The model can be used to create a menu of opportunities that means there can be “something for everyone.”
  • Targeting: It enables us to devise engagement plans that are targeted, based on how someone might participate rather than purely by demographics. Even if engaging just one type, eg generators, there are sub-categories – they are not a homogeneous group (eg experienced and inexperienced generators). The model gives a framework to identify and engage sub-groups by looking at the needs of the individual.
  • Support: Different types of participation have different needs that have to be met to ensure effective and sustained involvement. By using the model we can identify and target support where it is needed, and design systems that make this happen. For example, for people to be able to be supportive they need to know what local schemes and projects exisit for them to be a part of.
  • Appreciation: It encourages the appreciation and valuing of all the different types of participation, rather than focusing on just one type. For example, reactive participation is almost always seen as complaining. Adopting this model can change the way people think and therefore act, so that someone calling up to complain about something being broken could be treated as a community member who is actively engaging with the council, and be valued for it, rather than being related to as a nuisance complainer.
  • Shared Understanding and Language for Partnership Working: the model creates a shared language that supports partnership working in engagement. For example, one person could tell another that they were seeking to engage people to be generative, rather than supportive, and there would be a clear understanding of what was meant for the collaboration.

If genuine and widespread community participation is wanted, then a vital role for government (central and local) and for third sector organisations, should be to ensure that there is a very wide range of opportunities, in each of these areas for people to participate.

And, if we, as individuals want to be involved and help to build our communities, then all we have to do is step up, and do more of the things that we can do.

It really is that simple.

 

@JonnyZander

 

Talk to us about your engagement needs: Contact Us

Kaizen Partnership

Looking for how to reach us? Give us a call on 020 8133 1089, email us at info@kaizen.org.uk, send us a note using the chat box at right, or use the contact form!

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Testimonials
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT REJECT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

The cookies we use are:

CookieTypeDurationDescription
Akismet cookiesWe use Akismet anti-spam service, which collects some information about visitors who comment on our blog pages. If you choose to leave a comment on one of our pages, the information we collect includes your IP address, user agent, referrer, and site URL (along with other information directly provided by you, such as your name, username, email address, and the comment itself).
Google cookiesLike most websites, this site uses Google Analytics (GA) to track user interaction. We use this data to determine the number of people using our site, to better understand how they find and use our web pages and to see their journey through the website. Although GA records data such as your geographical location, device, internet browser and operating system, none of this information personally identifies you to us. We send a partial record of your IP address to GA with the last few characters or “octet” removed, this reduces the ability for anyone to use this to identify an individual. Disabling cookies on your internet browser will stop GA from tracking any part of your visit to pages within this website.
tawk.to cookies
If you use the tawk.to chat plugin to chat with us, the following three cookies will be used:
TawkConnectionTime : previous registration time stamp
Tawk_<propertyId> : socket connection url
__tawkuuid : domain restriction values
These cookies are only necessary for the tawk.to app. If they are disabled, you will not be able to use the chat app, but will not affect any other interaction with our website.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Disabling these cookies will not affect your experience on our website.
SAVE & ACCEPT