Scenario Workshops
Generon
Scenario workshops are composed of citizens interacting with other actors to exchange knowledge and experience; develop common visions; and to produce a plan of action. A scenario workshop starts with a problem looking for solutions that could be technological, regulatory or maybe a new way of organizing and managing certain problems. It is a local meeting for dialogue among four local groups of actors: policy-makers, business representatives, experts and citizens. The participants carry out assessments of technological and non-technological solutions to the problems, and develop visions for future solutions and proposals for realizing them. Before the workshop, a set of scenarios is written, describing alternative ways of solving the problem. They differ with respect to both the technical and organizational solutions described and the social and political values embedded in them. In the workshop, the scenarios are used as visions, and as an inspiration in the process. The objective is for the participants to criticize and comment on them, moving toward visions of their own – not to choose among, or prioritize, the scenarios. The workshop process, which may last for one or two days, has three principal steps:
1) To comment on, and criticize, the scenarios by pointing out barriers to realizing the visions;
2) To develop the participants’ own visions and proposals; and
3) To develop local plans of action.
The process is guided by a facilitator and takes place in ‘role’ groups, ‘theme’ groups and plenary sessions. Dialogue among participants with different knowledge, views and experience is central. Various techniques are employed to accomplish good dialogue and the production of results in the form of identification of barriers, of visions and of proposals for action to be taken.
Examples:
Vision Guatemala, 1999-present.
Colombia Scenarios, 1995.
Reading:
Andersen, Ida-Elisabeth, and Birgit Jaeger, "Scenario workshops and consensus conferences: Towards more democratic decision-making," Science and Public Policy, 26(5) October 1999, 331-340
The authors explore the application in the Danish context of two popular citizen engagement media; consensus conferences and scenario workshops. The latter they describe as a group of citizens interacting with other actors to exchange knowledge and experience, develop common visions and produce a plan of action. Both approaches have in common creation of a framework for dialogue among policymakers, experts and lay citizens.
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