Module 1. Workshop Playbook
This page offers a detailed guide to the conversational workshops that underpin the Cornerstone Communities
It is broken down into 4 sections: Planning and preparation, Workshop 1, Workshop 2, and Follow-up.
Aim
The Cornerstone Community Workshops are designed to help groups answer three core questions:
Q1: What are the most important factors for a good life?
Q2: What are your hopes and fears for the future of your community?
Q3: What kind of future does the community want to work towards?
To ensure accessibility, we have divided the content into two workshops. Workshop 1 is designed to answer the 3 core questions. Workshop 2 is an optional add-on if groups would like to continue the conversation. This workshop builds on Q3 of the core questions and looks in more detail at how a community can work together, including the additional resources they might need.
Outputs
The following outputs will feed into the next module (Module 2 - Data Analysis):
Pre-workshop questionnaire responses;
Completed quadrants and written notes from Workshop 1 and 2.
Facilitator feedback forms from Workshops 1 and 2.
Planning and preparation
The following section details logistical considerations and tips for planning, hosting, and framing your workshop(s).
General pointers and instructions
Venue
The first step is to identify the venue where the workshops will take place. Generally, any room with enough space, tables and chairs to accommodate a group of around 20 people should suffice. This could be private (for example, an office after hours) or public (for example a bar or cafe). It is important to consider the accessibility of the venue: ideally, your venue should be able to accommodate people with diverse mobility needs, but if this is not possible, be sure to include a note in your invitation letting potential attendees know either way.
While these exercises are designed to take place in-person, they can also be adapted for the online environment if needed. In this case, we suggest using break-out rooms and an online mapping software like Miro to mirror the original structure.
Facilitation team, roles, and tips
A well-resourced facilitation team is essential to effective workshop delivery. At minimum, you will need a host who can guide the conversation and keep track of time. You could do this yourself or find a friend or colleague to help you with it. You might also want additional facilitators on hand to provide support to participants throughout each exercise. Facilitators should be briefed on the workshop activities and goals at least a couple hours in advance. Finally, it can help to have designated notetakers for smaller group exercises. Facilitators may take on this role; otherwise, you can ask for a volunteer from each group.
The role of the facilitator is to ensure that discussions stay on track, that conflicts are addressed constructively and that the goals for the session are achieved. Good facilitation will help participants to come to more grounded decisions about the type of future that they want for their community.
Some tips for facilitators include:
Remaining neutral and encouraging everyone to really listen to each other;
Avoiding judgement and encouraging diverse viewpoints into the conversation;
Encouraging everyone to participate. For example, by actively bringing quieter members of the group into the conversation by asking their response to what is being discussed;
Keeping an eye on the time and politely reminding the group when it is time to move on.
There are numerous online resources available to support facilitators (for example, this collection from Chris Corrigan). Doing at least one thorough practice run of the workshop in advance can help prepare facilitators for their role.
Ground rules for participation
It is important that everyone has the chance to contribute and feel comfortable to do so. For that reason, we would suggest that you set out some simple ground rules for discussion. These may include:
Safe space: help create a safe container for others to express their honest thoughts and opinions by remaining open to differing perspectives.
Confidentiality: while you may want to share this conversation with others, please do so in a way that doesn’t reveal personal information about individuals;
Look after yourself: think carefully about what you share and avoid sharing anything that could make you feel vulnerable;
The rule of two ears and one mouth: listen at least twice as much as you speak. Give space for others to contribute and be open to listen to opinions that differ from your own.
Group size
For up to 10 participants the workshops can be run in one big group. For larger groups, we recommend breaking into sub groups of around 5-8 during the workshop exercises. This is to ensure that all voices are heard and that the depth of conversation is meaningful.
Preparing for the workshops
Step one: Identify potential participants
The first step is to spread the word about your workshop to potential participants. You may want to be targeted about this (ie., sending email to specific people; sharing digital flyers in group chats or online communities), or open (ie., placing posters in public spaces or placing flyers in mailboxes).
Please see the Promotional Flyer template for an adaptable flyer base.
Step two: Invite people to the workshops
The next step is to identify and collect contact information for anyone you may want to invite to your workshops. We recommend tracking responses in a spreadsheet so that you know who you have already invited and whether or not to follow-up. If someone confirms by email, you may also want to invite them to a Google event or use another system like Eventbrite that will send reminders to confirmed participants closer to the date.
Please see the Invitation Template for a customisable invitation base.
Framing
These notes are for you as a facilitator to use as a base to prepare for the workshops. Please explain the purpose of the workshop from your own perspective, using language that you feel is appropriate for the group.
What are Cornerstone Communities and Indicators?
The Cornerstone Communities Framework centres people (and their unique lived experience) in the design and evaluation of what a thriving future means. It includes a set of open source tools for diverse stakeholders to explore and track what success looks like in their specific context. The indicators themselves are co-designed with community members, combining participatory themes with existing metrics to create single, intuitively understandable narratives. The multi-dimensional indicators run in parallel to existing measures providing a balanced, civic-driven view of holistic impact.
Motivation
Conversations like these can help to bring people together as engaged citizens, to discuss what really matters and what they might do together to co-create a better future. It’s essential to centre the participants in this vision from the outset, so they understand clearly why their contribution matters and what is at stake. For example:
What are your aspirations for holding these conversational workshops with this particular community?
What do you hope to use the resulting Cornerstone Indicators to achieve together?
It is important not to set unrealistic expectations but on the other hand the goal is for participants to feel empowered by these conversations. The following table provides a suggested base to start the conversation about the purpose of these workshops and to ask why people (including you as the facilitator) decided to take part.
Here are some of the reasons we might be coming together:
---
Committed local communities
Local groups as a force for good
A connected global network
A growing community of countries having robust national conversations will amplify existing local community initiatives
Citizen participation
Being asked about our views
Civic empowerment
Ensuring our values shape the society we live in
Individual actions
E.g. choosing not to fly or eating less meat
A new social contract
Feeling part of a bigger societal shift
Periodic voting
E.g. general elections or referendums
Everyday curiosity
Staying connected to decisions that affect us
Highlighting issues
E.g. Extinction Rebellion
Co-creating responses
Connecting issues to practical pathways for change
Endless doom
Climate, cost of living, pandemics.......
Civic scenario planning
What would we like our community to look like in 2035?
How about you?
What brought you to the workshop today?
What do you think could happen?
---
Workshop 1
Overview
Description
This workshop contextualises the conversations and explores people’s views on what is important, along with their hopes, fears, and intentions for the future.
Time
2 hours
Exercises
3
Aims & objectives
Overall the goal is to answer 3 core questions:
Q1: What are the most important factors for a good life?
Q2: What are your hopes and fears for the future of this community?
Q3: What kind of future does the community want to work towards?
Suggested
outputs
We would suggest that you capture the following outputs:
Photo documentation of participants' answers for each exercise.
A completed questionnaire for each workshop participant.
If they didn’t have time to do it before the workshop, please ask them to spend some time on it at the end.
A completed facilitator feedback form for each facilitator.
This is helpful to help capture the overall responses.
If desired, facilitators can also do a quick huddle after the event and pool their answers into one form.
Pre-workshop tasks
There are 4 tasks to complete before Workshop 1.
Send out a pre-workshop questionnaire to participants. [Questionnaire Template]
You can use the template document or a service like Typeform or Google Forms for ease of data analysis.
Create your response quadrants. The quadrants will be used to demonstrate and capture information throughout the workshop.
You will need enough to supply one to each break-out group (likely between 2-4). To create the quadrants, you can use flipchart paper, or tape/string paper on a wall or table, labelling each axis (Now, Future, Optimistic, Fearful) accordingly.
Review any completed questionnaires and generate some examples (as shown in the graphic above). Having relatable examples can help clarify the exercise and focus the workshop discussions.
Review and share the Facilitator Feedback Form [FFF Workshop 1 Template]. Feedback Forms should be introduced to facilitators ahead of the event so they are familiar with the outputs and comfortable to complete them.
Delivery plan
The following table gives detailed instructions for how to deliver workshop 1
The Workshop 1 Prompts Template is an example of the flow, including timings and talking notes, from a previous Cornerstone initiative in Montreal.
0:00 - 00:5
Arrival (5 mins)
Allow time for participants to arrive. Consider playing some music while people wait.
0:05 - 0:10
Welcome (5 mins)
Welcome the group, thank everyone for coming, introduce yourself and identify your facilitation team. Give a very brief introduction to the workshop and its objectives before inviting them to participate in the warm-up.
0:10 - 0:20
Warm-up (10 mins)
Walk the group through the warm-up exercise. Over a period of 8 minutes people will partner up with 2 different people to answer 2 questions.
Ask people to form their first pair. Tell everyone that they will have 4 minutes to share their answers with the other person to the following question: Describe a moment in your life where you felt most alive?
Let them speak to each other for 4 minutes, then stop the room and ask them to change partners.
Introduce the next question (again let them know they have 4 minutes): Imagine that a future version of yourself has come back to give you some advice about how to live your life to the fullest right now. What is that advice?
After 4 minutes, ask people to say thank you to each other in any way that feels appropriate. Invite them to sit down in small groups and prepare for the workshop to begin.
0:20 - 0:30
Introduction (10 mins)
Go over the agenda. Let participants know that for the next two hours you are going to work through some questions with each other. During that time you will be guiding people between the full group and smaller break-out groups to make space for everyone to speak. This situates participants in the day’s events and lets them know what to expect.
Introduce your organisation or initiative. This is where you’d name any organisations affiliated with the facilitating team, partners, etc.
Explain the purpose of the workshop. You can find prompts and inspiration for framing in the section above, but please interpret it using your own experiences. The important thing is to make it clear to participants what your objectives are and how you plan to use the data that emerges from their participation in the workshop.
It can be helpful to show some visuals of existing Cornerstone indicators which are displayed on the CI Website.
Reinforce that this is a safe space to share honest opinions and that all conversations will remain confidential.
Answer questions as needed.
0:30 - 0:40
Round of intros
(10 mins)
Invite each participant to introduce themselves. You could also ask them to share a bit about their involvement in the community, as this gives community members an opportunity to get to know each other better, and approach those whose activities may be of special interest to them.
Tip: To ensure participants keep introductions brief, have you or another facilitator demonstrate the formula and pace you’d like others to follow.
0:40 - 1:00
Exercise 1
(20 mins)
What are the most important factors for a good life?
Split people into smaller groups for exercise 1. Place a response quadrant face-down on each table (one per group). Each group should also be supplied with pens and post-it notes.
Individual writing (5 mins)
Ask participants to start by individually writing down anything that comes to mind in relation to having a meaningful, thriving life, now and in the future (one factor per post-it note). These can be both positive and negative; factors and feelings - there are no rules. The idea is to answer instinctively and just see what comes up.
Sharing and clustering in group (5 mins)
Introduce the response quadrant and highlight some examples. Then invite participants to add their answers to the quadrant, sharing it with the group and placing it where appropriate.
Voting (10 mins)
Ask each participant to draw a star on the answer that matters the most to them personally, and share their reasoning with their sub-group.
Give a 5-minute warning before the exercise ends.
1:00 - 1:10
Break (5-10 mins)
Announce a 5 minute break. Encourage participants to use this time to use the bathroom, enjoy some snacks and stretch their legs.
1:10 - 0:35
Exercise 2
(25 mins)
What are your hopes and fears for the future of this community?
Call everyone back to their groups for exercise 2. Announce that each group will share with the rest of the room and ask each group to nominate a spokesperson.
Discussion (10 mins)
Invite each group to discuss their hopes and fears for the community.
Individual writing (5 mins)
Stop the discussion and ask participants to individually write down their biggest hopes and fears for the community over the next 10 years, then place the hopes in one pile and the fears in a second pile on each group’s table.
Group share-back (10 mins)
Ask the spokesperson of each group to verbally summarise the key hopes and fears from their group to the rest of the room (2 mins per group).
0:35 - 0:55
Exercise 3
(20 mins)
What kind of future does the community want to work towards?
Bring everyone back together for exercise 3. This exercise involves the whole room discussing as one group. The goal is to come up with possible solutions for the fears from the previous exercise.
Example
Demonstrate the instructions using a pre-defined example. One example of a fear might be, “I am concerned that real estate development will threaten the social fabric and character of the neighbourhood and leave long-time residents without homes,” but please use an example that participants will find relatable. Explain you will be using “what if” framing to come up with solutions. Ie., “What if we worked towards community ownership of the land,” or “What if we had policies to protect local occupancy rights”, etc.
Ideation (15 mins)
Ask participants to pass forward a fear from their group that they would like to ideate around, placing it somewhere visible at the front of the room. Then invite them to think of ways to respond to it using the “what if we…” framing. Note down each response as it comes. After a few minutes, ask for a new fear to be passed forward and repeat the process. You can do this for between 2-4 fears, depending on how many responses people come up with for each.
Reflection (5 mins)
Invite someone to close off the discussion with a reflection, using the following prompt: “What do you think this means for the future that we would like to work towards?”
0:55 - 2:00
Wrap-up (5 mins)
Wrap things up by thanking everyone for their participation. If you plan to host a follow-up workshop, remind everyone of the date and location. You may also want to collect contact information from anyone who did not RSVP so they can be kept in the loop about future developments.
Ask participants to answer one final check-out question: “What are you walking away with after today’s session?” Request that answers be written on post-it notes and placed somewhere visible near the exit so others can see them.
Prompt your facilitators to fill out the Facilitator Feedback Form while the day’s events are still fresh in their memory.
Workshop 2 (optional)
Overview
Overview
This workshop uses scenarios to explore how people can build resilience and agency in their local communities to shape a future direction of travel.
Time
2 hours
Exercises
1,2
Aims & objectives
Overall the goal is to answer 3 questions (Q1 is repeated from Workshop 1 to build more depth):
Q1: What kind of future does the community want to work towards?
Q2: What does the community already have that can be built on?
Q3: What else does the community need?
Suggested outputs
We would suggest that you capture the following outputs:
Photo documentation of participants' answers for each exercise.
A completed facilitator feedback form for each facilitator.
This is helpful to help capture the overall responses.
If desired, facilitators can also do a quick huddle after the event and pool their answers into one form.
Pre-workshop tasks
If you would like to run Workshop 2, there are 4 tasks to complete:
Create the scenario board.
Review the outputs from Workshop 1 and adapt the axes to reflect key concerns for the future.
For example, one group might choose “climate impacts intensity <–> we adapt and build climate resilience” as an axis, while another might choose “social and community infrastructure <–> state- and market-controlled infrastructure.”
To create the board, you can use a whiteboard, flipchart paper, or tape/string on a table or wall – whatever works best with the resources you have on-hand.
Review the outputs of Workshop 1 and generate some examples (as shown in the graphic above). Having relatable examples can help clarify the exercise and focus the workshop discussions.
If space allows, find someplace to display the outputs from Workshop 1 so that participants can revisit the content before the workshop, or during breaks.
Review and share the Facilitator Feedback Form (FFF Workshop 2 Template). Feedback Forms should be introduced to facilitators ahead of the event so they are familiar with the outputs and comfortable to complete them.
Delivery plan
0:00 - 00:5
Arrival (5 mins)
Allow time for participants to arrive. Consider playing some music while people wait.
0:05 - 0:10
Welcome (5 mins)
Welcome the group and thank everyone for coming. While most participants should be returning, there may be some new faces so be sure to introduce yourself and identify your facilitation team.
Go over the agenda. Let participants know that for the next two hours you are going to work through some questions with each other. During that time you will be guiding people between the full group and smaller break-out groups to make space for everyone to speak. This situates participants in the day’s events and lets them know what to expect.
0:10 - 0:20
Round of intros (10 mins)
Invite each participant to introduce themselves. You could also ask them to share a bit about their involvement in the community, as this gives community members an opportunity to get to know each other better, and approach those whose activities may be of special interest to them.
Tip: To ensure participants keep introductions brief, have you or another facilitator demonstrate the formula and pace you’d like others to follow.
0:20 - 0:30
Introduction
(10 mins)
Introduce your organisation or initiative. This is where you’d name any organisations affiliated with the facilitating team, partners, etc.
Explain the purpose of the workshop. You can find prompts and inspiration for framing in the section above, but please interpret it using your own experiences. The important thing is to make it clear to participants what your objectives are and how you plan to use the data that emerges from their participation in the workshop.
It can be helpful to show some visuals of existing Cornerstone indicators which are displayed on the CI Website.
Briefly recap what was explored in Workshop 1, making reference to any visible outputs placed on display.
Reinforce that this is a safe space to share honest opinions and that all conversations will remain confidential.
Answer questions as needed.
0:30 - 0:40
Warm-up: Mental time travel
(10 mins)
Walk the group through the warm-up exercise, in which participants pair up, stand in two lines facing one another with ample space in between, and close their eyes.
Explain to the group that they are going to use their imaginations with all its senses: sight, smell, sound, feeling. Explain that we have a time machine and when we turn it on we are going to travel forward 10 years from now. We are not going to a utopia. We are travelling to a future where the 10 years between now and then saw the most remarkable social and economic transformation in history. Climate and biodiversity have started to repair, industries have been transformed and the community is proud to be one of the most inclusive and diverse places to live in the country.
Ask everyone to take a step forward to signify moving forwards in time to that moment in the future.
Ask everyone to spend a minute in silent reflection. Then ask them to open their eyes and share with their partner what they saw.
0:40 - 1:05
Exercise 1
(25 mins)
What kind of future does the community want to work towards?
Bring the group back together for exercise 1. Introduce the scenario board as a tool for brainstorming possible scenarios for this specific community. The reason for giving some boundaries is to keep the conversation focused.
Group discussion (20 mins)
>> What are the possible scenarios?
Together as a group, spend 5 minutes in each quadrant, visualising a future scenario. Ask the participants to imagine themselves going through a day in their life in this new scenario. What would they feel like? What would they be doing for work? What would their family be doing?
Individual writing (5 mins)
>> Where do you want to be?
Ask participants to silently reflect on the scenario that they are headed towards, and where they’d like to be. Then write on post-its the main elements of a scenario that they would realistically like to aim for.
1:05 - 1:10
Break (5-10 mins)
Announce a 5 minute break. Encourage participants to use this time to use the bathroom, enjoy some snacks and stretch their legs.
1:10 - 1:50
Exercise 2
(40 mins)
What does the community already have that can be built on?
What else do they need?
Split into table groups (or stay as one, depending on numbers)
Designate a note-taker for each group.
What do we have? (10 mins)
Explore what the community already has in place that can provide the foundations for a stronger future (e.g. good schools, shared outdoor space); note-taker records on post-its.
What are the issues? (10 mins)
Ask everybody individually to think if there is an issue that they feel drawn to act on. Cluster the issues into logical themes and select 2-3 to work on as a full group.
What do we need? (10 mins)
Brainstorm pathways to begin addressing the issues. What is already happening in the community that could help with the chosen issue? What else would they need? What are the seeds that are already planted?
Discuss interconnections (10 mins)
What does the community already have that can be built on?
What else do they need?
1:50 - 2:00
Wrap-up (5 mins)
Wrap things up by thanking everyone for their participation. Invite participants to share feedback about the workshops by email. You may also want to collect contact information from anyone who did not RSVP so they can be kept in the loop about future developments.
Ask participants to answer one final check-out question: “While thinking about the future of your community, what has come up most strongly for you?” Request that answers be written on post-it notes and placed somewhere visible near the exit so others can see them.
Prompt your facilitators to fill out the Facilitator Feedback Form while the day’s events are still fresh in their memory.
Follow-up
This is a suggested third event to be held after you have developed your Cornerstone Indicators for the community (following Module 3: Indicator Design). The reason for including a brief outline below is so that you can communicate the intention to participants during Workshops 1 and 2.
Overview
This session is suggested as a way to present the new Cornerstone Indicators to the participants who helped to create them. It is critical to listen carefully to their feedback and use it to refine the final indicator set.
Time
2 hours
Format
Ideally this session should be run in person but feedback can also be requested remotely.
Aims & objectives
The overall aim of this follow-up session is to discuss the co-designed indicators and validate if they reflect the views of the participants who helped to create them:
Q1: What do participants think about the suggested indicators?
Q2: Is there anything that they would like to change or feel doesn’t accurately represent their community?
Q3: What would people like to happen next? For example, would the community like the indicators to be published on the global Cornerstone Indicators website? Is there a plan for tracking the new indicators and discussing what they show?
You are now ready to move onto Module 2 to analyse the outputs from the workshops. Please refer to the Analysis Playbook and Data Analysis Template in the Tools section of the Cornerstone website.
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