General approach

As mentioned elsewhere, and as suggested by the name, the participatory elements are at the core of the (modular) participatory backcasting process. At the earlier stages of the process, stakeholders help set the scene and their involvement contributes towards creating a rich understanding of the problem at hand, including key challenges, system boundaries, actors involved and needs to be fulfilled. Later, the stakeholders can both co-create the vision for the future as well as the proposed solutions, and/or help evaluate the solutions’ suitability and draft the pathway and action plan. However, the context and the limitations of the particular case setting will have a major impact on what participatory elements can be employed, and hence on the overall direction and outcome of the study.

As a general rule, the participatory process should be considered a consensus-building exercise. Hence, it is important to involve different stakeholders and to strive to create an environment in which different opinions can be heard and accounted for. As described in the section on stakeholder analysis, different actors can have different power as well as ability and will to make themselves heard. This must be taken into consideration and navigated when designing the elements of the participatory process.

In reality, it will hardly ever be possible to involve stakeholders to the extent ultimately desirable. Even so, recognising the constraints of the project in question, it is essential to get input from stakeholders to as great an extent as possible whilst also allowing for appropriate time to process and analyse the input. However, the fashion in which information is collected can have a great impact on what is uncovered and ultimately taken into account within the analysis.

Although the modular participatory backcasting process contains 13 different steps (modules), it is important to work proactively with the stakeholder involvement. It is neither practically achievable, nor recommended, to consult stakeholders at each stage of the process. Thus, it is important to plan ahead and to design a participation strategy that allows for input of relevance to multiple modules to be collected at the same time/through the same means, and to identify which aspects might be more important to gain input regarding (and from whom that input should be obtained). That said, the project team members should also try to maintain a degree of flexibility, as they are guaranteed to learn things during the process that could have an impact on which stakeholders can be approached and about what to inquire.

As described in the section on stakeholder participation, at the basic level, stakeholder involvement is merely about spreading information to the stakeholders. However, the aim should be to at least consult, but preferably collaborate, with – ultimately to empower – the stakeholders. Although empowerment is an admirable and worthwhile goal, it must nevertheless be noted that empowerment offers a complex challenge, rarely without controversial aspects. Arguably, a participatory backcasting process can, at best, hope to be one element of a more extensive empowerment process. The more immediate goal should be the co-creation of a desirable future vision and associated pathway, both drawing on the contextual knowledge of the stakeholders and embedding/anchoring the solution within/with the concerned community. In other words, as a rule of thumb, when planning the participation, you should attempt to identify strategies to enable as active a stakeholder involvement as possible. Thus, interviews and workshop arrangements are key approaches.

In a sense, the members in the project team are also stakeholders. Even when there are very limited opportunities for active involvement of other stakeholders beyond the level of information or consultation, the project team should strive for collaboration and empowerment within the team.

• What is the project management team’s initial understanding of which stakeholders are/could be associated with the sociotechnical system and associated problem? (Note that this issue will be addressed in more detail in one of the module Stakeholder analysis.)
• Which stakeholders would be relevant to involve, ideally? Which of these could the project management team possibly get access to? Consider project management constraints (e.g. time and budget constraints) but also, for instance, ethical aspects.
• Which modules would benefit from stakeholder input? In what way?
• What are the options to coordinate across different modules? Could the same activity be relevant for more than one module?
• How could the stakeholders be approached? There are many options, at least in theory, ranging from multiple workshops spanning several days to surveys distributed to a few, or a combination.

Methods for participation

Depending on the desirable degree of stakeholder involvement, there are many approaches/methods/tools/techniques for stakeholder involvement, ranging from questionnaires to co-creation workshops. The choice of method(s) to employ and the fashion in which they are implemented will depend on the aim of the overall strategic planning project and practical project constraints (e.g. relating to time and budget but also the skills of the project management group members) as well as on the stakeholders’ own will and practical abilities to be involved.

Different methods can also be combined and/or utilised at different stages of the project. Moreover, what is found through one intervention can inform the next. For instance, what was discovered during a semi-structured interview can suggest content for a more broadly distributed survey, or vice versa. It is also possible to cross-check themes/aspects/issues identified within the literature with stakeholders to get a more context-specific understanding.

In the following, some possible approaches are briefly outlined. For more in-depth description of each method, please turn to relevant external literature.

Remember: There is no perfect solution. When choosing and designing the participatory elements and approaches for data collection, there will always be trade-offs between different aspects.

A workshop refers to a gathering of a participants to discuss around a given problem, possibly with guidance from a moderator/facilitator. By its nature, a workshop tends to go beyond sharing information, instead focusing on stakeholder consultation or collaboration. Ultimately, it may also function as a part of an empowerment process. To achieve this, the workshop participants can, in addition to discussing around an issue or evaluating a proposed solution, also perform practical work (e.g. co-create solutions). In the context of modular participatory backcasting, stakeholders are supposed to implement all modules of mPB in a participatory/co-creation manner. Usually, a project team is responsible for setting-up participatory activities and ensuring that everything achieved on the previous steps is communicated to all involved stakeholders, as well as finalising and refining interim outcomes.

The exact design of a workshop depends on the nature of the sociotechnical system and associated problem under study, as well as on practical limitations stemming from the overall project management (e.g. time and budget). Aspects to consider when designing a workshop include, among other things, what stakeholders to invite (in turn considering aspects such as total numbers and potentials for a constructive collaboration), the role of the moderator/facilitator, how to prompt and frame the discussion and analysis as well as how to tackle the risk of some participants struggling to make themselves heard. The duration of a workshop can vary considerably, from one or a few hours to multiple days with several different sessions.

Another option is to arrange a focus group, in which the interviewer takes on the role as facilitator or moderator of a structured discussion. Focus groups can generate rich information on the subject matter and improve the understanding of stakeholder opinions. The possibility to observe group interaction and nonverbal communication adds further value, although it also contributes to making focus groups somewhat challenging to follow out. As with many other approaches, focus groups require thorough preparation and, ideally, an experienced facilitator. For instance, you must consider aspects such as who to invite, what questions to ask and how to ask them (including preparing for how to tackle issues such as not all participants speaking up), but also practical details regarding e.g. date, venue and options for recording.

Observations – collection of data using the senses – is an important option for primary data collection. Since observation methods, generally speaking, center on observing people and artefacts in their natural setting, this approach contributes towards a contextualised understanding of a problem. As such, observations are often particularly suitable as data collection method for participatory backcasting studies. One appealing aspect is that observations, at least to some extent, account for the fact that people do not always act the same way as they say they do, which can be difficult to uncover during e.g. interviews. On the other hand, the person conducting the observation will always interpret what is being observed through his or her own unique lens, meaning the conclusions drawn from observations will always be more or less subjective.

Different scientific paradigms may stipulate different approaches to observations. At a general level, two major factors to consider are 1) whether the participants are aware that they are a part of a study and 2) to what extent the researcher him-/herself participates. Moreover, it is a delicate challenge for the researcher to navigate his/her own biases (O’Leary, 2017). Clearly, just as other data collection methods, observations require systematic approach and careful planning.

Observations can be particularly useful at the early stages of a participatory backcasting project, in particular when familiarising with the problem, the current situation and the system functions and societal needs (Problem orientation; Current situation; Needs and function modules). Observations could also help the project team to understand the role of different stakeholders (Stakeholder analysis module).

Sources

In addition to gathering information through participatory processes, there is also the opportunity to consult documents in different forms. Document analysis is a broad term, here used to refer to the process of identifying and reviewing written content in order to uncover themes of relevance to the problem and sociotechnical system under study. Although document analysis in itself does not constitute a method for stakeholder participation, it may supplement and/or inform other approaches.

Purpose

Document analysis could serve different, complementary, purposes. For one thing, the input from the document analysis can supplement other information obtained from the participatory elements of the project and the different sets of information can be compared and contrasted. However, the document analysis could also inform the design of the participatory process itself by indicating what topics/issues/subjects could be included. There are two aspects to this. Firstly, themes/aspects emerging from the literature can be further investigated in, for instance, interviews, surveys and/or workshops. The participating stakeholders could (directly or indirectly) comment on the relevance and accuracy of the information obtained from the document analysis, as well as help to enrich and contextualise this information. Moreover, although it is not necessarily all that straightforward, it could be relevant to consider what (if any) topics/issues/aspects are not covered by the literature, and purposefully enquire about these.

Bodies producing documents

Example of bodies who produce literature/documents (non-exhaustive list):

• Academia
• Research bodies
• Government departments and agencies (at the national, regional or local level)
• Non-governmental organisations
• Private companies (e.g. consultancy firms)
• Journalists

What documents to consider…

What documents are ultimately considered is highly context dependant. Furthermore, different stages (modules) of the backcasting process require different information input. For instance, whereas the current situation module, as the name suggests, focuses on the configuration of the sociotechnical system under study, the drivers module looks beyond that system for wider societal trends. Different focuses such as these will obviously have a bearing on what type of documents are consulted. For instance, consulting mass media can be of help to understand dominant discourses in the society regarding a certain topic whereas social media can be used to better understand what people are concerned about in relation to a specific context. Academic literature may in turn indicate the research community’s understanding and interpretation of a challenge.

Tips for data analysis

Analysing and interpreting the information gathered through the participatory method(s) and from the literature can be done in more or less structured ways. A key aspect is to identify different themes and categories of information. What might constitute relevant categories is not only dependant on the specific sociotechnical system under study, but also on what stage (module) of the participatory backcasting process the analysis is supposed to aid and inform. Although some themes may occur repeatedly and hence be more easily identified, there could also be elements that have been given less attention but nevertheless may provide crucial information for the strategic planning project in question. These is also the possibility to use different content analysis software.

It is important to review the objectivity collected material. When some are openly subjective (e.g. opinion pieces in newspapers or someone talking about his/her experiences), others may appear to be objective when in reality that is not necessarily the case (e.g. consultancy reports or statement from company representatives). Others still strive to be unbiased (e.g. scientific papers), but may succeed to a greater or lesser extent. Ultimately, it is up to the project team to critically reflect on, and to the extent possible account for, the biases unavoidably inherited in the documents. Aspects to consider include:

• Who is/are behind the information? Identify the author/sender but also the publisher, distribution channel etc.
• What is (/seems to be) the aim? E.g. to spread information, share an opinion (possibly wanting to influence others to adopt a similar position), encourage the purchase of a product or service…
• Could the author/person behind the statement or someone else associated with the information have other, less obvious, motives or hidden agendas?
• What financial interests could be associated with this information (e.g. how was the creation and publication of the document funded/who hired this person?)? What is the agenda of the financers?

References and further reading

• Arnstein, S. R., 1969. A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of planners, 35(4), 216-224.
• Kvale, S., 1996. Interviews. An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. Thousands Oaks: Sage Publications.
• Lang, D. J., Wiek, A., Bergmann, M., Stauffacher, M., Martens, P., Moll, P., … & Thomas, C. J., 2012. Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: practice, principles, and challenges. Sustainability science, 7(1), 25-43.
• O’Leary, Z. (2017). The essential guide to doing your research project. Sage.
• Simon, H. A., 1959. Theories of decision-making in economics and behavioral science. The American economic review, 49(3), 253-283.