CE Canvas

When does evaluation actually start on your projects? For many teams, it's after the engagement closes. A report gets written. Metrics get pulled together. Lessons learned are filed away. But here's the problem: If success wasn't defined before the project began, how do you know whether you achieved it? The strongest engagement teams treat evaluation as a design decision, not a wrap-up task. They decide upfront what success looks like, what evidence they'll need, and how the learnings will shape the next project. Because evaluation isn't just about proving what happened. It's about improving what happens next. How does your team define success before an engagement begins?

Practitioners often ask: "What's the best engagement method?" I think there's a more important question. What's the right order? Many engagement problems don't come from choosing the wrong workshop or survey. They come from skipping steps. Designing questions before defining objectives. Selecting methods before understanding participation barriers. Reporting outcomes before deciding how success will be evaluated. Good engagement isn't just about choosing the right tools. It's about following the right sequence. Which step do you think organisations most commonly skip?

One of the most useful questions you can ask before designing an engagement process is: What parts of this decision are actually open to influence? Not every aspect of a project is negotiable. Some things are fixed. Others are constrained. Some are genuinely open to community input. Mapping that decision space upfront creates clearer expectations—for practitioners, decision-makers and the community. It also helps avoid one of the quickest ways to lose trust: Asking for feedback on something that's already been decided. Do you explicitly map what's in and out of scope before you engage?

Most engagement failures aren't caused by poor facilitation. They're caused by broken promises. Engagement theatre happens when a process creates the impression that communities can influence a decision... ...when, in reality, the important decisions have already been made. Usually it's not intentional. Sometimes it's poor planning. Sometimes it's organisational pressure. Sometimes the decision space simply wasn't clarified early enough. Whatever the cause, communities almost always recognise it. And once trust is lost, it's incredibly difficult to rebuild. What's the biggest warning sign that an engagement process is becoming "engagement theatre"?

One survey. One workshop. One discussion guide. One audience. That approach is surprisingly common in community engagement. And it's one of the easiest ways to miss important perspectives. Different stakeholder groups have different levels of knowledge. Different concerns. Different motivations. Different barriers to participation. So why would we expect the same questions to work equally well for everyone? Good engagement doesn't just tailor the communication. It tailors the instrument. Do you tend to use different engagement instruments for different stakeholder groups, or one for everyone?

The most important engagement activity often happens after the engagement finishes. It's closing the feedback loop. People don't expect every suggestion to be adopted. They do expect to know: what was heard what changed what didn't change and why When organisations skip this step, communities start to wonder whether participating was worth their time. Over time, participation drops. Trust erodes. Closing the feedback loop isn't a nice extra. It's where engagement promises are actually kept. What's the best example you've seen of an organisation closing the loop well? Read more: https://lnkd.in/gje8nbxU

Every week there's another AI tool promising to transform the way we work. Writing assistants. Meeting assistants. Research assistants. Presentation builders. The challenge isn't finding AI anymore. It's knowing which tools genuinely improve professional practice. For community engagement, the best tools aren't necessarily the ones that generate the most content. They're the ones that help practitioners think more clearly, stay organised, and make better decisions. Technology should reduce cognitive load. Not create more of it. What's one AI tool that's become part of your everyday workflow?

Another great CE Canvas webinar yesterday! As always, my favourite part was the networking and Q&A afterwards. A big thanks to all who joined and participated. One thing that really stood out was how much the conversation has changed. Not long ago the questions were, "Should we use AI?" Now they're, "How do we use AI well?" Organisations aren't looking for AI that simply auto-completes work. They're looking for trusted partners who can help them adopt AI in a way that's governed, transparent, and defensible. That's a much more interesting conversation to be having. If you missed this session and would like to learn more, send me a message or check out the next webinar. We'd love to have you join us. https://lnkd.in/g95BYX-4 #communityengagement #AI

Interestingly - for the second month in a row the top ranking page on our website is our Community Engagement Communication Strategy Guide. Is communication strategy an area where practitioners would like more support and practical resources? Community engagement is about helping people influence a decision. Communication makes that possible by explaining what's happening, what's open to influence, why it matters, and how people can participate. It's a process we've put a lot of thought into (and one that's well supported in CE Canvas), but if there's genuine interest we'd be happy to put together a webinar or create more free resources for the profession. Let us know if this would be useful! https://lnkd.in/gAmdVeQQ

This is an interesting report from OECD - OCDE and worth a read: This report explores the opportunities and challenges of the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to improve citizen participation. To do so, it builds on desk research and analysis of 50 AI use cases in citizen participation processes from 22 OECD Member and partner countries. (link below)