How the TOPS Program Sets the Stage for Active Learning
Twice each year, the TOPS (Technical and Operational Performance Support) Program, a USAID/Food For Peace (FFP)-funded program, hosts its flagship Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) Network Knowledge Sharing Meeting for FFP grantees and other food security and nutrition implementers. USAID’s Office of Food for Peace recognizes that learning is a continual process that is encouraged and cultivated by providing the food security and nutrition community with opportunities to share their knowledge and experience. FFP’s commitment to the learning process has been conveyed to the TOPS Program from its beginning. TOPS promotes the learning process by organizing events that bring FFP and the FSN Network community together to share information, exchange ideas, and engage in direct dialogue. In a recent discussion with Heather Risley of the Knowledge-Driven Agricultural Development Project, Shelia Jackson, Senior Knowledge Management Specialist with the TOPS program, and Patrick Coonan, Knowledge Management Specialist with the TOPS program, offered advice on organizing and holding a participatory meeting.
Why Knowledge Sharing Meetings?
Each FFP-funded development food assistance program around the world operates in a unique context. Still, there is much overlap in the challenges and opportunities that they face, and the activities and approaches that they implement. The FSN Network Knowledge Sharing Meeting aims to break down silos that exist between (and even within) different projects so that development practitioners working on the front lines can share their knowledge and experience and learn from one another. Additionally, the knowledge sharing meetings serves as a forum for productive dialogue between donors and implementers of food security and nutrition projects on important and timely issues faced by the community. Participants come away from these events with specific ideas on how to incorporate lessons and promising practices of other projects into their own work and with a strong network of development professionals to turn to as new challenges arise in the future.
The bi-annual TOPS FSN Network Knowledge Sharing Meeting isn’t your traditional conference with panels of long-winded speakers presiding over a room of drowsy participants. What characterizes TOPS’ approach to the design of these meetings is a strong emphasis on maximizing dialogue and interaction among meeting participants. TOPS has refined this “participatory meeting approach” over the years, which has significantly increased the level of learning and engagement among participants of its knowledge sharing events.
Shifting from “Death by PowerPoint” to Participatory Design
Do you remember the last meeting you attended where you found yourself straining your eyes to read a text-heavy PowerPoint slide being projected at the front of the room while listening to a speaker drone on about a highly technical subject? If you were lucky, then you may have had a few minutes at the end of the presentation for Q&A or discussion. Think back to the last time you found yourself in this type of situation and ask yourself: what percentage of the people in the room engaged in meaningful dialogue at that meeting? Five percent? Fifty percent? Twenty-five percent? This approach may be useful when a group needs to cover a lot of information a short amount of time, but it doesn’t suit the learning style of most adult learners for whom interaction and dialogue enhances the understanding and retention of information.
In the participatory format, as described by Jackson and Coonan, one of the aims is to involve one-hundred percent of participants in discussing the content. This aim, they said, is based on the assumption that by actively engaging the content in this way, it is more likely that each member will understand, retain, and apply the material.
A further aim of the participatory format is to engage participants in a deep exploration. The setting and program are structured to maximize participant dialogue and interaction. Though this format can and often does include speaker presentations, it also weaves in icebreakers, activities for small groups and pairs, and considerable time for sharing out the results of their discussions. These exchanges encourage active learning; they also make it possible for participants to be teachers as well as learners.
You’re giving participants a chance to put into practice what they’ve just learned and to explore ideas through continuous dialogue, explained Jackson. “Let’s say you do something on resilience. You give the audience time to discuss, and they might come up with some different ideas that you didn’t think of. So you’re actually learning from them, too” she said.
Participatory Format: To Try It Is to Like It
Jackson and Coonan noted that participatory design formats aren’t considered as often as they should be. Coonan sensed that one reason people don’t use this format is because they’re unfamiliar with it, which can be uncomfortable. Or they think it will take more work, but “a lot of the time it doesn’t,” he assured. What’s more, Coonan observed, “Once people have used participatory-meeting methods . . . to facilitate dialogue in a different way, they see the value in it. They say, ‘Oh, this isn’t that difficult.’” It often comes down to awareness building, he concludes.
Organizing Participatory Meetings
Throughout the discussion, Jackson and Coonan provided practical advice for teams interested in trying a more participatory approach to event design. More information can be found in Technical and Operational Support’s “Designing Participatory Meeting and Brownbags: A TOPS Quick Guide to Linking Development Partners.”
Planning: Allow sufficient time for planning. The participatory format can take a higher investment of time up front than the traditional format. This is especially true for larger gatherings with more working parts, more complex content, and longer running times, Jackson and Coonan pointed out. Block out at least 4−6 months for planning large-scale, high-attendance knowledge-sharing meetings, Jackson advised.
“You do things like interview key stakeholders to find out what’s going on. You also send out a survey to the community to find out what their interested in,” Jackson said. Finding a venue and working through logistics is another part of the planning. So, too, is outreach to others to determine the meeting themes and branding and to begin forming sessions, Jackson noted.
A short (2-hour) knowledge-sharing session can take less time to plan, Coonan said. “If you have a sense of what your structure is, you can plan a draft agenda for something like this in, I’d say, 2 to 4 hours.” That, he added, includes the time it takes to sketch out the flow of the program. The most time-intensive part of the planning is securing presenters and ensuring they all speak with each other, Coonan said.
Coonan advises that presenters help to draft the agenda. Once the draft has been completed, “You want to bounce it off somebody,” he recommended. A second pair of eyes can often detect things that have gone unnoticed, but will need to be adjusted in order to work effectively, Coonan explained.
Material and Human Resources: The participatory format requires documentation materials such as flip charts, sticky notes, index cards, and markers, Jackson and Coonan remarked. These materials, Coonan noted, help broaden the range of possible exchanges, and because many of them can be put up on walls, they get people out of their chairs and moving around. The full value of these resources becomes clear during the sharing-out session. That’s when everyone is able to look at the documentation and see how people think and organize their ideas, Coonan said.
The room setup should also induce conversation and knowledge exchange, Jackson said. For example, participants ideally should sit at round tables so they can face each other during group discussions. But this seating requires more space than theater style, so finding an appropriate venue may be a challenge.
The manager and the organizer of a participatory event are highly involved in the planning, Jackson commented. “They’re not just getting speakers and ironing out logistics” as they would be in planning a traditional meeting, Jackson said. They also work closely with the presenters, looking over their outlines, brainstorming ideas, and figuring out how to sequence the activities for maximum learning, she pointed out. This level of involvement ensures that presenters are comfortable and prepared to share their expertise, and participants can get the most out of the presentations.
Assistance may be needed while a participatory meeting is in session. A timekeeper is highly valuable, Jackson stressed, because she/he ensures the timing of sessions stays on track by alerting speakers when they’re nearing the end of their designated time slot. Coonan recommended having a mic runner (i.e., someone who ensures a microphone reaches those who wish to speak) in large venues where it’s difficult to hear. Also of value is a person who can manage the setup of presenter equipment and materials, they said.
Lessons Learned
- The participatory format can be implemented by degree. If you’ve never included participatory activities in your meetings, start by introducing one into a single session. See how it goes, then expand from there.
- Set realistic goals. Participatory meetings aren’t necessarily the most productive in advancing a project. Hearing diverse perspectives takes time. You don’t go as far, but you go deeper and hear from more voices.
- Be flexible in topic selection. After soliciting ideas from key stakeholders and the community you serve, you may find that the appropriate presenters and the necessary evidence for your selected topic(s) are not available. So you have to be prepared to modify topics accordingly.
- Consider the social environment. The better people know each other, the more likely they’ll organize their own discussion groups and networking sessions. Location is also influential. In Washington, DC, many people tend to have competing professional and social priorities. For meetings organized outside of Washington, DC, organized after-hours activities tend to have greater appeal as people’s extended social networks tend to be more limited.
- Share plans early on. It’s advantageous to let presenters know from the onset of your outreach to them that a meeting is participatory. That way, Jackson said, they will feel prepared and better able to design their presentations in the participatory format.
- Make the most of known expertise. If a meeting includes a presenter with experience in the participatory format, he/she might be willing to coach other presenters on participatory techniques and work with them to design a participatory session.
- It gets easier with experience. At first, it can be challenging to figure out how much time to allot for a meeting. It often depends on the complexity of the question(s) you want to ask in your meeting and the type of product you want to create. But, Coonan added, once you get the knack of it, it becomes much easier to determine the amount of time.
- Make it rewarding. People get frustrated when they’re given a lot to do and not enough time to do it. Make sure what you ask of participants is achievable within the allotted time, so people have a sense of accomplishment at the end.
- Make time to share out. Sharing out doesn’t have to consume a ton of time, but you should reserve a sufficient amount for a sharing out session that is structured and meaningful. At minimum, 30 minutes should be allotted.
- Measure results. Follow-up surveys and satisfaction surveys are two ways to measure the qualitative impact of your meetings. Another way is to ask participants to write down what they have learned at the end of a meeting or session.
CLA in Action articles are intended to paint a more detailed picture of what collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) looks like in practice. Unlike other disciplines, CLA is not a technical "fix;" it looks different in different contexts. This series will showcase examples of intentional collaboration, systematic learning, and resourced adaptation, some of which you may find applicable to your own work. The case studies, blogs, and resources represented in this series document the real-world experiences of development practitioners experimenting with these approaches for the benefit of sharing what's possible.