10 Question to Ask Before Starting a Public Consultation

Recently Joseph Peters (Partner at Ascentum)
and Joe Goldman (Vice President of Citizen Engagement at AmericaSpeaks)
published an excellent two page article called: Open Policy Making 101: 10 Questions
To Ask Before Launching Your Online Public Consultation

While their well thought out list is focused on online
consultation, the questions also apply to creating plans for effective offline
public consultations.

Here are their 10 questions:

  1. What
    do you want to know?
  2. What
    is your commitment to participants?
  3. Who
    needs to participate?
  4. How
    hot is the issue?
  5. What
    type of contribution are you looking for?
  6. What
    type of data will you collect and analyze?
  7. What
    are your timelines?
  8. What
    resources are available to support the process?
  9. How
    can participants stay involved?
  10. Which
    online tools should you use?

Read the full article for concise
explanations of each question.