ICA Consultation and Facilitation Services

Responsible for developing or revising a strategic plan? Planning for the post-pandemic return of your workforce from the virtual workspace to the physical? Need to reach consensus on the goals and objectives of a new program? ICA can help.

ICA is known for the Technology of Participation (ToP)®, a system of participatory methods for community and organizational development. At their core, ToP® methods represent a consensus-driven approach that enables groups to:

Engage in thoughtful and productive conversations
Develop a shared narrative and collective identity
Build common ground for working together
Create effective and implementable short- and long-range plans

For ToP training near you look at our upcoming public ToP courses, or contact trainers directly on our national network of ToP Trainers for a private opportunity.
For support, meeting design or facilitation contact certified ToP Facilitators, or visit ICA Worldwide or Fill out our interest form here.

A Real World ToP® Success Story

The challenge: The Maricopa (AZ) Unified School District serves students in one of the country’s fastest growing communities. With its one high school bursting at the seams, District officials engaged Courtney Lonergan, an internationally certified and world-renowned master strategic facilitator.

The process: Over the course of several months, Courtney engaged parents, students, teachers, administrators, local government officials and private citizens in a vibrant and engaged strategic planning journey. Using Technology of Participation® processes, Courtney facilitated groups as they determined educational metrics for the entire school district, uncovered and addressed systemic barriers and issues, and built camaraderie and effective teamwork across the school district and broader community.

The result: Groundbreaking for a new $26 million high school is scheduled for May 7, 2021! The school is expected to open in July 2022.

Our consultants use ICA's Technology of Participation (ToP)® to design time and cost effective approaches that will improve organizational effectiveness while addressing the multiple demands and needs of the diverse groups and individuals that they serve.

Organizations and communities can use ICA's consultation services to design a participatory event, facilitate an event, and build internal capacity via technical assistance during implementation. This allows the organization or group to build toward an inclusive, sustainable culture of participation that takes into account its human resources.

ICA's consulting and facilitation services include:

Participatory Strategic Planning
Consensus Building
Collaborative Action Planning
Creative Problem Solving
Meeting and Agenda Design/Event Planning
Culture Transformation
Community Planning and Engagement
Planning and Implementing Collaborative Ventures

Facilitator Competencies All certified ToP® Facilitators are assessed on their skills and capacities to meet the following expected competencies:

CREATE A PARTICIPATORY ENVIRONMENT

Communicate Effectively | Effective communication skills, rapport, active listening and feedback
Create Positive Atmosphere | Encourage respect for experience and perception of diverse participants
Resolve Group Conflicts | Mediate conflict and manage disruptive individual and group behavior
Implement Plans Effectively | Create and use facilitation procedures to engage the group in their task

ORCHESTRATE QUALITY EVENTS

Manage Overall Process | Set clear context, use participatory processes and bring appropriate closure.
Ensure Dynamic Process | Keep the conversation moving, focused on the task and elicit wisdom.
Adapt to Group Needs | Adapt processes to fit the needs of the individuals and group.
Work Effectively with a Team | Demonstrate team values and co-facilitation.

PRODUCE EFFECTIVE RESULTS

Apply Appropriate Methods | Apply appropriate methods to ensure task completion and results.
Clearly Document Results | Keep ongoing records of group work and produce quality documentation
Develop Authentic Consensus | Enable the group to develop and articulate authentic consensus.
Prepare for Solid Implementation | Determine and enable the group to create implementation plans

MODEL POSITIVE PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDE

Evoke Depth and Substance to Illuminate Group Potential | Reveal the possibility in every situation and elicit group insight.
Care for Group Journey | Enable group to go on journey of change, transformation and development.
Practice Self-Assessment and Self-Awareness | Modify personal behavior and style to reflect the needs of the group
Act with Integrity | Make choices with authenticity and responsibility
Model Neutrality | Maintain an objective, non-defensive, non-judgmental stance

ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP)® methods are group facilitation methods that are applicable in any setting where groups need to make collective decisions or plans. Each of the different tools within the body of work have specific and intended outcomes. Overall, our methods aim to help groups come to consensus on where they are, why they are there, where they would like to be, and what they will do together to help them get to where they need to go.

ToP® methods are great tools to use to help foster collaboration in decision making and action - among individuals, organizations or communities. In particular, ToP® methods allow for transformative group journeys.

ToP® methods allow groups to:

Host meaningful conversations that result in shared decisions or resolve
Reach consensus and focus on areas of shared agreement rather than get stuck on areas of disagreement
Hear all voices and leverage group wisdom ·
Recognize and honor contributions of all.

Let groups deal with more data in less time.
Pool individual contributions into larger more informative patterns.
Foster strategic thinking that leverages the group wisdom and creativity.
Promote high levels of group ownership for the resulting plan.
Welcome diversity while minimizing polarization and conflict.

The Technology of Participation (ToP)® refers to a dialogic approach that facilitates group engagement and transformation. At their core, ToP methods represent a consensus-driven approach that enables groups to 1) engage in thoughtful and productive conversations, 2) develop a shared narrative and collective identity, 3) build common ground for working together, and 4) create effective and implementable short- and long-range plans.

Influenced by early organization development thinkers such as Kurt Lewin and his work on group change dynamics and action research as well as by existentialist philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard, ToP® methods facilitate a groups’ ability to collectively examine their experience and make meaning of it. The techniques offer a transformative path for groups to engage in new, creative ways of thinking, conversing, and acting together. This transformation emerges from its phenomenological tenets of intentional focus, radical openness, and method of inquiry (Nelson, 2017). Groups move beyond conflict and polarization towards exploration of diverse ideas and consensus. The methods are both clearly structured and deeply nuanced and are accessible to new practitioners and helpful for seasoned change agents.

The Technology of Participation (ToP)® emerged from the Institute of Cultural Affairs’ community development work beginning in the 1950s. Since their inception, ToP® methods have been continually developed, honed, and expanded through thousands of practitioners engaged in community and organization development globally. For decades, practitioners of these methods would gather for yearly ‘research assemblies, using processes such as Sharing Approaches That Work to capture best practices, innovations, and new applications of the methods. This allowed for the distillation of group facilitation methods that could be applied in almost any setting—from a corporate boardroom to a rural community.

In addition, ToP practitioners were instrumental in professionalizing the field of facilitation and in establishing institutions like the International Association of Facilitators (IAF). In over fifty countries, ToP® methods have been leveraged in major international social change ventures, in United Nations and World Bank programs, and in hundreds of organizational and corporate change initiatives, as well as adopted as internal processes by government agencies and made part of the staff training systems of nonprofits.

What Makes ToP Tick?

The Technology of Participation® ToP methods are effective because of the underlying values and principles that guide them as well as the skill of ToP Facilitators and their neutral stance. The five principal underlying values are:

Inclusive Participation | The methods are designed to invite and sustain the participation of all members of a group. We understand that each person holds a piece of the puzzle, and each person’s insights help to create a whole picture.
Teamwork and Collaboration | The Technology of Participation® is based on the belief that teamwork and collaboration are essential to get a task done in the most effective, efficient, and economical way—and that methods for working together should foster a genuine sense of collegiality among members of the group.
Individual and Group Creativity | The methods intend to elicit the best of each person’s rational and intuitive capacities. By encouraging a dialogue between head and heart, people experience the magic of the whole group’s creativity breaking loose.
Action and Ownership | The group processes need to position a group to fully own the decisions it makes and to take action based on them.
Reflection and Learning | Time is built into every process for depth reflection and sharing. This confirms both the individual and group resolve and allows for transformation as well as a fuller appreciation of the importance of consensus and collective action.

In addition to core values, the ToP methods of open inquiry lead to the assumption of individual and collective responsibility. ToP methods are imbued with the belief that all the participants have the inherent capacity to understand and respond creatively to their own situation. Facilitators assume that everyone is a source of ideas, skills, and wisdom. The facilitator receives all ideas as genuine contributions to the process, while remaining content neutral. This enables a facilitator to encourage authentic self-determination, and foster mutual respect among participants, which is one of the keys to genuine dialogue. Respectful questions reveal deeper thinking and enable people to discover their real wisdom.

Finally, ToP methods focus on surfacing things that can unify a group rather than dealing with things that divide it. Instead of seeking to identify and directly address arenas of disagreement, the methods reveal where a group shares common hopes, perspectives, and objectives. ToP methods provides a common ground for moving forward; even groups that have felt “stuck” in the past often find a new sense of possibility and productivity when experiencing them.

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