Max Hardy Consulting

Results through collaboration

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Courses

When the Going Gets Tough: Strategies for dealing with community engagement challenges

Day 1 – Challenges for planning and designing community engagement
Day 2 – Challenges facilitating and implementing community engagement
Day 1 Agenda
Welcome/intros
Naming the challenges for planning CE
Foundations of a robust plan
When we plan well, what happens? (Appreciative Inquiry exercise)
Tacking the challenges
Framing issues for community engagement
  • How decisions are made about scope and intent
  • Challenges working with council colleagues who are sceptical about the merit of engaging
  • How do we map our stakeholders/community and what are the alternatives?
  • Knowledge management and tools/apps for tracking organisation wide engagement
  • The business case for earlier engagement
  • Complex and controversial projects – how do we know how much is enough?
  • Playing the long game – how important is reputation, trust building, and what do we want people to say at the conclusion of engagement processes
Working in teams to address a particular scenario
The merit of experimentation, strategic questioning, prototyping and risk-taking.
Day 2 Agenda
Reflections from Day 1
Naming the implementation/facilitation challenges
When it goes well, what do we get right?
Tackling the challenges (indicatively as follows)
  • Dealing with very well organised, articulate and well-connected interest groups
  • Dealing with groups who seek to undermine engagement processes
  • Groups/individuals that intimidate
  • Facilitating angry meetings
  • Dealing with those who bypass the process and lobby decisionmakers
  • Ensuring safety for all concerned
  • Looking after each other when things get very stressful
  • Making sense of, and utilising, lots of data
  • When internal support for process/scope changes midway through a project
We will explore a range of tools, strategies and approaches including:
  • Strategic questioning
  • Data analysis tools/apps
  • Deliberative engagement
  • Community-led approaches
Working in teams to address a specific scenario
Identifying the resources and strategies to equip us when the going gets tough (the ‘get out of gaol cards’)
Final reflections.
Fees:
I can provide this training for $8,200 Exc GST which includes:
  • preparation, facilitation
  • workbooks
  • course evaluations
  • debriefing
  • travel time and
  • a follow up meeting to discuss options for ongoing support

Evaluation Essentials for Engagement

Learn essential information about evaluation for community engagement from this team of experts.

Join Allison Hendricks (Darzin Software), Max Hardy (Max Hardy Consulting), and our founder Megan Girdler for a one-day course to equip you with new frameworks, tools and techniques for evaluation.

Gain new expertise with our practical advice and take-away resources. During the interactive workshop, we’ll walk through how to create an evaluation strategy, tools you can use and techniques to make the process of reporting back on your engagement easier.

This course will be available in Melbourne on 16 October and in Sydney on 27 November 2018. Click here for further information.

Deliberation & Digital Community Engagement Course

Learn and experiment with deliberation & digital community engagement.

Experience a mock deliberative process face-to-face and online through this six-week, part-time professional development program led by Max Hardy and Megan Girdler. The course will include face-to-face training sessions and online activities.

Add deliberation and digital engagement to your personal community participation toolkit. There are only twenty tickets to the world-premier of this course in Melbourne, AU – from 2 October to 8 November, 2018. Click here for further information.

Fresh Ideas for Community Engagement

Objective:

  • To equip Council officers with a range of tools, ideas and resources for engaging the community
  • For Council officers to feel enthused and more confident about engaging their communities.

Structure of day:

  • Welcome/intros
  • Questions people have brought with them
  • Foundations for engagement – quick recap
  • Morning tea
  • Process for generating questions for community engagement
  • Key trends – codesign, collective governance, deliberation, community-led processes and use of technology (eg, poll everywhere, social pinpoint, augmented reality, story pods)
  • Lunch
  • Key trends cont – codesign, collective governance, deliberation, community-led processes and use of technology (eg, poll everywhere, social pinpoint, augmented reality, story pods)
  • Scenario presented
  • Activity – groups design their own process using some new ideas presented
  • Afternoon
  • Groups present their approach – we use poll everywhere to rate the design approach.
  • Reflections – have we answered key questions; and opportunities to apply

Fees: $5000 Exc GST

Includes resources, facilitation materials, poll everywhere fees, and travel costs.

Questions Change Everything – the course

In community engagement, there are stupid questions so learn how to start your community engagement activity with a great question and achieve the successful outcomes you’re after.

Susan Carter of The Community Studio and Max Hardy of Max Hardy Consulting invite you to join them in an online community engagement training opportunity – Questions Change Everything.

Click here to find out more.

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Recent Posts

  • Engaging to make a difference. A conversation with Ben Neil. 01/02/2021
  • It’s time to do stakeholder mapping differently! 28/10/2020
  • Common objections to committing to collaborative (co-design or deliberative) engagement processes 30/09/2020
  • Facilitating Public Deliberations 28/08/2020
  • How safe is it to participate? 27/07/2020
  • Debunking myths about ‘deliberation’ 14/07/2020
  • What is your approach to consulting? And… which one best works for co-designing solutions with the community? 06/07/2020

Contact Details

Max Hardy Consulting
Email: max@maxhardy.com.au
Phone: 0418 217 261
Twitter: @maxchardy
Skype: maxhardy
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/max-hardy/11/339/a4b

Testimonials

Barbara Dart

Max recently facilitated a two day course for us at Council about tackling the internal and external challenges of community engagement. Max is an exceptional facilitator and his ability to draw on experiences across such a broad and diverse background in CE is invaluable to those before him. I would highly recommend Max to anyone

Amber James

'I have known Max for more than ten years. I was a student of his doing the IAP2 Certificate, engaged him as a consultant for in-house work in local government, and then worked alongside him on a consumer engagement capacity building project at the Royal Brisbane Womens Hospital. He is great to be around and

Amy Hubbard, Capire

“Max is a trusted and respected colleague and friend of Capire. He is always able to provide us with a sound, strategic and independent perspective – even on the toughest projects in very complex communities” Amy Hubbard CEO, Capire.

Liz Mackevicius

'Max worked with us to design and execute a series of workshops based on the citizen jury principles, to enable a conversation between community members about the growth and change expected to occur in a challenging inner city municipality. Max understood the key issues at hand, gave expert advice and worked with us to tailor

Eugene McGarrell, FACS

'Max Hardy has worked with my senior executive team and local stakeholders to facilitate the co-creation of social wellbeing strategies. Max’s style is both collaborative and supportive and he gets the best from people involved. I highly recommend Max to anyone who is embarking on a process of co-creation.' Eugene McGarrell District Director, Northern Sydney

Courtney Brown, Director, BDR Projects

'I have known and worked with Max for about two years, however I have been very aware of his career and engagement experience applied to major projects across industry sectors for a much longer period. Max has been at the forefront of pioneering new mechanisms and methodologies for genuine engagement and this resonates for his

Becky Hirst

'Max is one of the leading superstars of community engagement and collaborative governance in Australia. Since I first met him as my trainer in Adelaide back in 2007, I've admired his approach. He's passionate, dedicated, admired in the field and I look forward to seeing the next steps of his career unfold. Watch out world!'

Lisa Rae

I first encountered Max in Auckland when he delivered IAP2 training I was attending. Many years later, I’ve had the opportunity to work with him on two significant local government projects in Melbourne using co-design and deliberative engagement approaches. Max’s great strength was helping council decision makers understand their role in the engagement process and

Anna Kelderman

'Max's extensive experience with deliberative engagement, as well as his uniquely calming facilitation style, has helped bring about a step-change in the type of public engagement expected in Western Australia. It has been an absolute pleasure to partner with and learn from the best in the business, and I continue to look for opportunities to

Lindy Fentiman

'I have had the pleasure of working with Max when he ventures up to sunny Queensland!  He is a generous, insightful and highly skilled professional who absolutely practices what he believes in.  Nobody understands the importance of collaboration, engagement and the challenges this brings for organisations better than Max!  He is an excellent coach, facilitator

Carol M Anderson

'If one were to ask me who was the best facilitator and facilitation trainer in the world, I would unequivocally answer “Max Hardy.” As the public involvement manager at one of the largest U.S.-based environmental engineering firms, I often took along my notes from Max’s facilitation class to meet with clients and, on their behalf, with the public.

Jessie Keating

Working with Max is a delight. Max’s facilitation, collaboration and problem solving style is respectful and calm, along with being both accessible and professional. The most significant project we have worked on with Max was the planning and undertaking of a community symposium, focused on the drafting of our city’s 20 year strategy, MV2040. We

Kellie King

'I have had the pleasure of both being a participant in a fantastic training session run by Max, and also as a client. Max was of tremendous assistance navigating through a challenging engagement process with great support, advice and good humour. Thank you Max.' Kellie King General Manager – Community & Corporate Services, Wannon Water

Lara Damiani

'I had the wonderful opportunity to watch Max in action facilitating the Citizen's Jury for People With Disability Australia in Sydney last month which I was filming. Max's tagline "results through collaboration" is spot on. It was pure magic watching Max create collaboration and results from a randomly selected jury - 12 very unique personalities

Ian Dixon, Dixon Partnering Solutions

'I have worked with Max on many occasions and have great respect for his skills and knowledge around community engagement and collaboration. He is an expert trainer and a strong advocate for Appreciative Inquiry approaches.' Ian Dixon, Principal, Dixon Partnering Solutions

Beatrice Briggs

'Max Hardy brings to his work a delightful combination of common sense, integrity, experience, laced with a sly sense of humour.'   Beatrice Briggs Director International Institute for Facilitation and Change (IIFAC) Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico

Amanda Newbery, Articulous

'Max Hardy has a unique ability to build the confidence and capacity of teams working in engagement. He brings a wealth of experience and insight. We have worked together on a number of deliberative projects and he is a delight to work with!' Amanda Newbery Articulous

The Honourable Andrew Powell MP

'I have always been impressed with Max’s ability to navigate and resolve the thorny issues through collaboration.  He involves all participants right from the beginning: asking “what’s the question that needs answering here”? His efforts alongside John Dengate in the journey that was The Queensland Plan were stellar and he was a significant contributor to

Moira Deslandes

'Max is a democracy enthusiast. He finds ways to enable, empower and encourage every voice to be heard and designs processes that foster the principle: every voice is worth hearing.' Moira Deslandes Director, Moira Deslandes  Consulting  

Crispin Butteriss, Bang the Table

'Max is a long time colleague, mentor and friend. He has a deft touch as a facilitator and collaboration strategist due his deeply developed empathetic listening skills, along with the experience and wisdom of many years of working on thorny problems with people from all walks of life'. Crispin Butteriss, PhD Co-founder and Chief Practice

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