Managing Mountains of Input

Hendricks A¹*, Rogers C²*

1. Darzin Software, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2. NSW Department of Environment and Conservation, Parks and Wildlife Division, Narooma, NSW, Australia

Using case studies we will discuss the practicalities of managing, analysing and reporting on data from large, complex community engagement programs. The case studies are two consultation programs run by the Department of Environment and Conservation for National Parks in Australia. One of these projects won an award from the International Association of Public Participation Practitioners for adherence to its definition of core values of community engagement. The core values include principles of transparency, accountability, influence and equity. We will use these core values as a framework for discussing objectives and principles in analysing data and evaluating programs.

Much effort and theory is focussed on the design and delivery of community engagement processes, with the management, evaluation and reporting of data that these processes generate often being neglected. We will briefly discuss the theoretical context within which we have developed guidelines and tools for the management of data and how these are applied in practice from the beginning of an engagement program. We will then step through the resource intensive task of sorting through the data (input from the community) and discuss the use of computer based analytics, such as the software program Darzin, to streamline and efficiently perform this task.

The discussions and frameworks will be presented through the use of case study material that are data rich, to illustrate the challenges that are faced in a ‘real world’ context and clearly present some of the principles being considered.

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