11 minutes

Your co-design engagement plan

One page you would be willing to send to the people you are inviting: what is open, who shapes it, the terms, the decision rights, and how you will know it was real.

What you’ll be able to do

Draft a one-page co-design engagement plan for one real decision, and test it against the question of whether you would be willing to send it to the people you intend to invite.
Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: Which single change would do the most to make this plan usable?
Draft a co-design engagement plan for one decision for your work, including decision and what is genuinely open, who shapes it and who is missing, terms of the work and what the division pays.

One page, because you are going to send it to them

The plan in this lesson is not an internal document that gets summarized for participants later. It is the document you send. That constraint does most of the work: a plan you would be uncomfortable showing to the people you are inviting is telling you something specific, and it is usually one of three things — what is open has not been settled, the payment has not been funded, or nobody has decided what happens to the group's advice.

Five lines carry it. What the decision is and what is genuinely open. Who shapes it and who is missing. The terms of the work, including hours, rate, route and the participation costs the division carries. What authority the group holds and when the report-back arrives. And how you will know the engagement was real, which is a question about the final decision rather than about how the meetings felt.

Write the first line last if you have to, but write it honestly. Teams that try to state what is open often find that less is open than the project description suggested. That is uncomfortable, and it is exactly the finding worth having before the invitations go out rather than after the second session.

A co-design engagement plan for one decision

One page you can send to the people you are inviting, and take to the person who owns the decision.

Decision and what is genuinely open Redesign of the notices sent when a service authorization changes. Open: what the notice says and in what order, the formats it comes in, how much time people get to respond, and how questions are answered. Fixed: the content the law requires in the notice, and the effective date set outside the division. One line beside each fixed item saying why it is fixed.

Who shapes it and who is missing Six people who have received these notices, two family members, one staff member from a culturally specific organization, and one interpreter who has read these notices aloud to people. Missing so far: anyone living far from the office, and anyone who uses a communication device. What would have to change: travel budget, at least one session outside business hours, and materials sent three weeks ahead.

Terms of the work and what the division pays Four sessions of ninety minutes, two hours of reading, and one written review of the revised draft: nine hours a person. The hourly rate, and the payment route for individuals and for the organization. The division carries mileage, parking, care costs, interpreting, captioning and usable formats. Payment timing stated in the invitation as it actually is, not at its best.

Decision rights and the report-back The group decides jointly on the wording, the order and the formats of the notice. The division decides the legally required content and the timing, and will say which is which each time. Every recommendation gets a written answer naming the decision maker. Report-back sent within three weeks of the final session, before the notice is published, in the formats people asked for.

How we will know it was real Name at least one change in the published notice that exists because of this group, and be able to point to it. Ask every participant whether they would take another invitation, and treat a no as information about the design rather than about the person. Record what the division could not do this time, and what it would take to do it next.

Copy the five lines, fill them in for one decision your team owns, and take the page to the person who owns that decision before any invitation is drafted.

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When the answer is no

There is no budget for this engagement

Then the choice is a smaller engagement that is properly paid, or none this round. The honest move is to say so and to name the next decision where the money can be planned in from the start. An unpaid engagement that happens to produce a good result is the most expensive kind, because it sets the price for everything that follows it.

The decision has already been made

Say that in the invitation, and describe accurately what the sessions can still affect: the wording, the formats, the timing of the notice, the way questions are answered. People can then decide whether that is worth their afternoon, and some will say yes. Then name the next decision in the same line of work, and open that one earlier.

The people you want to work with are exhausted

Take it as evidence rather than as an obstacle. Ask what the last engagements produced, and what those people never heard back about. Often the first useful action is a report-back on work already done, not a new invitation. Fewer engagements with a visible result rebuild the ability to ask; more engagements with no result destroy it.

Your timeline will not allow it

Timelines are usually more movable than they look, and occasionally they genuinely are not. If the date is truly fixed, do not stage a compressed engagement in order to be able to say that consultation happened. Do the smaller honest thing — a paid review of the draft by readers who know the process, with a written answer to every point — and record plainly what the timeline cost.

Take the plan to the decision owner first

What you can change

You control whether the person who owns the decision has agreed, in advance and in writing, to what the group is being told it can change.

What to watch for

Do not build an engagement on an assumption about someone else's flexibility. A group told it decides the wording, by someone who cannot commit that, finds out at publication — and so does everyone the group talked to.

Your next step

Send the one-page plan to the decision owner and ask for one thing: written confirmation of the open list and the decision rights.

Six checks before the plan leaves your desk

The open list is true, and someone with authority over the decision has confirmed it.
The hours, the rate and the payment route are funded, and the expected wait is stated as it really is.
Participation costs are budgeted separately from the fee, and interpreting, captioning and formats have lead time in the schedule.
The authority sentence is there, in one line, and it says what the group can decide rather than what it can influence.
The report-back has a date, a format and a named sender.
The plan names who is missing and what would have to change for them to take part.

An engagement plan lists a purpose, a session schedule, the organizations to invite, and a communications approach. Which missing line most changes what the engagement will actually be?

A list of the staff who will attend each session.

A sentence naming what these sessions can change and what is already fixed.

A summary of previous engagements on this topic.

A plan for recording and storing what is said in each session.

Try a situation

A supervisor reviews a draft engagement plan from her team. It has a purpose (gather community perspectives on the new process), a schedule of four sessions, a list of six organizations to invite, and a communications approach for sharing results afterward. There is no line about what the sessions can change, no rate, and no report-back date.

Which single change would do the most to make this plan usable?

Add the payment rate and the route, since the plan cannot be sent to anyone without them.

Add one sentence naming what these four sessions can change and what is already fixed, then price and schedule the plan around that sentence.

Add a fuller communications approach for sharing results publicly once the sessions are finished.

Carry this forward

A plan that fits on one page can be shown to the people you are inviting. That is the test: if you would not send it to them, it is not finished, and the reason it is not finished is usually specific.
Three numbers make a plan honest: the hours you are asking for, the rate you will pay, and the date the report-back will be sent.
A plan should name what would make you stop — the point at which you would postpone rather than run an engagement you cannot pay for or act on.
How you will know it was real is a question about the final decision, not about satisfaction with the meetings. Point to something in the result that exists because of the group, and to people who would take another invitation.

A scenario about an engagement plan that looks complete but cannot say what is open, a completed one-page plan with five lines, and a knowledge check on which missing line changes the engagement most.

Fill in the one-page plan for a decision your team owns, take it to the person who owns that decision, and keep rewriting the first line — what is genuinely open — until it is true.

Your next step

Which decision will you write the plan for, and who has to agree to the open list?

Name one decision your team owns that has not been framed yet.

Write the open list and the fixed list, with a reason beside each fixed item.

Name the person who owns the decision and can confirm that list in writing.

Set the date you will send the plan to them, before any invitation is drafted.

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Mark this lesson complete

Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.