This is the thirteenth post for the Community Data Hubs (CDH) Documentation series. This series documents the thought and working trajectories within the process of creating the building blocks of our CDH model and OEDP’s broader data stewardship work. This blog will document our work with our three community partners as we workshopped their environmental data governance questions and challenges, and sought lessons to inform the CDH prototype.
We have just wrapped up our series of design workshops with our community partners and are excited to share what we’ve learned! This post documents the planning meetings, design workshops, and debrief meetings we had with each partner. This process ran from February to July 2024 and constituted the bulk of hands-on collaboration with our partners. A full synthesis of each collaboration with community partners will be detailed in an upcoming playbook. Kate Wing, a former Advisory Group member and Executive Director of Intertidal Agency supported with facilitation and strategy. This documentation serves to record the process of each meeting with notes on what went well and what could be improved on if others replicate this model.
Preparation and coordinating the planning meetings
To prepare for the project collaboration, we circulated a welcome document, as well as a request to input responses into a data landscape document. These responses were supplemented by insights from our introductory meetings and the partners’ Expressions of Interest, which gave us a general sense of the technical and social aspects of each case’s data use. Each data landscape document responded to the following questions:
Project questions
What are your goals for using the data?
What are your challenges?
Data questions
What types of data do you use/manage?
What metadata do you have for your data?
Is the data publicly available?
Where is your data stored?
People questions
Who is involved?
Currently:
In the future:
Who makes the decisions?
Currently:
In the future:
How are you making the decisions now?
Currently:
In the future:
Workshop questions
What are your goals for the workshop?
Our partners added more specificity to the questions before planning meetings so that we could use our meeting time more effectively.
The planning meetings were one-hour virtual calls designed with three main purposes in mind: (1) to set the stage for the collaboration, (2) use conversation to get to the roots of challenges, and (3) give both OEDP and the partner a chance to ask questions—so OEDP could understand the specific context of eachthe team and their data, and for our partners to understand the broader CDH project. Our standard agenda for each planning meeting reflected those intentions, including introductions of each team, a walkthrough of the data landscape, a walkthrough of their success spectrum, and a short closing for logistics and next steps. We created detailed facilitation plans to reflect the goals of the meeting, but were open to following lines of inquiry where they led, and adjusting based on needs.
In reviewing the data landscape, we verbalized each question and response with the group. In some cases, notably with CENIT and FARN, the act of mirroring back questions and responses sparked further conversation among the group. Since one team member had initially answered the question, others had additions and clarifications based on their perspective and understanding. We were thus further able to examine how people interpreted words differently, e.g., what is the definition of stakeholder and therefore who is included on that list. In the case of CENIT and FARN, we were able to view the uploaded data and corresponding metadata, as well as understand where non-public data was held. The questions about “people'' highlighted involvement currently and in the future, which was useful in understanding the group’s dynamics and goals. This conversation on the data landscape also helped to list out all potential goals for the workshop and tease out which ones were most important, or that the CDH collaboration would be able to address.
Figure 1: This is an example of a success spectrum from the CENIT and FARN planning meeting. There aren’t outcomes listed under failure because we did not facilitate the conversation in a linear fashion that required an answer for each column. Rather we started the conversation with a few key questions, and let it flow from there until we had a good idea of minimum, target, and epic success.
This dialogue helped us understand how we could support CENIT and FARN, as well as what we needed to learn in order to facilitate a design workshop that could reach, or set up a pathway to reach, at least a few target successes. We were able to identify two to three goals for each partner in each category. The Epic Success category usually encompasses impact that will happen down the line from any workshop outputs, but is important to document and reflect on as the goals for the collaboration were deliberated.
Design workshops
These workshops were designed based on the goals for each partner, and included at least three modules over three to four hours. OEDP created the modules based on the goals from the planning workshop, and sought review from community partners before designing the facilitation plan. The modules re-stated the goal, posed a question that re-oriented that goal to the workshop, and listed a potential activity that could get us closer to that goal in the workshop. Here is an example of one of the modules for Self-Help Enterprises:
Module One: Creating foundational documents to support organizational culture for data sharing
30 mins
Self-Help Enterprises wants to create some organizational language related to their values and practices on how they share data. This language could be referenced in the future when entering into partnership with a new data sharing party, collecting a new type of data, or creating a new tool or policy. How could we support this foundational document creation in the workshop?
Brainstorm and surface values on data sharing to inform agreements and products to create the start of a “How We Share Data” document
In most workshops, the modules were sequentially ordered and in some cases, information gathered in one module would explicitly set the stage for the following module. We included time estimates in our facilitation plan to create a basic timeline for the workshop (see an example below); in practice, some modules took more or less time, or were skipped over in lieu of pursuing a line of inquiry or conversation that was better suited to reach a goal or answer a question. For example, the team at Self-Help Enterprises were very interested in our approach to creating a co-ownership document for their participants in their well water site monitoring program, and wanted to run through the exercise thinking about their hauled water and tank program as well.
Figure 2: This is the agenda from the Self-Help Enterprises workshop.
We held the workshops with CENIT and FARN and CHARRS virtually; we held the workshop with Self-Help Enterprises at their offices in Visalia, California. We created facilitation plans based on the module agenda and time estimates. For the virtual calls, we created a corresponding Miro, or virtual collaboration board and for the in-person workshop with Self-Help Enterprises, we outlined within the facilitation plan how we would use physical materials like stickies, large pads, and markers, to collaborate, categorize, and take notes. This workshop also required planning logistics around what was available in the meeting space, travel and lodging, and more detailed facilitation collaboration (e.g., specific cues between facilitators and time considerations to ensure good “flow”). Additionally, before each workshop, the community partner participants were sent pre-workshop surveys to gauge initial expectations, current approaches, and how comfortable they were in talking about data governance or implementing practices.
Kate and I alternated who facilitated, while the other person took notes and asked supplementary questions. We used breaks in the agenda to check in on the next module, prepare, and adjust.
In many of the modules, we supported the community partner to map out various aspects of their data ecosystem, e.g., who would be involved in a potential repository, what the potential risks of a specific data product could be, or what the capacities and incentives of a specific group of stakeholders were. For example, with Self-Help Enterprises, one of their goals was to create data products that respected their participants’ and community’s need for data privacy, as well as the need for accurate representation of their water and well issues. We brainstormed different data products that they wanted to create and use, what questions they could answer, and who the ideal audience would be. From there, we asked them to prioritize one of those data products and then led them in a brainstorming session of all the risks (legal, financial, reputational, and misinterpretation) that could be associated with that data product. This initiated a conversation on how they could design data product features to mitigate those risks. This is an example of a module that could be replicated by their team to understand other data products as they are ideated or developed in the future.
We ended with a focused reflection from each participant on what questions they were still left with. After the first two design workshops, we added a reflection question about what they were most interested in following up on or working more closely on, in order to support group cohesion after three hours of discussion. We also covered necessary logistics, like follow-up and scheduling.
Some aspects of the workshops could be improved upon from a processual standpoint.
Length of time. Even with planned breaks, three hours felt too long for constant brainstorming on new and sometimes difficult topics—especially in a virtual setting. Naturally, attention wanes. Instead, planning two 1.5-hour or 2-hour sessions would be preferred, as this allows for contemplation and potential redesign of the session based on emergent needs that arise from foundational understanding.
In-person events. In future grants, we would prioritize in-person events as those workshops can be more interactive and gratifying for participants. In-person workshops can instill a greater sense of collaboration and accountability, and engage attention more completely.
Virtual tools. Miro boards can fall prey to many of the same pitfalls as other collaborative visual tools used for meetings—they are somewhat unintuitive unless you use a particular one regularly. Although our participants had used Miro before, this platform is not a perfect solution for every type of collaboration. There is no perfect digital collaboration tool that we’ve come across, but recognizing nuances of each can help in crafting and providing additional support for participants before the workshop—a necessary and an essential part of workflows when working with any partner. Additional support can look like providing how-to guides alongside the agenda, as well as inviting participants into the Zoom room ten minutes early to address any technical questions. We also include on-screen tutorials in the bottom left hand side of all Miro boards for essential uses like moving around, zooming in and out, and creating sticky notes.
Debriefs
One-hour, virtual debrief calls were scheduled after the design workshops. They were designed to synthesize the workshop’s outcomes and opportunities, and see what is left to do to reach success, or a path to success, according to the success spectrum. Following each workshop, we created synthesis documents that mapped out each module: what we heard, how that informs the next steps for the community partner, and how we can support. With two of the partners, we created resources to support future work, including a Data Use and Sharing Agreement Question worksheet and templates for data sharing and ownership documents.
Figure 3. This is a snippet from the synthesis document for CHARRS. We ran out of time in the workshop to delve deeply into a stakeholder analysis, so we adapted that exercise into a resource for their team to use and execute in future organizing.
An important disclaimer that we often verbalize and include in all written documentation is that any conversation we have regarding legal topics is not legal advice and should not be treated as such. Rather, the community partner can use the ideation and conversation as a starting (or continuation) point for discussions with attorneys and institutional contracting offices when exploring the terms of a data sharing agreement or other legal document.
In each debrief, we began the meeting with a review of the synthesis document, discussing what we heard and what next steps could be. As facilitators, we had questions prepared to support group discussion and prioritization, including: Does one of these projects seem like a priority or a natural place to start? Is there a higher priority next step you have in mind? How do these next steps align with other plans for this work this year? When going over the synthesis with CHARRS, it was clear that goals and priorities had shifted since the design workshop, and the conversation was re-focused on some emergent questions that were higher priority. Initially, with CHARRS in the design workshop, we had focused on a state-wide repository, but in the debrief, they were more interested in understanding how to build up data governance processes and documents specifically for organizational data that CHARRS owned. We pivoted to discuss how we could support creating foundational documents relaying organizational values and principles.
In other debriefs, we also revisited the success spectrum to see how close we were to reaching target successes. In some cases, these conversations had fulfilled some minimum and target successes (e.g., with CHARRS, a goal was to create a list of data science and management questions and determine some prioritization, to inform hiring researchers and writing grants). With all groups, there was remaining work to be done, but the workshops had unearthed a pathway that would eventually lead to aspects of the group’s target success.
These conversations led directly into another on optional accountability check-ins and milestones held at the three- and six-month mark after each of the workshops. These are designed to support progress on the challenges examined during the design workshop and make space for collaboratively addressing any new or emerging variables. We brainstormed what milestones would be meaningful for each check-in, and considered team capacity to determine what could be done in that timeline.
We ended the debrief with a reflection on what they were most excited to pursue or continue thinking about from this workshop and collaboration. After the debrief, I sent a post-workshop survey to capture what could be improved upon, how and if attitudes toward talking and working with data governance had changed, and if expectations were met.
Next steps
The next step for the project is to draft the playbook, a resource that will synthesize each partner’s workshop and process in greater detail, and delineate any trends and patterns. We’ll also make the resources and templates made during the process available for other group’s usage, and consider the original concept of the Community Data Hubs model in light of these workshops and findings. We are considering how we should package this information, and what communication outputs would be most impactful outside of the larger playbook. We’re excited to begin the playbook creation phase of this project, including a review period for the community partners and advisory group. Readers can look forward to reading the playbook in the Fall!