Which methods can I use to co-create models with stakeholders?

Overview

Participatory modelling is the construction of a model with the people who will use it, rather than the presentation of a model to them. The methods collected here were used in the NAIAD demonstration areas to build representations of how stakeholders understand their own system, and to test proposed interventions against that understanding.

What the methods are

Causal mapping, in which stakeholders identify the factors they see as driving risk and the causal links between them, produces a diagram that can be analysed. Where the links are given strengths, the map becomes a fuzzy cognitive map, and it can then be used to explore how a change propagates through the system as stakeholders understand it. This is often the point at which a proposal that works in the technical model is found to be blocked in the social one, or the reverse.

System dynamics modelling extends the same material into a simulation: stocks, flows and feedbacks are defined with stakeholders and the model is run to explore the long-term behaviour of the system under different strategies and climate scenarios. Because the structure comes from the participants, the model's results are arguments they can follow and dispute.

Social network analysis supplies the third element, establishing the pattern of relationships among the actors involved. It identifies who is connected to whom, which actors occupy positions that make them necessary to any agreement, and which collaborations that implementation requires do not currently exist. In NAIAD it was used specifically to detect barriers to effective collaboration among decision-makers and stakeholders.

Participatory modelling was also used to work through trade-offs explicitly. Where a change benefits one group and costs another, a fuzzy cognitive map or a system dynamics model built with both groups makes the exchange visible and turns an unstated conflict into something that can be negotiated.

How it is run

The methods are applied through facilitated workshops with the groups concerned, with the modelling done in the room where possible and the analysis reported back. The material produced is retained as part of the assessment rather than as a record of consultation, and it enters the integrated framework alongside the biophysical and economic components.