– Even considering that not all 700+ individuals who showed up initially were able or willing to stick it out through all three sessions, that is still an impressive level of participation in a community this size.
– Those who did participate can in no way be considered a representative sample of Decatur’s citizenry. The self-selected sample was overwhelmingly white (as of 2007 Decatur was 73% white) and, I’d be willing to bet real money of my own, the vast majority are financially comfortable.
– The sessions were facilitated by volunteers. Not to take anything away from those folks–their commitment and generosity with their time and energy made the whole thing possible–still, they brought wildly varied levels of expertise to the process. With regard to both facilitating the discussions and documenting the comments, we have to live with substantial inconsistency from group to group and week to week.
– The sessions were not recorded, so the facilitators were in a sense “working without a net.” However, every page from every flip chart was typed up by the facilitator and submitted to the City along with the original flip chart pages, which will be archived. Much depended on each facilitator’s ability to capture the essence of their discussion sessions using bullet points. As noted above, that ability varied a lot. Another prominent aspect of the process, however, was encouraging participants to “keep the scribing honest” by reviewing and commenting on what was being documented during and following each session. I believe the City has also provided a channel for individuals to offer input online.
-This process was designed and executed as systematically and consistently as possible, but it is not a survey and was never meant to replace one. It was a giant brainstorming exercise, intended to gather raw material for the next step in the strategic planning process. Assigning emphasis or prevalence to any particular comment or viewpoint has been and will continue to be subjective. Any individual who feels that a discussion in which they participated has not been accurately represented should speak up. At the same time, everybody should remember that summaries and interpretations are based on detailed review of each set of notes followed by a higher-altitude scan of hundreds of discussions.
– The inherent methodological limitations notwithstanding, the Round Table process winds up serving as a community-building exercise regardless of subsequent planning outcomes. Relatively few municipalities see fit to invest in it to the degree that Decatur does. In addition to the expense, it can be a big, fat nuisance for city staffers to invite that degree of input from individual citizens. To me, the whole thing says that our city government’s overall guiding principles include a keen awareness that they work for us.