Citizen Engagement in ICT Design: The Challenge - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 123

7.1.5 Lack of Appropriate Skills
Mumford (1991) also suggests that an important barrier to involving po-
tential users in ICT design is a lack of appropriate skills. There is certainly
evidence that lack of expertise in the processes of engagement limits
success despite the presence of interest and commitment. For example, en-
dorsing Mumford's view that “ people don't know how to organize partici-
pation ” (1991), a recent study of the implementation of local e-Government
in the UK found that local council staff reported real disappointment with
the poor responses to consultation exercises run specifically to engage with
young people (Damodaran et al. 2004). It appears that even where there is
some expressed commitment to participation, this can be thwarted by a
failure to adopt appropriate methods and behaviours. One reported study
found that fewer than 40% of local authorities in the UK government had
consulted or engaged local stakeholders in the planning and implementa-
tion of e-Government (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 2003). This is
despite the fact that improving democracy and empowering citizens is one
of the stated objectives of the UK Government's local e-Government pol-
icy.
Considerable learning will be essential for key personnel, such as local
government staff, if they are to accept and adopt a participative approach
in their work roles. The repertoire of skills necessary to achieve participa-
tion is extensive. It includes social and facilitation skills, as well as knowledge
of methods for stakeholder identification, communication, decision-making,
requirements elicitation and methods for engaging different groups of citi-
zens appropriately and effectively.
The current lack of understanding and skills in how to achieve more
successful participation does not reflect a dearth of such knowledge and a
'need for more research'. On the contrary, there is a growing abundance of
such knowledge both at a national level and internationally which derives
from case studies and pilots. As we will discuss in Chapter 9, there are also
numerous tools and techniques which have been developed to support citi-
zen engagement and participatory design. However, these are often not
well promulgated, especially outside the domain in which they have been
developed, although the processes which they support are often fundamen-
tal to the effectiveness of many human and organizational activities.
The real limitation lies in the fragmentation of the knowledge base,
noted above, and the widespread lack of awareness of this body of knowl-
edge and its importance. As a consequence there is little investment in dis-
seminating knowledge of participatory approaches, methods and tools and
making this accessible to those who most need it. This is particularly true
for many practitioners engaged in developing and delivering ICT systems