What does an authentic collaborative process look like?

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Sophia combines her strong history working in community engagement with her skills in embodiment and her understanding of complex dynamics to offer unique collaborative decision making programs.

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Sophia spent 10 years working with Wendy Sarkissian of Sarkissian Associates Planners in Sydney on large-scale collaborative planning projects in late 90s and 2000s. Most projects had an urban design focus, and to name a few, they included the award winning Bonnyrigg Living Communities project, working with the Olympic Coordination Authority on the design of the public domain at the year 2000 Olympics venues and visioning training for the State Government Planning Department in NSW, offering ideas and strategies for running visioning processes.

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Sophia now combines the above experience in Sydney with her expertise in embodied practice when facilitating collaborative design. She believes that when you engage your felt sense, you bring authentic and nuanced wisdom to the table that can offer up pathways forward that you might not have though of using dot points on butchers' paper alone. This kind of practice further provides opportunities for people to share in ways that build community and shared understanding quickly.

 

Please don't engage Sophia unless you are willing to do things a little differently and to deeply listen to he wisdom of the group and act on their wishes and ideas.

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process strengths

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An authentic collaborative process that will:

• ​engage your people in rich and nuanced ways

• be responsive to your needs and constraints

• hold any complexity that arises

• make space for all voices

• yield actionable results

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investment

 

These programs are all unique. Get in touch to discuss your needs and we'll work from there. For smaller projects, Sophia can prepare your quote alone, however, programs are often 6-12 months long with multiple workshops involved. For projects of this scale Sophia will involve her colleagues at the Wicked Elephants Cooperative and will prepare your quote with them. You can learn more about how we do collaborative planning at the Wicked Elephants here.