Participatory process management

Although the process of public and stakeholder participation continues to be intensivelyinvestigated and discussed in academic circles, the implementation of participatory methods inpractice remains problematic. This can be attributed to the lack of knowledge transfer on the onehand, and the general underestimation of participatory approaches in planning processes on theother.A possible solution - participatory processmanagement - is introduced in this article. Participatoryprocess management means that all participatory activities are embedded in the overall planningactivities of a project. The most significant criteria for a participatory process are identified as’objectives’, ’constraints’ and ’process’which together forma framework for combining generallyapplicablemethodswith local constraints and the objectives of a project. Themain elements of theparticipatory management framework introduced here are levels and classes of participation and ageneric process scheme includingmonitoring and evaluation of participatory processes. This workis based upon long-term experiences of consultants and scientists. However, the insights fromthe InterReg project TRUST are particularly valuable and confirm the hypotheses that differentwater management projects are comparable in terms of their participatory process performance.The participatory management framework is a step forward in closing the gap between scientificknowledge about participatory methods and their applicability in practice.