Background and aims
In June 2019, the City of Sydney ran the ‘Shaping Sydney 2050’ workshop, to solicit ideas from stakeholders about what they wanted the future of Sydney to look like. This event drew 283 stakeholders from a variety of community sectors including: cultural; economic; environmental; governance; planning; public domain; social; and, transport.
Data was collected in two ways. Written comments were collected via table discussions, where participants proposed ideas, actions and barriers for the city to be successful across five themes: city growth, diversity, liveability and competitive advantage, environment.
Participants were also invited to respond to 10 poll questions via a smart phone application. Some participants voted on the responses posted by other participants. These questions covered topics such as ‘big ideas’ for Sydney, what excited them most about Sydney’s future, and their biggest concerns. Again, the majority of data was written comments.
Our role
Global Research was commissioned by City of Sydney as an independent consultancy to analyse and synthesise the data collected from their stakeholder workshop event. The aim was to make sense of the many diverse ideas collected in the variety of formats described and convert them into an informative document for the Shaping Sydney 2050 Citizen’s Jury, in order to inform their deliberations.
Our analysts carefully read and sorted the data into relevant themes and topics. Our team then synthesised this data and prepared a comprehensive report, discussing individual topics and key findings for the City of Sydney.
Design and method
Due to the nature of the stakeholder event, Global Research received the City of Sydney’s data in various formats. This data was first read and sorted (coded) by our data analysts, using NVivo software to create a uniform format for all data (polls and comments) to be coded into.
Every idea proposed was read by analysts and categorised into topics relevant to their meaning. Each Ideas topic was then synthesised to identify common points and singular ideas. The actions and barriers associated with each of the ideas were then synthesised following the same approach. The total number of ideas, actions and barriers under topics were presented as summaries.
Result
Global Research prepared a comprehensive report using the findings gathered during the analysis phase of this project. The report was presented in the most appropriate format for the data collected and the primary audience that would be using it - City of Sydney’s 2050 Citizens Jury. The diverse data sources were presented as summary charts, a synthesis of written comments and word clouds. The second part of the body of the report presents the findings from the five table discussions.
The final report presented by Global Research is now available for public viewing on the City of Sydney website here.
Outcome
Global Research’s analysis was the bridge between the 4,226 ideas provided by the 283 Sydney stakeholders who represented multiple realms, and the 50 Citizens Jury members who deliberated to prepare the Sydney 2050 Concepts Report. Without a systematic consolidation of these ideas, the information would have been overwhelming and not easily digestible. The analysis made it possible for the thousands of diverse ideas collected to be assessed and incorporated into deliberations to build the future that Sydney’s community seeks.