Description
The Discovery Process is a “community exploration methodology” developed and trademarked by James Kent of James Kent Associates (JKA). At the center of this process is the idea that descriptions of communities should be created around and with people in their natural daily settings and routines. The process involves interviewing and including people from numerous different groups and organizational levels within the community—average citizens, representatives of government or important civic organizations, and social entrepreneurs; formal and informal neighborhood groups; and larger community gatherings.
The Discovery Process uses outside researchers who observe, learn, and engage in the routines of the community. Image: James Kent
Associates
Steps
The first step in the Discovery Process is to identify the important structures, groups, and individuals that are representative of a community. Kent uses a literature review (newspaper articles, official community documents, books, and informal communications) to get a sense of the community and the important sectors. Seven cultural descriptors are used to clarify and describe these groups: publics, networks, settlement patterns, work routines, supporting services, recreational activities, and geographic boundaries. Contacts are made with numerous individuals in each of these categories, resulting in detailed interviews that are representative of the whole community. Team members make a number of contacts informally by visiting coffee shops, parks, bars, schools, and other locations that are central to community life; more formal contacts are made by identifying key individuals. Kent also holds chat sessions in distinct neighborhoods in the community, and village-level gatherings at which he engages people in discussions about the current state of their villages and their visions for the future. The process is diagrammed in Fig. 2.2. The Discovery Process officially ends with the creation of a community vision from the information gathered, but the vision also includes strategies to move the community toward the future ideal, and action steps to accomplish the strategies.
Pros and Cons
JKA’s trademarked process is essentially a way to do visioning, supplemented by the observations of impartial staff members. Innovations in this process perhaps allow for greater participation and more widespread representation of community views than many visioning exercises. The process is carried out by a professional consulting firm, which ensures that researchers are “Disciplined Strangers”—impartial, trained in social science techniques, and capable of covering a significant amount of ground. It is more difficult for a community to carry out the process on its own, since it would take community volunteers many months to complete all the interviews involved in Kent’s case studies and it is difficult for people to view their own communities objectively. Furthermore, the process seems to work very well in communities that have established networks, groups, and social capital; it would be more difficult to classify and describe a community that has fewer strengths and connections already in place.
Examples
Colorado’s Grand Valley employed James Kent Associates to develop a vision as part of its Grand Valley 2020 plan in 2001, as outlined in the case study above. JKA has also applied this process in Sierra County, NM and Medford, OR.