The selection of workshop participants greatly influences the outcome of both the risk assessment and the prioritization of tools. Hence, selecting the participants deserves special attention.
Management participation
Representatives of the management and/or Board of Directors must be present during key moments of the workshop to underline support from the top for the integrity change process and to lend authority to decisions taken during the workshop.
Diversity
Especially the risk assessment requires participants with deep insight into operational processes and issues. Ideally, all departments of the organization should be represented and the group should be balanced out between management and operational staff.
Gender
Gender equality can be a key factor in the working conditions and is therefore strongly linked to integrity. Moreover, some integrity risks are perceived differently by men and women. For this reason, representatives from both genders should take part in the workshop.
Size
Finally, group size is an important success factor. If the group is too large (> 10), the voices of individuals may get lost in the bulk of dominant participants. To avoid this situation, large groups should be split up into smaller groups, where all participants receive appropriate attention. The ideal composition of these small groups depends very much on the targeted outcome of the discussion.
If it is about discussing sensitive issues or about getting a variety of opinions and viewpoints, then staff from the same hierarchy level or department can be grouped up and the results of the group sessions fed back to the whole group in plenary presentations. If the aim of the group discussion is about breaking the ice at the beginning of a workshop or getting a consolidated decision for the whole organization (i.e. a consolidated selection of integrity tools), then the first consolidation step should be done by mixing hierarchy levels and departments in the small groups and feeding back results to the whole group where they can be further consolidated.