You should think about what change you want to see as a result of your process. Primarily, this is the impact on your policy area or decision. You might also want to think about the impacts on others too — your own organisation or institution, the people taking part in the process, and/or wider society, for example campaigning groups or activists.
When thinking about impacts, it can be useful to think of three types of impact. Firstly, the decisions or elements (instrumental impacts) — the new ways of using and embedding participation and deliberation. This can be changes to policy, strategy, legislation or services, as well as behaviour change and a change to ways decisions are made.
Secondly, the mindset change (cultural impacts) — this includes changes of awareness and understanding, and recognition of participation and deliberation. Thirdly, the capacities,w which can be new expertise, resources and good practice, including the reprioritisation of resources. You might want to do impact mapping early on to work out what impacts you want to see, how you will measure them and how often. Remember you might not see some impacts for months or years after your participatory or deliberative process.