Project Context
Project Context is where you establish the decision frame before designing any engagement. It answers the questions every later surface depends on: what kind of project is this, what decision is being made, what is genuinely open to influence, and what is already fixed.
This is Steps 1–3 of the engagement sequence. The quality of what you capture here directly determines how useful the Canvas, the Engagement Plan, and EVA’s suggestions are downstream — a specific context produces specific guidance; a vague one produces plausible-sounding filler.
If you skip this: engagement gets designed around assumptions instead of the actual decision. Constraints surface mid-engagement, communities discover the thing they came to influence was never open, and trust is spent that took years to build.
First: classify the project
The first time anyone opens Project Context on a new project, CE Canvas asks one question — can stakeholders influence substantive decisions?
- Engagement Project — stakeholders can influence substantive decisions. You continue into Project Context and the full engagement workflow.
- Communications Project — the project informs, educates, or promotes, but the decisions are made. CE Canvas switches the project to the Communication Canvas and communications-mode guidance.
The classification is set once and is durable across the project — but never locked. Change it any time from the Project Definition card (the Change action under the classification).
Why this comes first: calling a communications project an “engagement” is the single most damaging framing error in this field. It invites the community to influence a decision that is already made. The classification forces that honesty before any planning happens — and CE Canvas then keeps the workflow, canvas, and AI guidance consistent with the answer.
The Project Context workspace
Once classified, Project Context opens as a workspace.
Getting started banner — three ways to give EVA something to work from: Upload materials, Discover with EVA (researches your organisation’s public web presence), and Extract context with EVA (reads uploaded materials and drafts context fields). Dismiss it once you’re moving; reopen it from the header.
Project Definition card — the project description (edit it any time via Edit description, with Draft with EVA support) and the project classification (with its Change action).
Engagement Context — the decision-frame fields, confirmed one by one:
- The actions or decisions stakeholders can affect
- What is genuinely open to community influence
- What’s fixed and non-negotiable
- Decision-making authority
- Constraints and realities
- Timing anchors
- Additional context
An optional Risks & Sensitivities field captures historical context, equity gaps, or community trauma the strategy needs to navigate — surface it when it applies.
Each field shows its status (Needs input → confirmed). The progress panel tracks how many are complete; the Sources used panel lists which uploaded materials EVA is drawing from.
When the context is in good shape, the completion card offers an Export menu — download the Project Context as a branded PDF or Word document to share outside CE Canvas.
Recommended workflow
- Upload project materials first if documents exist — project briefs, council reports, prior engagement findings, policies, stakeholder research. Go to Project Materials in the sidebar, or use the banner’s Upload materials. EVA processes each document in the background.
- Extract context with EVA — EVA reads the processed materials and drafts each context field with sources attached. You review, edit, and confirm; you’re editing rather than writing from scratch.
- Confirm field by field — guided setup steps through each field. Accept the draft, edit it, write your own, or skip and return later.
- Continue to the Canvas once the foundations hold — the brief doesn’t need to be complete, but the decision space and what’s-open/what’s-fixed fields should be honest before you design anything.
Practitioner’s rule: if you can’t write one sentence for “what is genuinely open to community influence”, you are not ready to choose engagement methods. That sentence is the anchor for everything in the Canvas.
Re-entering and maintaining context
Context is not a form you fill once. Return to it when:
- A decision is made mid-project that changes what’s open to influence — update the field and tell the community if the change affects what they were told
- New materials arrive — upload them and re-run extraction; EVA updates its suggestions
- The project’s nature changes — use Change on the classification (an engagement project that loses its decision space should become a communications project, honestly)
Good practice
- Upload materials before drafting — EVA’s extraction with sources beats memory-based entry, and every claim stays traceable
- Write the fixed and non-negotiable field as if the community will read it — one day they might
- Keep timing anchors current; the Delivery Plan and milestone tracking depend on them
- Revisit context at every project phase change
Next steps
- Engagement Canvas — turn the decision frame into an engagement strategy
- Engagement Planning — the Planning hub showing all three planning surfaces
- Responsible Use of AI — how EVA’s drafting and extraction work