Hi!
Want to deploy consul but wanted to understand what kind of team/tech skills do I need to do so? Time it takes? Can it work together with a website created on WordPress?
I’m a lawyer, so please, bear with me 
Also, can non-tech people make architectural changes (like selecting which features to offer, like only the part to gather ideas, but not the one on participatory budgeting, etc) or a developer will always be needed?
Hello! The reality that if you do not have technical knowledge it will be difficult to make a deploy of consul. You need the help of a programmer to be able to make it work.
The programmer would need to have knowledge of Ruby On Rails although if he does not have it with a time of investigation he can make it work. Also for a quick deploy I would need Docker’s knowledge.
Regarding the wordpress, there is no problem that they are in the same environment but it also has to be configured so that there is no problem.
Much is possible without a programmer, but the main configuration you need a programmer, such as the system deploy, and then the regional configuration, the census to then generate users, etc.
Best regards!
Hi @Dino!! Sorry for delay to answer you!!!
It is not impossible to a non-tech person to install Consul, but it could be a hard task to do.
If you want to install it in your pc, the first thing is to setup the environment. For Mac and Linux is easier, with Windows I’ve tried once to help a person and we didn’t succeed. And the Docker is the responsible to create this env. for the application. You can follow these steps:
https://consul_docs.gitbooks.io/docs/content/en/getting_started/docker.html
That in summary is: install Docker and Docker-compose, then install Consul using Docker.
About running Consul + Wordpress. I’m not sure if is possible to easily integrate them. Mainly because Consul is a software using Ruby On Rails as a programming language + PostgreSQL database. And Wordpress uses PHP as programming language + Mysql database, which requires a completely different environment to running it.
So the way for integrate it is using APIs, but also requires that Consul had some “module” or “plugin” to show blog posts, and that module could consume some API (Wordpress has an API), and that today doesn’t exists on Consul - sadly. But is possible to find or hire a programmer to develop it because it is Open Source!! 
I hope to have helped you, even late! haha
a big hug to you dear!
Thank you @Nathan and @vanessametonini it helps a lot!
Think you are both right. Have talked to a couple of programmers and they all have mentioned the same. Deployment the system not so hard, but then it gets difficult with the census data, authentication, map onf neighborhoods, etc.
Is there some kind of documentation about the different methods cities have used to make sure 1 person 1 vote, particularly re: participatory budgeting?
Can consul integrate an SMS authentication system? Where users add their phone, then they receive a unique code, to get access to create a login? That’s how I participated on the exercise done in my neighborhood in NYC.
Anyways, thank you in advance! Have a great weekend : )