The challenges facing planning researchers and practitioners are increasingly complex and difficult to predict, model and control. Concurrently, participatory approaches to planning continue to be embedded in legal requirements, community expectations and in normative goals based on democracy and participation. In this context, there is a need to create planning processes that are responsive, adaptable and participatory. Despite this, urban planning is often criticised for reproducing existing inequalities and following path-dependent trajectories. This paper presents three approaches to participatory decision-making and planning; collaborative planning, a well-known planning tradition influenced by Habermasian ideal-speech concepts; transitions management, derived from sustainability transitions literature and; design thinking, derived from design disciplines. These approaches share a focus on stakeholder engagement and decision making in complex situations but are characterised by substantially different methodologies, theoretical groundings, priorities, goals and attitudes towards consensus and experimentation. Collaborative planning retains the greatest focus on power and representativeness, transitions management provides a complexity-informed normative focus on sustainable futures and design thinking provides a tangible and solutions-focused suite of tools designed for testing and implementing change. In this paper we present all three approaches, discussing their practical implications and theoretical insights.