Weighted Voting

This is useful when there are concerns about either A) having the ability to implement a decision or B) people expressing strong opinions without considering the real implications of implementing those opinions.

1. People are asked to vote among a variety of options. This voting can be done a variety of ways including paper or online surveys, sticky dots on flipcharts or white boards, etc.
2. People are asked to mark those votes according to some criteria such as the voters willingness to implement that decision. For example, people might mark a regular vote with a blue dot, but use a red dot to indicate that they have a burning passion to work on that item.
3. Tally the results to see what all the votes were for and which items received highly weighted votes. This can be done in a variety of ways:

• any item that got a special vote (e.g. willingness to implement) might automatically be in a category or accepted as an agreed upon action. This may require further discussion however, depending on the nature of the material. Some participants may have specific objections to certain items being acted upon.
• All votes are tallied up but special votes are given a particular weight (e.g. special votes are worth 3 regular votes). If this is the approach used, you must first consider if it’s okay for an individual highly weight all of their votes. In some cases this would be appropriate and useful information, but in other cases this wouldn’t work.

 

http://detroitfacilitationguild.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/amoeba-discussion/

Amoeba Discussion

This is a useful way to quickly gather information and conduct discussion on a topic while getting input from all participants. It also helps get input from people in a less verbal way and helps add energy to a meeting by getting people out of their seats.

CONS: doesn’t always worked in tight spaces or places with fixed furniture. Also can cause problems for people with mobility disabilities.

1. Tell people that for this part of the meeting, they should move around at any time to show their opinion. They should feel free to move at any time to show any changes in their opinion in the course of the discussion.
2. Ask someone to state an opinion on the topic at hand.
3. Ask that person to stand in a particular place in the room and ask others to move to stand closer to or farther from that person depending on how much they agree with that opinion.
4. Ask someone who is standing still or standing far away from that last opinion to state their opinion.
5. Define a location in the room for that opinion (possibly where that person is already standing) and remind people to move as they see fit to represent their opinion in relation to these different options.
6. Summarize or ask someone in the group to summarize what pattern emerged.
7. Return to step 4 and repeat all following steps as needed.

This process may just highlight different opinions and stances on a topic and can be a useful tool for gathering information and eliciting new information and opinions. However, it can sometimes lead to decision making. As people see the emerging patterns, they may state an opinion or idea which is a modification on other stances which everyone can agree with. Suddenly instead of having 4 different camps across the room, everyone is clustered into one spot: consensus or clarity has emerged!

If trying to create agreement, then modify step 4 and ask for anyone to try to make a statement that they think everyone could agree with and repeat as needed.

Standing Line

This tool is really useful for getting people out of “talking head” mode and general increases energy in the room quickly by getting people to walk around. Also, it creates a really fast way to visually “read” what’s going on with an issue without a lot of discussion while simultaneously getting everyone’s input (including those who may not be especially verbal in meetings).

CONS: doesn’t always worked in tight spaces or places with fixed furniture. Also can cause problems for people with mobility disabilities.

1. Pose a question with two different possible answers (e.g. “Do you support this proposal: yes or no:” or “Do you think chances of this succeeding are: hi or low?” or “What’s a higher priority: economic development or environmental protection?”) or state two opinions or positions (e.g. “We should make membership free: strongly agree or strongly disagree.” or “Some people are racist vs. everyone is racist.”)
2. Assign one answer or position to one side of the room, and the other position or answer to the other side.
3. Ask meeting participants to get up and move to stand one one side or the other, or somewhere in the middle to show their opinion.
4. Note or ask participants to note what pattern emerged
5. Tell participants that they should feel free to move in real-time to show if they have any changes in opinion during the discussion – it’s important for participants to realize that their “position” on the line is welcome to change.
6. Ask clarifying questions as needed: for example, for folks standing somewhere in the middle of the line might be asked to explain why they’re standing where they are.
7. Depending on what’s said or what discussion ensues, it might be necessary to remind participants that they can move to show any changes in their opinion.
8. If useful or necessary, ask someone to define an answer or opinion which doesn’t fit on the defined line. Then define a new area on the floor to represent this opinion and ask people to move to show their affinity among these three options. Return to step 4 and continue forward as needed. Note that this step basically turns “standing line” into “amoeba discussion“.

Gradients of Agreement

This tool is useful for getting a sense of where people stand on difficult decisions and helping the group move along more quickly with a decision.

1. Draw a line on the board with “Veto” at one end and “Endorse” at the other with three points on the line in between. The whole lines reads, in this order: Veto — Disagree, won’t block — Mixed —Agree with reservations — Endorse
2. Write the question under consideration above this line.
3. Group decides a metric for what’s the standard for moving ahead (e.g. okay to move ahead with any vetos? Agree to move ahead as long as at least half of group is at agree with reservation, or… whatever). It’s important that this is done before the next step.
4. People then vote for where they are on the gradient. Note this can be done in a variety of ways, including assigning numbers 1-5 for each position and then asking people to hold up the # of fingers for their vote.
5. Results are tallied and compared to metric for moving ahead.
6. Anyone who voted “low” on the scale then stands up and states their objections.
7. When changes or adjustments are possible, then the question is changed and people re-vote.

Variant: This can be done with a “standing line” where people actually stand where they “vote” on a line and then state their reasons.

Revolving Flipcharts

 

1. Each workgroup has a specific color marker they use (e.g labor uses blue, enviros use green)
2. Each workgroup gets a long while to create their priorities or brainstorm.
3. Then each workgroup rotates to the next workgroups’ flipchart, taking their colored marker with them. They then add their own priorities for that sector and check their agreement with the existing priorities already recorded. This portion gets less time that each workgroup got in their “native” flipchart. Suggested split: native interest one time, each other interest use half that time. E.g. get 10 minutes at “homebase”, then 5 minutes at each other base and then 5 minutes back at original “homebase”
4. Continued to rotate until each group has had input on each section.
5. A dedicated facilitator stays at each board through the whole process so they can explain previous entries.
6. Can also have people return to their original”homebase” to review other inputs and respond to those.

A great tool for tapping expertise and opinions on specific subject matter in a way that honors most committted stakeholders for each area, while also gathering input from those with interests focused on other areas. Can help tap empathy (e.g. you may be an environmentalist, but ask what interests labor would have in this situation) while quickly educating and building upon a foundation of the viewpoint of those most deeply steeped in that issue.

Bridge Building

Group describes the desired future that a group is working toward
(if larger than 12 break out and report back)
Post desired future on R-hand of wall

Current reality – now have groups record existing state of the group
Post on L-hand of wall

Then have group list what activities are needed to bridge those two realities
post and write up this sheet between the other two sheets.

This process helps the group visualize and clarify the actions needed to get a to a particular goal.

September 19, 2011

DFG Meeting Notes
9/19/2011

Facilitator: Jen Young and Alison Heeres
Notes: Jacob Corvidae

Present: Alison, Sandra, Amit, Jess, Jen, Jacob, Sarah Coffey

Agenda:

1. Parameters for Participation
2. Exploring Collaboration
3. Discussion based on D4 case study
4. Wrap-up

1. Parameters for Participation

DFG – Membership Discussion
Sandra presented the idea of Seasonal or spin-off cohorts.

Factors:
retain some trust/intimacy for safe space of the cohort
provide sufficient support and reduce barriers to creating new cohorts

The proposal is this:
For now, we will keep membership limited to those that are already part of the current email list. Our meetings will include a public portion (generally the first half, focused on introducing tools and techniques) and a member-only section (generally focused on working on a real-life case study and possibly providing feedback to facilitators of that evening actual meeting). Anyone may be invited to attend the public portion of the meetings.

Interests represented in the proposal:
a) provide a safe and trusted space for candid feedback and discussion on real-life case studies and among the facilitation cohort;
b) provide a way for people not currently involved to learn more about facilitation

Discussion also included some thoughts around whether/how new attendees might possibly meet others to join a facilitation cohort or start one their own cohort, what mentoring or support for creating new cohorts might look like, whether new cohorts would also be part of the “Detroit Facilitation Guild” and what that means. These items all need more thought and discussion. We also discussed the possibility that current membership might have some parameters set, such as minimum participation or attendance requirements.

DECISION: We’ll send this recommended proposal to the email list and inform folks that the proposal will become a decision if no one has any major objections. If there are no objections: this decision stands within one week (so that we can invite folks to next meeting). If there are objections, we’ll discuss further and make a decision at next month’s meeting.

TASK: Jacob will sound out that communication with the Meeting notes.

Shared values and norms will be tackled at the next DFG meeting.

2. Exploring Collaboration AND 3. Discussion based on D4 case study

Reviewed Collaboration outline and questions drafted by Ali and Jen – and available on google docs. This is really intended for the scenario of a multi-organization collaboration (as opposed to other collaborative settings).

Note distinction of 2 types of collaboratin:
a. full-scale collaboration
- actual sharing of resources, etc.
b. coordination
- many groups working together, but not requiring sharing of tasks, budgets, etc.

Mutually beneficial outcomes and goals doesn’t necessarily require shared values.
When should one be explicit about values that aren’t shared? Being transparent about the idea of not having shared values in the context of stating what the shared goals/values are may be helpful.

Before figuring out how to make a collaborative functional, how do we answer the question of when a collaborative is even the appropriate model?

————————

Sandra gave an intro to D4 as a case study for running our exploration of some collaborative tools.
Group has been meeting for 18 months
has different topic-based workgroups
within those groups are different campaigns working on specific projects
Group has a working meeting scheduled this week to start hammering out shared systems.
Individual sector groups don’t have full agreement within their sector, much less with rest of group
Indifiduals are supposed to come to Thursday meeting with a pre-filled out brainstorm of values, “must haves” etc.

Some challenges:
1. Different groups have different goals and skillsets — group works to bring a broader set of interests to all of those individual efforts
2. Since they’ve been working to build this collaborative, they haven’t had to make some hard decisions about what the baseline is of the groups’ standards are. For example, labor has claimed success on several labor-benefit agreements, but these haven’t included community or environmental benefits which the D4 collaborative has endorsed as important goals.
3. Don’t have shared goals, norms etc. agreed upon yet, so it’s hard to enact these.

———————-

Ali, Jess and Amit presented several tools for possible use here:

A) Bridge Building
Group describes the desired future that a group is working toward
(if larger than 12 break out and report back)
Post desired future on R-hand of wall

Current reality – now have groups record existing state of the group
Post on L-hand of wall

Then have group list what activities are needed to bridge those two realities
post and write up this sheet between the other two sheets.

discussion: this might be too much for the D4 sectors – may need a more specific tool to start.

B) Rotating Sheets / Flipcharts
Each workgroup has a specific color marker they use (e.g labor uses blue, enviros use green)
Each workgroup gets a long while to create their priorities or brainstorm.
Then each workgroup rotates to the next workgroups’ flipchart, taking their colored marker with them. They then add their own priorities for that sector and check their agreement with the existing priorities already recorded. This portion gets less time that each workgroup got in their “native” flipchart. Suggested split: native interest one time, each other interest use half that time. E.g. get 10 minutes at “homebase”, then 5 minutes at each other base and then 5 minutes back at original “homebase”
Continued to rotate until each group has had input on each section.
A dedicated facilitator stays at each board through the whole process so they can explain previous entries.
Can also have people return to their original

C) Gradients of agreement
Jess will send info on this to group.
Start with a line with Veto at one end and Endorse at the other with three points on the line in between. The whole lines reads, in this order:
Veto
Disagree, won’t block
Mixed
Agree with reservations
Endorse
Write a question above this line.
Group decides a metric for what’s the standard for moving ahead (e.g. okay to move ahead with any vetos? Agee to move ahead as long as at least half of group is at agree with reservation, or… whatever).
People then vote for where they are on the gradient.
Results are tallied and compared to metric for moving ahead.
Anyone who voted “low” on the scale then stands up and states their objections. When changes or adjustments are possible, then the question is changed and people re-vote.
This can be done with a “standing line” where people actually stand where they “vote” on a line and then state their reasons.

D) Voting Commitments
Uses some voting mechanism (sticky dots or …), but votes are weighted on the level of commitment to actually enact what’s being voted on.
Be wary of using voting commitments with gradients of agreements

Do we need to address “must have” or “bottom line” issues at this meeting?
Discussion about a desire to know the deep needs of each sector without letting them lock into specific positions instead of the positive outcomes and values that they’re trying to achieve.

Sandra plans to use Rotating Sheets approach for their workgroup break-out session.

——————————–

Other feedback on draft agenda:
a) For one-on-ones: make sure people pick someone they don’t know and someone from a different sector
b) for CBA overview have 5 minute scheduled to present, but already expect presenter will talk longer: have presenter provide a one-page overview that’s a hand-out and then 5 minute is just for clarifying questions.
c) Discussion section at end only has 5 minutes – won’t really discuss in that — make it “Summary” instead.

4. Wrap Up

Was the collaboration questions spreadsheet that Ali and Jen created useful? What do we do with this? We discussed some and will continue discussion off-line.

Next meeting:
Jess and Amit will present tools for 90 minutes hour, covering 2-3 different tools for creating shared norms and values for participation in the DFG.
last 30 minutes- ask for a volunteer ahead of time to provide a case study for discussion in the 2nd half. Jacob may have one, but will have to see where that other group is at within 2 weeks.

Amit might not be able to attend Monday, in which case Sandra will co-facilitate.
TASK: Amit will send out another poll to check on possibly rescheduling to later on monday, Oct. 17 or possibly to tuesday Oct. 18.

We had brief discussion about when to re-schedule meetings and when not.

post-meeting followup-discussion:
As we look for real-life case studies to discuss, we should make sure we don’t miss giving ourselves time to discuss and provide feedback on the actual facilitation of these meetings. Instead of just a 3 minute evaluation of the meeting, let’s plan on 15 minutes for discussion of the facilitation of the meeting. Great real-time learning opportunity.