At 09:30 PM 3/9/00 -0800, you wrote: >Michelle and Linda, > >You raise a topic of great interest to me in your recent messages on the >"voting process". >I had been using an approach to convergence other than by "votint", an >approach that some of us developed at the OSonOS, 3 years ago in >Toronto, but was not totally content with it so I tried something else >recently that I like better. ******************************** Diane -- this is a real contribution and I am delighted to see how it has grown and matured since Toronto. I hope you will keep us updated. I will be curious to see what happens when you use it with a reasonably large group, 500-1000 for example. I am sure that it is simpler in execution than it looks on paper (screen), but it does seem to me that there are a lot of steps and instructions. But carry on, it can only get better.
With reference to some of the comments you made about the process I have described in the User's Guide -- your concerns are genuine, but my experience says that they can all be handled, at least to the group's satisfaction. There are, however, several critical points to keep one's eye on. First, to emphasize that even though we will be voting, it is not a standard (political) win/lose sort of thing. I always point out that no matter what the outcome of the prioitization, all the issues raised are still in the book. They were (and are) important to somebody, and everybody is encouraged to pursue their passion with responsibility. The only thing the prioitization does is to allow the group to surface and see where the collective energy is as a means of focusing future effort and work. The fact that a single issue with several names can split the vote, as it were, can be handled by identifying one of the names, and inviting people to vote for that "name" to indicate that issue. All this can be dealt with the night before as soon as the book has been put together. My practice has been to meet with the sponsors to identify such "multi-name / single issue situations" I council a conservative approach -- that issues only be combined under a single name if it is flagrantly, blatantly obvious that they are the same. As a check, we consult with the original conveners/initiators (I like "initiators"). If they all agree, we have a combination. If not -- Not. Conservatism is really important here, 'cause the sponsoring group may get carried away and put a whole mess of stuff together. That happened once, and it was very unpleasant -- never again! And then there is your point that issues change as they are discussed. True. My approach to this has been to ask people (all participants) to use the reported discussion (it's in the book) as the definition of the issue. So no matter what the original title was, it is what they talked about that counts. I also point out that this is not a popularity contest. So even if a participant might totally disagree with the tenor of the discussion and the conclusions offered -- but feel the issue is an important one -- it is important and should be included amongst their priorities. I can understand that this may appear pretty sloppy, and were the total process to have been conducted only on paper or on-line, I think the concern might be a real one. But in fact all the people involved have been deeply engaged for at least a day and preferably two. Parenthetically, this is one major reason why I would never do less than a day, and better two days, in Open Space -- particularly if this is a "first time" for the group. If it is important to do -- do it well, I say. Anyhow, by the time we get to prioitization the old "collective consciousness" (whatever that is) has been working overtime, and a remarkable level of consensus has generally been achieved in terms of what's important, even if there is limited consensus as to what should be done. At some level, the prioitization comes rather like a blinding flash of the obvious. The TASC software that I use reports the results as a bar graph. Thus a quick eyeball will tell anyone which issues have "popped to the top." I look (in consultation with the Sponsors) for the first or second major breaks. Inevitably (or at least it has been the case so far) some finite number of issues (6? 12?) just leap out at you. And then there are the rest. The bar graph is printed up immediately after the voting, and made available to all participants so they can see from themselves. In a close call, I include one more issue. To date, there has never been a question. Is it perfect? No! But this is where the large numbers come in and work to your benefit. With a small group (25-50) the numbers are so small that there could be difficulty -- although I must say that even when I have used this with groups of 30-40, it seems to work very well. However, when you have 600 voters, one vote one way or another, will just wash out -- especially when you are talking about the dominant issues. And the fact that it isn't perfect, and will doubtless change over time gives you an opportunity to state the obvious. This Open Space is just a start. The group may have accomplished much -- but there is much left to be done... And so you go on, but at the very least you can now go on from a pretty clear starting place. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, MD 20854 USA phone 301-469-9269 fax 301-983-9314 website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh Open Space Institute websites www.openspaceworld.org