Background

“Consensus”

1. Group Structure

Hierarchical v Horizontal

2. Scale

3. Structure

Informal v Formal

4. Tasks

Consensus

1. Horizontal
2. Small scale
3. Structured
4. Deliberation
5. 100% approval?

100%

• Benefits:
  • Solidarity, ownership
  • Get ideas from the broadest base possible
  • Cultivate leadership
• Drawbacks:
  • Conservative
  • Insular
  • Selects for stubborn, loud
  • Directs attention inward
  • Slower

Hybrid Model

Why small consensus-
oriented groups?

• They are everywhere.
• Adequate tools to meet their needs do not exist.
• Their meeting practices are a gold standard for efficacy and sophistication.

Consensus Practices

• Facilitation tools:
  • Stacks
  • Progressive stacks
  • Clarifying questions
  • Points of process
  • Direct responses
  • Proposals
  • Friendly amendments
  • Straw polls
  • Discussion summaries
  • Tabling
• Meeting phases:
  • Orientation
  • Check-in
  • Announcements
  • Agenda
  • Breaks
  • Check-out
• Roles:
  • Facilitators
  • Note takers
  • Timekeepers
  • Vibes watchers
  • Shepherds
  • Buddies
• Hand signals:
  • Twinkles
  • Approval / disapproval
  • Block
  • Wrap-it-up
  • New proposal
  • Point of information
  • Direct response
• Formats:
  • Icebreakers / fire starters
  • Open stack
  • Go-around
  • Popcorn
  • World cafe
  • Dotstorm
  • Spectrogram
  • Solipsist's meeting
  • Neighbor interviews
  • Break-out groups

GDSS “levels”

DeSanctis & Gallupe, 1987

• Level 1: New channels or opportunities
• Level 2: Structure channels to increase efficacy
• Level 3: Perform reasoning or contribute content

I. Generating tasks

Planning	Level 1: Large screen display, graphical aids Level 2: Planning tools (e.g. PERT)
Creativity	Level 1: Anonymous input of ideas; pooling and display of ideas; search facilities to identify common ideas, eliminate duplicates Level 2: NGT, Brainstorming; Dotstorm, Firestarter

II. Choosing tasks

Intellective	Level 1: Data access and display; global search Level 2: Aids to finding the correct answer, e.g., forecasting models, multiattribute utility models
Preference	Level 1: Preference weighting and ranking with various schemes for determining the most favored alternative; voting schemes Level 2: Social judgment models; automated Delphi; Resolve app Level 3 Rule-based discussion emphasizing equal time to present opinion

III. Negotiative tasks

Cognitive conflict	Level 1: Summary and display of members' opinions; event histories Level 2: Using social judgment analysis (SJA), each member's judgments are analyzed by the system and then used as feedback to the individual member or the group; Ten Points, Resolve Level 3: Automatic mediation; automate Robert's Rules
Mixed Motive	Level 1: Voting solicitation and summary Level 2: Stakeholder analysis; Progressive Clock app Level 3: Rule base for controlling opinion expression; automatic mediation; automate Parliamentary procedure

IV. Executionary tasks

Basecamp, Asana, Wiggio, etc. Twinklepad

A Tautology for
Democratic Systems

If you build it, and they don't come, it's not a democratic system.

Structuration Theory

• Technologies impart structures (built in by designers).
• Users appropriate and modify these structures, and adapt them or adapt to them.
• Groups and technologies emerge changed by the reflexive process.

As an analytical lens:

• Works with real-world groups
• Takes into account the collision between existing group structures/practices and technologically imposed ones.
• Considers adoption, appropriation, diffusion as reflexive process.

Current approaches

1. Forum plus voting

Current approaches

2. Large-scale e-democracy

Barriers to use

• "It's too hard... they think it's their fault, that they're just not good at technology."
• "It doesn't work with current policy."
• "The thought of more email makes me anxious."
• Security fears
• Efficacy, stability

InterTwinkles

Research Questions

1. What are the design considerations for an online system for consensus decision making?
   
2. In what ways and for what reasons is the designed system appropriated, used, or abandoned by real-world groups?
   
3. How can consensus-oriented groups do their work better online?

Methods

1. Participatory design => Iterative design
   • Documentation of design sessions and artifacts
   • Prototype stages and rationales
2. Workshop process for bringing groups on board
   • Descriptive documentation
3. Structurational analysis of appropriation
   • Interviews and observations to document group structures, policies, and practices
   • Metrics of feature usage
   • Post-interviews to document experiences.

First attempt, 2011

Participatory workshops

Real-time <=> async

Flexible Access Control

Small-group oriented

Extensible

Architected for appropriation
by developers

• Base system:
  users, groups, search, notifications, events.
• Apps as plugins:
  Dotstorm, Resolve, Ten Points
• API for external services.
• Easy to install on your own server.
  https://github.com/yourcelf/intertwinkles

Scenario

Geographically distributed org

Q: What should we choose as the theme for our conference next year?

Finalize decision

Workshops

• Teach tools hands on
• Develop plans for policy integration together
• Establish methods for reflection and documentation
• Ensure accessibility to all group members
• Learn about group needs and iterate designs
• Find ways to share and rotate roles for facilitation and responsibility
• Goal: Inspire the same critical creativity to online tools that groups use for offline process.

Structurational Analysis

Orlikowsky, Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A Practice Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations, 2008