Convergence-a different angle

[Harrison Owen]

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
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