convergence with "stickie dots"

[WB-TrainingConsultingDevelopment]

Hi Penny,

no direct answer, but related.

I used the sticke dots techniques as a standard technique not only for ost-convergence processes very often in "new democracies" where people are especially sensible for how "voting processes" are (ab)used, e.g. Bulgaria, Cape Verde, Mosambique.
Very often the participants insisted to make anonymos "votes" (e.g. by turning around the flip-charts, by voting then one-by-one) and did not like the public dot giving at all. Their argument was, that it is evident, that there is a strong influence by opinion leaders exerted to those who do not feel so strong. So the latter have to be protected from the former.

Even when I tried to clear, that prioritizing, visualizing the actual situation etc. is not exactly voting, they still saw that influence thing going. I learnt to take care for such "sensibilities"

Bernd

On Wed, 5 Mar 2003 22:16:49 -0800, Penny Scott wrote:
hi joelle,

i have a question about convergence in os using these dots; do context and
situation have any bearing on how people vote using this method? or put
another way...can there be a peer pressure factor? the reason i'm asking is
because i was in a meeting this week -- not os -- where we used sticky dots
to converge on a large number of strategic goals the group had brainstormed
and felt were important. toward the end of the stickydot-placing-frenzy, it
seemed to me that people were looking around and making assessments as to
where their dots would have the most weight. it seemed to lose purity at
that point. the process became more political for sure.

any thoughts? Penny


----- Original Message -----
From: Joelle Lyons Everett <JLEShelton at aol.com>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 8:51 PM
Subject: Re: convergence with "stickie dots"


> Lisa--
>
> This is a question I have wondered about also--but I am not a
mathematician.
>
> One phenomenon that I have observed with almost any method of convergence
is
> that a handful of ideas generally come to the top.  Don't know whether
this
> is a mathematical phenomenon or a reflection of underlying agreement in
the
> group, which may have been invisible up to this point.  Seems like it
might
> be related to the fact that the same conversation often goes on in several
> breakout sessions, regardless of the posted session topic.
>
> There are a lot of things in group dynamics which I can observe but not
> explain. And I hope someone has a mathematical formula for deciding how
many
> dots to give out.
>
> Joelle
>
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