Public Lab Wiki documentation

This page includes resources for facilitation for meetings, and decision making processes. Please edit and add!

Before your meeting:

• Find a meeting time that works for people you want to attend. A doodle poll can be a good tool for setting a meeting time.
• Find a meeting space that can accommodate your group and make everyone comfortable. Some important things to consider are the size of your group, how you want the room setup and if the space will be accessible for everyone (handicap accessible, non-binary bathrooms)
• Set and send an agenda. This helps people know what to expect and what you're hoping to accomplish in person.

Meeting ground rules

Ground rules are really helpful for meetings. It's important that people buy into the ground rules before meetings start and that everyone has the chance to weigh in and add others they see as being important. Below is a list of some ground rules that can be helpful:

• Ask for clarification - anyone can ask for clarification at the meeting. This helps to make sure everyone stays on the same page, that no one is misunderstood, and that no one is left out by simple things such as acronyms that could be clarified.
• Consider best intentions - by setting up a mental frame that everyone is coming to the meeting space with the best intentions, and that comments said there were said with good intentions, helps participants to contemplate what is said, consider positive frames and ensures that no one is jumping to negative conclusions.
• Be constructive with comments not destructive - ensure that people are building on conversations and ideas instead of taking them down. It's okay to disagree, but disagree in a constructive way.
• Be a steward of the time and space - when everyone is a steward of the time and space, it takes the pressure off the person or group who might be facilitating. When everyone takes ownership of the space, participants can help with things like note taking, time keeping and keeping the meeting space clean.
• Be fully present- when you go to an event or a meeting, you dedicate time to that issue. It's important to recognize for yourself that you've done that and to recognize that others in the room have done it as well. To be fully present means that participants are listening, interacting, and not allowing themselves to be distracted by things like email or cell phones.
• Keep comments new, and under one minute Often times in meetings when we're agreeing, we have a tendency to repeat things others have said. One strategy you can use to show support is to snap or wave your fingers to show support for an idea instead of voicing something someone has already said. Also, it's important to limit speaking time so that only one point is made by each speaker and it's kept to under a minute to give everyone a chance to speak who wants to and to make sure we're not losing the point.
• Keep track of the topics to circle back to - meeting agendas can derail when we realize we have things to talk about other than what we've set out to do. It's important to keep track of things you want to circle back to, but recognize when it's off topic. It's important to allow the group to keep a list of these and offer time to circle back to these issues. Sometimes this strategy is called the "Parking Lot" or the "Bike Lot" as in "let's write down that idea and put it in the bike lot."
• Use stack - keeping stack in a meeting can be a useful tool for helping to make sure that everyone is heard and we're not losing people in the conversation. Stack is a list of people who wish to speak on the topic. One strategy in stack is to bump people to the top of the list who haven't spoken before.

Resources on Ground Rules:

• “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing

Facilitation and Decision Making Models

Collaborative decision making methods:

• Spokes Council Model
  Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
• Sociocracy
  Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision.
• University of Michigan's Facilitating Collaborative Public Decisions

Voting:

• Consensus Decision-Making via Voting
  Other resources here
• Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)
  * Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties
  • Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..."
  • Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros:* nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation
    • anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process"
    • no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed
• Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)*
  Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with consensus.
  • If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group
  • Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote to block
  • Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."
• The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association
  If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation resources

• The World Cafe Method
• Facilitation Skills Training Manual from USAID
• Anti-Opressive Facitation from the Aorta Collective
• Parliamentary procedure: Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.. IE: what you can expect to see at your local town hall meeting.

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

This page includes resources for facilitation for meetings, and decision making processes. Please edit and add!

Before your meeting:

• Find a meeting time that works for people you want to attend. A doodle poll can be a good tool for setting a meeting time.
• Find a meeting space that can accommodate your group and make everyone comfortable. Some important things to consider are the size of your group, how you want the room setup and if the space will be accessible for everyone (handicap accessible, non-binary bathrooms)
• Set and send an agenda. This helps people know what to expect and what you're hoping to accomplish in person.

Meeting ground rules

Ground rules are really helpful for meetings. It's important that people buy into the ground rules before meetings start and that everyone has the chance to weigh in and add others they see as being important. Below is a list of some ground rules that can be helpful:

• Ask for clarification - anyone can ask for clarification at the meeting. This helps to make sure everyone stays on the same page, that no one is misunderstood, and that no one is left out by simple things such as acronyms that could be clarified.
• Consider best intentions - by setting up a mental frame that everyone is coming to the meeting space with the best intentions, and that comments said there were said with good intentions, helps participants to contemplate what is said, consider positive frames and ensures that no one is jumping to negative conclusions.
• Be constructive with comments not destructive - ensure that people are building on conversations and ideas instead of taking them down. It's okay to disagree, but disagree in a constructive way.
• Be a steward of the time and space - when everyone is a steward of the time and space, it takes the pressure off the person or group who might be facilitating. When everyone takes ownership of the space, participants can help with things like note taking, time keeping and keeping the meeting space clean.
• Be fully present- when you go to an event or a meeting, you dedicate time to that issue. It's important to recognize for yourself that you've done that and to recognize that others in the room have done it as well. To be fully present means that participants are listening, interacting, and not allowing themselves to be distracted by things like email or cell phones.
• Keep comments new, and under one minute Often times in meetings when we're agreeing, we have a tendency to repeat things others have said. One strategy you can use to show support is to snap or wave your fingers to show support for an idea instead of voicing something someone has already said. Also, it's important to limit speaking time so that only one point is made by each speaker and it's kept to under a minute to give everyone a chance to speak who wants to and to make sure we're not losing the point.
• Keep track of the topics to circle back to - meeting agendas can derail when we realize we have things to talk about other than what we've set out to do. It's important to keep track of things you want to circle back to, but recognize when it's off topic. It's important to allow the group to keep a list of these and offer time to circle back to these issues. Sometimes this strategy is called the "Parking Lot" or the "Bike Lot" as in "let's write down that idea and put it in the bike lot."
• Use stack - keeping stack in a meeting can be a useful tool for helping to make sure that everyone is heard and we're not losing people in the conversation. Stack is a list of people who wish to speak on the topic. One strategy in stack is to bump people to the top of the list who haven't spoken before.

Resources on Ground Rules: - “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing

Facilitation and Decision Making Models

Collaborative decision making methods:

• Spokes Council Model
  Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
• Sociocracy
  Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision.
• University of Michigan's Facilitating Collaborative Public Decisions

Voting:

• Consensus Decision-Making via Voting
  Other resources here
• Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)
  * Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties
  • Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..."
  • Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros:* nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation
    • anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process"
    • no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed
• Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)*
  Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with consensus.
  • If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group
  • Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote to block
  • Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."
• The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association
  If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation resources

• The World Cafe Method
• Facilitation Skills Training Manual from USAID
• Anti-Opressive Facitation from the Aorta Collective
• Parliamentary procedure: Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.. IE: what you can expect to see at your local town hall meeting.

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

This page includes resources for facilitation for meetings, and decision making processes. Please edit and add!

Before you go into your meeting space:

• Find a meeting time that works for people you want to attend. A doodle poll can be a good tool for setting a meeting time.
• Find a meeting space that can accommodate your group and make everyone comfortable. Some important things to consider are the size of your group, how you want the room setup and if the space will be accessible for everyone (handicap accessible, non-binary bathrooms)
• Set and send an agenda. This helps people know what to expect and what you're hoping to accomplish in person.

Meeting ground rules

Ground rules are really helpful for meetings. It's important that people buy into the ground rules before meetings start and that everyone has the chance to weigh in and add others they see as being important. Below is a list of some ground rules that can be helpful:

• Ask for clarification - anyone can ask for clarification at the meeting. This helps to make sure everyone stays on the same page, that no one is misunderstood, and that no one is left out by simple things such as acronyms that could be clarified.
• Consider best intentions - by setting up a mental frame that everyone is coming to the meeting space with the best intentions, and that comments said there were said with good intentions, helps participants to contemplate what is said, consider positive frames and ensures that no one is jumping to negative conclusions.
• Be constructive with comments not destructive - ensure that people are building on conversations and ideas instead of taking them down. It's okay to disagree, but disagree in a constructive way.
• Be a steward of the time and space - when everyone is a steward of the time and space, it takes the pressure off the person or group who might be facilitating. When everyone takes ownership of the space, participants can help with things like note taking, time keeping and keeping the meeting space clean.
• Be fully present- when you go to an event or a meeting, you dedicate time to that issue. It's important to recognize for yourself that you've done that and to recognize that others in the room have done it as well. To be fully present means that participants are listening, interacting, and not allowing themselves to be distracted by things like email or cell phones.
• Keep comments new, and under one minute Often times in meetings when we're agreeing, we have a tendency to repeat things others have said. One strategy you can use to show support is to snap or wave your fingers to show support for an idea instead of voicing something someone has already said. Also, it's important to limit speaking time so that only one point is made by each speaker and it's kept to under a minute to give everyone a chance to speak who wants to and to make sure we're not losing the point.
• Keep track of the topics to circle back to - meeting agendas can derail when we realize we have things to talk about other than what we've set out to do. It's important to keep track of things you want to circle back to, but recognize when it's off topic. It's important to allow the group to keep a list of these and offer time to circle back to these issues. Sometimes this strategy is called the "Parking Lot" or the "Bike Lot" as in "let's write down that idea and put it in the bike lot."
• Use stack - keeping stack in a meeting can be a useful tool for helping to make sure that everyone is heard and we're not losing people in the conversation. Stack is a list of people who wish to speak on the topic. One strategy in stack is to bump people to the top of the list who haven't spoken before.

Resources on Ground Rules: - “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing

Facilitation and Decision Making Models

Collaborative decision making methods:

• Spokes Council Model
  Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
• Sociocracy
  Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision.
• University of Michigan's Facilitating Collaborative Public Decisions

Voting:

• Consensus Decision-Making via Voting
  Other resources here
• Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)
  * Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties
  • Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..."
  • Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros:* nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation
    • anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process"
    • no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed
• Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)*
  Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with consensus.
  • If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group
  • Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote to block
  • Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."
• The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association
  If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation resources

• The World Cafe Method
• Facilitation Skills Training Manual from USAID
• Anti-Opressive Facitation from the Aorta Collective
• Parliamentary procedure: Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.. IE: what you can expect to see at your local town hall meeting.

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

This page includes resources for facilitation for meetings, and decision making processes. Please edit and add!

Before you go into your meeting space:

• Find a meeting time that works for people you want to attend. A doodle poll can be a good tool for setting a meeting time.
• Find a meeting space that can accommodate your group and make everyone comfortable. Some important things to consider are the size of your group, how you want the room setup and if the space will be accessible for everyone (handicap accessible, non-binary bathrooms)
• Set and send an agenda. This helps people know what to expect and what you're hoping to accomplish in person.

Meeting ground rules

Ground rules are really helpful for meetings. It's important that people buy into the ground rules before meetings start and that everyone has the chance to weigh in and add others they see as being important. Below is a list of some ground rules that can be helpful:

• Ask for clarification - anyone can ask for clarification at the meeting. This helps to make sure everyone stays on the same page, that no one is misunderstood, and that no one is left out by simple things such as acronyms that could be clarified.
• Consider best intentions - by setting up a mental frame to that everyone is coming to the meeting space with the best intentions, and that comments said there were said with good intentions helps participants to contemplate what is said, consider positive frames and ensures that no one is jumping to negative conclusions.
• Be constructive with comments not destructive - ensure that people are building on conversations and ideas instead of taking them down. It's ok to disagree, but disagree in a constructive way.
• Be a steward of the time and space - when everyone is a steward of the time and space, it takes the pressure off the person or group who might be facilitating. When everyone takes ownership of the space, participants can help with things like note taking, time keeping and keeping the meeting space clean.
• Be fully present- when you go to an event or a meeting, you dedicate time to that issue. It's important to recognize for yourself that you've done that and to recognize that others in the room have done it as well. To be fully present means that participants are listening, interacting, and not allowing themselves to be distracted by things like email or cell phones.
• Keep comments new, and under one minute Often times in meetings when we're agreeing, we have a tendency to repeat things others have said. One strategy you can use to show support is to snap or wave your fingers to show support for an idea instead of voicing something someone has already said. Also, it's important to limit speaking time so that only one point is made by each speaker and it's kept to under a minute to give everyone a chance to speak who wants to and to make sure we're not losing the point.
• Keep track of the topics to circle back to - meeting agendas can derail when we realize we have things to talk about other than what we've set out to do. It's important to keep track of things you want to circle back to, but recognize when it's off topic. It's important to allow the group to keep a list of these and offer time to circle back to these issues. Sometimes this strategy is called the "Parking Lot" or the "Bike Lot" as in "let's write down that idea and put it in the bike lot."
• Use stack - keeping stack in a meeting can be a useful tool for helping to make sure that everyone is heard and we're not losing people in the conversation. Stack is a list of people who wish to speak on the topic. One strategy in stack is to bump people to the top of the list who haven't spoken before.

Resources on Ground Rules: - “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing

Facilitation and Decision Making Models

Collaborative decision making methods:

• Spokes Council Model
  Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
• Sociocracy
  Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision.
• University of Michigan's Facilitating Collaborative Public Decisions

Voting:

• Consensus Decision-Making via Voting
  Other resources here
• Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)
  * Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties
  • Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..."
  • Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros:* nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation
    • anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process"
    • no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed
• Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)*
  Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with consensus.
  • If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group
  • Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote to block
  • Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."
• The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association
  If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation resources

• The World Cafe Method
• Facilitation Skills Training Manual from USAID
• Anti-Opressive Facitation from the Aorta Collective
• Parliamentary procedure: Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.. IE: what you can expect to see at your local town hall meeting.

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

This page includes resources for facilitation for meetings, and decision making processes. Please edit and add!

Before you go into your meeting space:

• Find a meeting time that works for people you want to attend. A doodle poll can be a good tool for setting a meeting time.
• Find a meeting space that can accommodate your group and make everyone comfortable. Some important things to consider are the size of your group, how you want the room setup and if the space will be accessible for everyone (handicap accessible, non-binary bathrooms)
• Set and send an agenda. This helps people know what to expect and what you're hoping to accomplish in person.

Meeting ground rules

Ground rules are really helpful for meetings. It's important that people buy into the ground rules before meetings start and that everyone has the chance to weigh in and add others they see as being important. Below is a list of some ground rules that can be helpful:

• Ask for clarification - anyone can ask for clarification at the meeting. This helps to make sure everyone stays on the same page, that no one is misunderstood, and that no one is left out by simple things such as acronyms that could be clarified.
• Consider best intentions - by setting up a mental frame to that everyone is coming to the meeting space with the best intentions, and that comments said there were said with good intentions helps participants to contemplate what is said, consider positive frames and ensures that no one is jumping to negative conclusions.
• Be constructive with comments not destructive - ensure that people are building on conversations and ideas instead of taking them down. It's ok to disagree, but disagree in a constructive way.
• Be a steward of the time and space - when everyone is a steward of the time and space, it takes the pressure off the person or group who might be facilitating. When everyone takes ownership of the space, participants can help with things like note taking, time keeping and keeping the meeting space clean.
• Be fully present- when you go to an event or a meeting, you dedicate time to that issue. It's important to recognize for yourself that you've done that and to recognize that others in the room have done it as well. To be fully present means that participants are listening, interacting, and not allowing themselves to be distracted by things like email or cell phones.
• Keep comments new, and under one minute Often times in meetings when we're agreeing, we have a tendency to repeat things others have said. One strategy you can use to show support is to snap or wave your fingers to show support for an idea instead of voicing something someone has already said. Also, it's important to limit speaking time so that only one point is made by each speaker and it's kept to under a minute to give everyone a chance to speak who wants to and to make sure we're not losing the point.
• Keep track of the topics to circle back to - meeting agendas can derail when we realize we have things to talk about other than what we've set out to do. It's important to keep track of things you want to circle back to, but recognize when it's off topic. It's important to allow the group to keep a list of these and offer time to circle back to these issues. Sometimes this strategy is called the "Parking Lot" or the "Bike Lot" as in "let's write down that idea and put it in the bike lot."
• Use stack - keeping stack in a meeting can be a useful tool for helping to make sure that everyone is heard and we're not losing people in the conversation. Stack is a list of people who wish to speak on the topic. One strategy in stack is to bump people to the top of the list who haven't spoken before.

Resources on Ground Rules: - “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing

Facilitation and Decision Making Models

Collaborative decision making methods:

• Spokes Council Model
  Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
• Sociocracy
  Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision.
• University of Michigan's Facilitating Collaborative Public Decisions

Voting:

• Consensus Decision-Making via Voting
  Other resources here
• Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)
  * Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties
  • Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..."
  • Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros:* nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation
    • anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process"
    • no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed
• Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)*
  Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with consensus.
  • If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group
  • Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote to block
  • Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."
• The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association
  If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation resources

• The World Cafe Method
• Facilitation Skills Training Manual from USAID
• Anti-Opressive Facitation from the Aorta Collective
• Parliamentary procedure: Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.. IE: what you can expect to see at your local town hall meeting.

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

This page includes resources for facilitation for meetings, and decision making processes. Please edit and add!

Before you go into your meeting space:

• Find a meeting time that works for people you want to attend. A doodle poll can be a good tool for setting a meeting time.
• Find a meeting space that can accommodate your group and make everyone comfortable. Some important things to consider are the size of your group, how you want the room setup and if the space will be accessible for everyone (handicap accessible, non-binary bathrooms)
• Set and send an agenda. This helps people know what to expect and what you're hoping to accomplish in person.

Meeting ground rules

Ground rules are really helpful for meetings. It's important that people buy into the ground rules before meetings start and that everyone has the chance to weigh in and add others they see as being important. Below is a list of some ground rules that can be helpful:

• Ask for clarification - anyone can ask for clarification at the meeting. This helps to make sure everyone stays on the same page, that no one is misunderstood, and that no one is left out by simple things such as acronyms that could be clarified.
• Consider best intentions - by setting up a mental frame to that everyone is coming to the meeting space with the best intentions, and that comments said there were said with good intentions helps participants to contemplate what is said, consider positive frames and ensures that no one is jumping to negative conclusions.
• Be constructive with comments not destructive - ensure that people are building on conversations and ideas instead of taking them down. It's ok to disagree, but disagree in a constructive way.
• Be a steward of the time and space - when everyone is a steward of the time and space, it takes the pressure off the person or group who might be facilitating. When everyone takes ownership of the space, participants can help with things like note taking, time keeping and keeping the meeting space clean.
• Be fully present- when you go to an event or a meeting, you dedicate time to that issue. It's important to recognize for yourself that you've done that and to recognize that others in the room have done it as well. To be fully present means that participants are listening, interacting, and not allowing themselves to be distracted by things like email or cell phones.
• Keep comments new, and under one minute Often times in meetings when we're agreeing, we have a tendency to repeat things others have said. One strategy you can use to show support is to snap or wave your fingers to show support for an idea instead of voicing something someone has already said. Also, it's important to limit speaking time so that only one point is made by each speaker and it's kept to under a minute to give everyone a chance to speak who wants to and to make sure we're not losing the point.
• Keep track of the topics to circle back to - meeting agendas can derail when we realize we have things to talk about other than what we've set out to do. It's important to keep track of things you want to circle back to, but recognize when it's off topic. It's important to allow the group to keep a list of these and offer time to circle back to these issues. Sometimes this strategy is called the "Parking Lot" or the "Bike Lot" as in "let's write down that idea and put it in the bike lot."
• Use stack - keeping stack in a meeting can be a useful tool for helping to make sure that everyone is heard and we're not losing people in the conversation. Stack is a list of people who wish to speak on the topic. One strategy in stack is to bump people to the top of the list who haven't spoken before.

Resources on Ground Rules: - “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing

Facilitation and Decision Making Models

Collaborative decision making methods:

• Spokes Council Model
  Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
• Sociocracy
  Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision.
• University of Michigan's Facilitating Collaborative Public Decisions

Voting:

• Consensus Decision-Making via Voting
  Other resources here
• Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)
  * Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties
  • Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..."
  • Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros:* nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation
    • anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process"
    • no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed
• Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)*
  Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with consensus.
  • If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group
  • Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote to block
  • Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."
• The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association
  If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation resources

• The World Cafe Method
• Facilitation Skills Training Manual from USAID
• Anti-Opressive Facitation from the Aorta Collective
• Parliamentary procedure: Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure..

IE: what you can expect to see at your local town hall meeting.

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

This page includes resources for facilitation for meetings, and decision making processes. Please edit and add!

Before you go into your meeting space:

• Find a meeting time that works for people you want to attend. A doodle poll can be a good tool for setting a meeting time.
• Find a meeting space that can accommodate your group and make everyone comfortable. Some important things to consider are the size of your group, how you want the room setup and if the space will be accessible for everyone (handicap accessible, non-binary bathrooms)
• Set and send an agenda. This helps people know what to expect and what you're hoping to accomplish in person.

Meeting ground rules

Ground rules are really helpful for meetings. It's important that people buy into the ground rules before meetings start and that everyone has the chance to weigh in and add others they see as being important. Below is a list of some ground rules that can be helpful:

• Ask for clarification - anyone can ask for clarification at the meeting. This helps to make sure everyone stays on the same page, that no one is misunderstood, and that no one is left out by simple things such as acronyms that could be clarified.
• Consider best intentions - by setting up a mental frame to that everyone is coming to the meeting space with the best intentions, and that comments said there were said with good intentions helps participants to contemplate what is said, consider positive frames and ensures that no one is jumping to negative conclusions.
• Be constructive with comments not destructive - ensure that people are building on conversations and ideas instead of taking them down. It's ok to disagree, but disagree in a constructive way.
• Be a steward of the time and space - when everyone is a steward of the time and space, it takes the pressure off the person or group who might be facilitating. When everyone takes ownership of the space, participants can help with things like note taking, time keeping and keeping the meeting space clean.
• Be fully present- when you go to an event or a meeting, you dedicate time to that issue. It's important to recognize for yourself that you've done that and to recognize that others in the room have done it as well. To be fully present means that participants are listening, interacting, and not allowing themselves to be distracted by things like email or cell phones.
• Keep comments new, and under one minute Often times in meetings when we're agreeing, we have a tendency to repeat things others have said. One strategy you can use to show support is to snap or wave your fingers to show support for an idea instead of voicing something someone has already said. Also, it's important to limit speaking time so that only one point is made by each speaker and it's kept to under a minute to give everyone a chance to speak who wants to and to make sure we're not losing the point.
• Keep track of the topics to circle back to - meeting agendas can derail when we realize we have things to talk about other than what we've set out to do. It's important to keep track of things you want to circle back to, but recognize when it's off topic. It's important to allow the group to keep a list of these and offer time to circle back to these issues. Sometimes this strategy is called the "Parking Lot" or the "Bike Lot" as in "let's write down that idea and put it in the bike lot."
• Use stack - keeping stack in a meeting can be a useful tool for helping to make sure that everyone is heard and we're not losing people in the conversation. Stack is a list of people who wish to speak on the topic. One strategy in stack is to bump people to the top of the list who haven't spoken before.

Resources on Ground Rules: - “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing

Facilitation and Decision Making Models

Collaborative Decision making methods:

• Spokes Council Model
  Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
• Sociocracy
  Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision.
• University of Michigan's Facilitating Collaborative Public Decisions

Voting:

• Consensus Decision-Making via Voting
  Other resources here
• Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)
  * Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties
  • Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..."
  • Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros:* nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation
    • anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process"
    • no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed

Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)

Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with concensus. * If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group * Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote* to block * Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association

If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation resources

• The World Cafe Method
• Facilitation Skills Training Manual from USAID
• Anti-Opressive Facitation from the Aorta Collective
• Parliamentary procedure: Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure..

IE: what you can expect to see at your local town hall meeting.

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Before you go into your meeting space:

• Find a meeting time that works for people you want to attend. A doodle poll can be a good tool for setting a meeting time.
• Find a meeting space that can accommodate your group and make everyone comfortable. Some important things to consider are the size of your group, how you want the room setup and if the space will be accessible for everyone (handicap accessible, non-binary bathrooms)
• Set and send an agenda. This helps people know what to expect and what you're hoping to accomplish in person.

Meeting ground rules

Ground rules are really helpful for meetings. It's important that people buy into the ground rules before meetings start and that everyone has the chance to weigh in and add others they see as being important. Below is a list of some ground rules that can be helpful:

• Ask for clarification - anyone can ask for clarification at the meeting. This helps to make sure everyone stays on the same page, that no one is misunderstood, and that no one is left out by simple things such as acronyms that could be clarified.
• Consider best intentions - by setting up a mental frame to that everyone is coming to the meeting space with the best intentions, and that comments said there were said with good intentions helps participants to contemplate what is said, consider positive frames and ensures that no one is jumping to negative conclusions.
• Be constructive with comments not destructive - ensure that people are building on conversations and ideas instead of taking them down. It's ok to disagree, but disagree in a constructive way.
• Be a steward of the time and space - when everyone is a steward of the time and space, it takes the pressure off the person or group who might be facilitating. When everyone takes ownership of the space, participants can help with things like note taking, time keeping and keeping the meeting space clean.
• Be fully present- when you go to an event or a meeting, you dedicate time to that issue. It's important to recognize for yourself that you've done that and to recognize that others in the room have done it as well. To be fully present means that participants are listening, interacting, and not allowing themselves to be distracted by things like email or cell phones.
• Keep comments new, and under one minute Often times in meetings when we're agreeing, we have a tendency to repeat things others have said. One strategy you can use to show support is to snap or wave your fingers to show support for an idea instead of voicing something someone has already said. Also, it's important to limit speaking time so that only one point is made by each speaker and it's kept to under a minute to give everyone a chance to speak who wants to and to make sure we're not losing the point.
• Keep track of the topics to circle back to - meeting agendas can derail when we realize we have things to talk about other than what we've set out to do. It's important to keep track of things you want to circle back to, but recognize when it's off topic. It's important to allow the group to keep a list of these and offer time to circle back to these issues. Sometimes this strategy is called the "Parking Lot" or the "Bike Lot" as in "let's write down that idea and put it in the bike lot."
• Use stack - keeping stack in a meeting can be a useful tool for helping to make sure that everyone is heard and we're not losing people in the conversation. Stack is a list of people who wish to speak on the topic. One strategy in stack is to bump people to the top of the list who haven't spoken before.

Resources on Ground Rules: - “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing

Facilitation and Decision Making Models

Collaborative Decision making methods:

• Spokes Council Model
  Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
• Sociocracy
  Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision.
• University of Michigan's Facilitating Collaborative Public Decisions

Voting:

• Consensus Decision-Making via Voting
  Other resources here
• Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)
  * Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties
  • Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..."
  • Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros:* nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation
    • anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process"
    • no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed

Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)

Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with concensus. * If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group * Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote* to block * Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association

If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation resources

• The World Cafe Method
• Facilitation Skills Training Manual from USAID
• Anti-Opressive Facitation from the Aorta Collective
• Parliamentary procedure: Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure..

IE: what you can expect to see at your local town hall meeting.

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Before you go into your meeting space:

• Find a meeting time that works for people you want to attend. A doodle poll can be a good tool for setting a meeting time.
• Find a meeting space that can accommodate your group and make everyone comfortable. Some important things to consider are the size of your group, how you want the room setup and if the space will be accessible for everyone (handicap accessible, non-binary bathrooms)
• Set and send an agenda. This helps people know what to expect and what you're hoping to accomplish in person.

Meeting ground rules

Ground rules are really helpful for meetings. It's important that people buy into the ground rules before meetings start and that everyone has the chance to weigh in and add others they see as being important. Below is a list of some ground rules that can be helpful:

• Ask for clarification - anyone can ask for clarification at the meeting. This helps to make sure everyone stays on the same page, that no one is misunderstood, and that no one is left out by simple things such as acronyms that could be clarified.
• Consider best intentions - by setting up a mental frame to that everyone is coming to the meeting space with the best intentions, and that comments said there were said with good intentions helps participants to contemplate what is said, consider positive frames and ensures that no one is jumping to negative conclusions.
• Be constructive with comments not destructive - ensure that people are building on conversations and ideas instead of taking them down. It's ok to disagree, but disagree in a constructive way.
• Be a steward of the time and space - when everyone is a steward of the time and space, it takes the pressure off the person or group who might be facilitating. When everyone takes ownership of the space, participants can help with things like note taking, time keeping and keeping the meeting space clean.
• Be fully present- when you go to an event or a meeting, you dedicate time to that issue. It's important to recognize for yourself that you've done that and to recognize that others in the room have done it as well. To be fully present means that participants are listening, interacting, and not allowing themselves to be distracted by things like email or cell phones.
• Keep comments new, and under one minute Often times in meetings when we're agreeing, we have a tendency to repeat things others have said. One strategy you can use to show support is to snap or wave your fingers to show support for an idea instead of voicing something someone has already said. Also, it's important to limit speaking time so that only one point is made by each speaker and it's kept to under a minute to give everyone a chance to speak who wants to and to make sure we're not losing the point.
• Keep track of the topics to circle back to - meeting agendas can derail when we realize we have things to talk about other than what we've set out to do. It's important to keep track of things you want to circle back to, but recognize when it's off topic. It's important to allow the group to keep a list of these and offer time to circle back to these issues. Sometimes this strategy is called the "Parking Lot" or the "Bike Lot" as in "let's write down that idea and put it in the bike lot."
• Use stack - keeping stack in a meeting can be a useful tool for helping to make sure that everyone is heard and we're not losing people in the conversation. Stack is a list of people who wish to speak on the topic. One strategy in stack is to bump people to the top of the list who haven't spoken before.

Facilitation and Decision Making Models

Consensus Decision-Making via Voting

Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.

A quote from the ether: "Robert's Rules are what make town hall meetings so boring." But there are clear ways to form a new proposal and present it to the group, and it would be helpful to have a widely known American standard. However, Public Lab is an international community.

Spokes Council Model

Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.

Sociocracy

Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision. (yes this is a reference from Mathew Lippincott).

Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)

Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties * Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..." * Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros: nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation * anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process" * no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed

Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)

Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with concensus. * If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group * Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote* to block * Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association

If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation

The World Cafe Method

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Facilitation and Decision Making:
Potential Models

Consensus Decision-Making via Voting

Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.

A quote from the ether: "Robert's Rules are what make town hall meetings so boring." But there are clear ways to form a new proposal and present it to the group, and it would be helpful to have a widely known American standard. However, Public Lab is an international community.

Spokes Council Model

Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.

Sociocracy

Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision. (yes this is a reference from Mathew Lippincott).

Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)

Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties * Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..." * Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros: nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation * anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process" * no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed

Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)

Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with concensus. * If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group * Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote* to block * Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association

If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation

The World Cafe Method

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Facilitation and Decision Making:
Potential Models

Consensus Decision-Making via Voting

Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.

A quote from the ether: "Robert's Rules are what make town hall meetings so boring." But there are clear ways to form a new proposal and present it to the group, and it would be helpful to have a widely known American standard. However, Public Lab is an international community.

Spokes Council Model

Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.

Sociocracy

Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision. (yes this is a reference from Mathew Lippincott).

Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)

Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties * Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..." * Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros: nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation * anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process" * no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed

Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)

Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with concensus. * If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group * Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote* to block * Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association

If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation

The World Cafe Method

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Facilitation and Decision Making:
Potential Models

Consensus Decision-Making via Voting

Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.

A quote from the ether: "Robert's Rules are what make town hall meetings so boring." But there are clear ways to form a new proposal and present it to the group, and it would be helpful to have a widely known American standard. However, Public Lab is an international community.

Spokes Council Model

Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.

Sociocracy

Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision. (yes this is a reference from Mathew Lippincott).

Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)

Members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties * Members may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..." * Very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers Pros: nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation * anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process" * no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons:* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed

Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)

Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with concensus. * If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group * Equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote* to block * Members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association

If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From their experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations, Delfina Vannucci and Richard Singer offer a street-level view of how social relationships and power work"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/

https://pol.is/

http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Facilitation and Decision Making:
Potential Models

Consensus Decision-Making via Voting

Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.

A quote from the ether: "Robert's Rules are what make town hall meetings so boring." But there are clear ways to form a new proposal and present it to the group, and it would be helpful to have a widely known American standard. However, Public Lab is an international community.

Spokes Council Model

Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.

Sociocracy

Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision. (yes this is a reference from Mathew Lippincott).

Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)

members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties * may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..." Pros:
nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation * anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process" * no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements
Cons:
* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed * very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers

Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)

Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with concensus. * If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group * equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote to block * members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association

If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From authors' experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/ https://pol.is/ http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Potential Models of Facilitation and Decision Making
Consensus Decision-Making via Voting

Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.

A quote from the ether: "Robert's Rules are what make town hall meetings so boring." But there are clear ways to form a new proposal and present it to the group, and it would be helpful to have a widely known American standard. However, Public Lab is an international community.

Spokes Council Model

Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.

Sociocracy

Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision. (yes this is a reference from Mathew Lippincott).

Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)

members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties * may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..." Pros:
nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation * anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process" * no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements
Cons:
* essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed * very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers

Summary of Voting Process (a proposed method)

Would require us to pick a threshold for binding agreement. 75% has been suggested. There is also strong support for 90% from organizers experienced with concensus. * If X% of organizers vote for a motion, it is adopted by the Organizers group * equivalent to >(100-X)% must vote against or simply not vote to block * members asked to respect the outcome of the vote -- but may of course voice dissent personally, i.e. "I voted against it, but agree to abide by it."

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association

If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry
Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From authors' experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/ https://pol.is/ http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• OSM Etiquette
• OSM Community Code of Conduct)
• Humanitarian OSM Code

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Potential Models of Facilitation and Decision Making Consensus decision making via voting

Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.
A quote from the ether: "Robert's Rules are what make town hall meetings so boring." But there are clear ways to form a new proposal and present it to the group, and it would be helpful to have a widely known American standard. However, Public Lab is an international community.
Spokes Council Model.
Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
Sociocracy.
_Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision. (yes this is a reference from Mathew Lippincott). _
Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)

* members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties * may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..." Pros: * nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation * anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process" * no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons: * essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed * very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association. If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry
Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From authors' experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/ https://pol.is/ http://www.discourse.org/

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic

• stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
• if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
• avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone

• since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
• a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References:

• http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Etiquette,
  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Community_Code_of_Conduct_(Draft)
  https://hackpad.com/HOT-Code-1X2acHIN2HX

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

1. Stay on topic
- stay on topic to make long threads easier to follow
- if you diverge from the main thread/topic/subject, consider breaking off into a new thread/topic/subject to help others follow along
- avoid sending one-line spurious responses that effectively "spam" hundreds of people and lowers the overall content quality of a conversation
2. Mind your tone
- since we are in a conversation in email form, maintaining a tone of respect is essential. Any of the following can result in a member having their posts moderated before going out to the whole list: aggressive tone, disrespectful tone, mocking tone, off-color tone
- a note on humor: expressing ourselves online in text is different from expressing ourselves in person by talking

Before you are placed into moderation, you will be notified on the pertinent list.

References: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Etiquette,
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Community_Code_of_Conduct_(Draft)
https://hackpad.com/HOT-Code-1X2acHIN2HX

Resources on Facilitation

Potential Models of Facilitation and Decision Making

Consensus decision making via voting

Roberts Rules of Order: Parliamentary procedure.
A quote from the ether: "Robert's Rules are what make town hall meetings so boring." But there are clear ways to form a new proposal and present it to the group, and it would be helpful to have a widely known American standard. However, Public Lab is an international community.
Spokes Council Model.
Good pic at Used by the Occupy movement--good pic here. Representatives from Working Groups (or Affinity Groups) meet in a Spokes Council. Does not presume a particular decision making method for the Spokes Council -- it could be consensus, voting, whatever.
Sociocracy.
_Consensus processes like Quakers. However, if the group can't reach a decision, a smaller group (say, 5 or 6 out a a group of 40) would be delegated to reach a decision. (yes this is a reference from Mathew Lippincott). _
Summary of Statement-Based Process (current method)

* members may present public statements, motions, or open letters and encourage others to sign them, as is sometimes done by university faculties * may then say "x % of organizers signed a statement that ..." or "the undersigned ..." Pros: * nobody may speak for anyone else without their signed affirmation * anyone may write a statement and circulate it for support at any time; minimal "process" * no veto; dissenting members cannot stop others from writing or signing statements Cons: * essentially nonbinding: a statement does not speak for the Organizers group as a body unless it has 100% of its membership signed * very difficult to reach 100%; most statements will presumably be signed by a [possibly small] subset of organizers

The Union system, as established by the International Worker's Association. If you wanted to push a change to the overall organization, you'd first put it first through your "Local," Local Union, or possibly even chapter--Mondragon in Spain is a famous example.

Types of Facilitation

Handbooks

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry
Book published by AK Press. http://www.akpress.org/comehellorhighwater.html
"Helps individuals navigate the world of egalitarian, directly democratic groups. From authors' experiences working with egalitarian and anarchist organizations"

Online Discussion/Decision Making Platforms:

http://loomio.org/ https://pol.is/ http://www.discourse.org/

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?

Resources on Facilitation

Guidelines

Please treat our mailing lists as a place of respectful conversation. Our lists have moderators to ensure civility. Moderators review the posts of all new members before approving them to post automatically. Some existing members may be placed into moderation if their posting pattern changes such that it violates our list guidelines (see below):

When posting to Public Lab lists:

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References: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Etiquette,
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Community_Code_of_Conduct_(Draft)
https://hackpad.com/HOT-Code-1X2acHIN2HX

Resources on Facilitation

Types of Facilitation

Rough Ideas

Flat leadership can be great for innovation and interaction. However, some events may be controversial and require mediators and facilitators to provide a forum for reaching consensus.

Consensus is desired, but may not be obtained. What will be our process then? How will we voice dissenting views?
Many other methods exist for approaching difficult decisons. Could we approach consensus by region, mailing group, organizers, Robert's Rules of Order, etc.?