Many participatory processes need to come to a form of agreement or consensus as a base to work together or take a decision over an issue. We're interested to know the diversity of methods out there to achieved such objective.
Thanks in advance for your ideas!
Stakeholder meeting (focus group) 3 to 6 focus groups with 5 to 8 to get a good outcome . This is primary and qualitative research
Margot van Eijkern Thanks for your feedback. For me the focus group approach is indeed a collective methodology, but it does not per se aims at reaching consensus, would you have some reference of the use of focus group with that aim and how they achieved it?
Nicolas, I'd suggest you study up on the Delphi method developed at RAND in the 1950s. However, it's old enough to have gotten too rigid and stiff in practice in many instances. You can use focus groups for smaller scale, face to face consensus building exercises. Incorporate elements or bits of Delphi, such as multiple rounds, distilling down key points and eventually voting on or simply tabulating a rank order of elements derived from the group. It works; participants accept the consensus. Just, my advice only, don't get too hung up on a rigid method that's 60 years old; take what you find useful and shape it to fit your applied research needs.
Hi Nicolas, have a look at collaborative conceptual modelling by Barry and Katrina Proust. We have used it with different stakeholders trying to address adaptation to climate change and a colleague has used it to address contestation between foresters and conservationists. It works really well.
Matt Colloff Hi Matt, nice to hear from you. Thanks a lot for the reference, it is very much what I was looking for. It reminds of the ARDI method (Article ARDI: A Co-construction Method for Participatory Modeling in...
) I have been successfully using for collaborative conceptualization. As CCM is close to this other it is it is interesting to know you had have positive feedback about its use also.
Hi Matt,
I actually have a problem with consensus as an outcome, which may be a fairly unusual view. I think that forcing consensus will usually mean that people accept the lowest common denominator. To me and some of my colleagues, it is preferable to look for multiple complementary outcomes.
Best regards, Dana
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