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A
typical collaborative process has three well-defined stages, each containing
a number of steps, tasks or objectives
Stage
1: Getting Started: The Pre-Deliberation Phase
A stakeholder
or a trusted outsider raises the possibility of collaboration and initiates
the process.
Following initiation, the pre-deliberation, or planning stage, should
be carried out with a group of
stakeholders who are knowledgeable about, and committed to the issue and
are willing to
participate in the process from the beginning. During this stage, the
objectives of the collaborative
process are to:
- Assess the issues
- Identify
conditions for collaboration.
- Develop a clear
description of the issues that need to be addressed.
- Frame the problem
as a joint search for resolution of the issue: "How can we...?"
- Identify Stakeholders
- Determine
what (or whose) interests are at stake.
- Identify
who can affect - and who is affected by - the issue
- Contact stakeholders
and determine their needs for participating in a collaborative
process.
- Design a strategy
- Consider
the most productive format: committee, negotiating team or conference
format.
- Agree on
process steps.
- Identify
roles and who might fill them: chairperson, facilitator, recorder,
technical resources, meeting logistics, etc.
- Plan your
time frame.
- Set up a program
- Decide on
logistical details: where and when to meet, agenda, etc.
- Draft the
meeting ground rules and protocols (also called a group charter,
meeting plan or convening document).
Stage
2: Searching for Agreement: The Deliberation Stage
Once all
the stakeholders have been contacted, the first meeting convened, and
the protocols ratified, the participants can begin to deliberate the substantive
issues. The facilitator’s role in the deliberation stage is described
in Volumes 9 and 11 of this series. The stakeholders’ roles are described
in a special issue for citizens called Dealing with Conflict in Your
Community.
- Establish procedures
- With the
whole group, ratify the meeting ground rules and protocols drafted
in the planning phase. Make
changes where necessary.
- Educate each
other
- Share concerns
related to the topic.
- Identify
what is given.
- Identify
what is understood.
- Identify
sub-issues.
- Identify
and share interests -- reasons, needs, concerns and motivations
underlying participants' positions --rather than assert positions.
- Define the problem
- Define the
present situation.
- Define the
desired future.
- Specify information
needs
- Identify
technical background information that is pertinent to the issue.
- Identify
information that is available and information that is needed.
- Agree on
methods for generating answers to relevant technical questions,
or a path to follow even if notechnical consensus exists.
- Educate each
other (again, and whenever it is needed)
- Field trips.
- Collecting
data/soliciting reports.
- Briefings.
- Interviews.
- Generate options
- Use task
forces for larger groups.
- Bring in
the public.
- Brainstorm.
- Use expert
opinion.
- Develop criteria
for option evaluation
- Feasibility
- Fairness
- Efficiency
- Evaluate options
- Priority
matrix
- Goal achievement.
- Reach agreements
- Building
block
- Single text
- Agreement
in principle
- Develop a written
plan
- Document
areas of agreement to ensure a common understanding of the participants'
accord.
- Develop a
plan of action: what, how, when, where, who.
Stage
3: After the Agreement is Reached: The Post-Deliberation Phase
Once an
acceptable solution has been identified, it must be approved and implemented
by all
responsible parties. During Stage 3, the objectives of the collaborative
process are to:
- Ratify the agreement
- Parties get
support for the plan from organizations that have a role in carrying
it out.
- Each organization
follows its own internal procedures as it reviews and adopts the
plan.
- Integrate the
agreement into the public decision-making process
- Governing
bodies and agencies not directly included in the process have
been kept informed during earlier
phases of the process.
- Plan is considered
and acted upon by the relevant agencies and governing bodies for
implementation.
- Implement the
agreement
- Maintain communication
and collaboration as the plan is carried out.
- Monitor your
results.
- Renegotiate,
if necessary.
- Celebrate your
success
*Lawrence Susskind
and Jeffrey Cruikshank of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program in
their book, Breakingthe Impasse, Consensual Approaches to Resolving
Public Disputes (Basic Books, Inc, New York, 1987), outline three major
stages of the negotiation process. These are namely: prenegotiation,
negotiation, and postnegotiation. Here, the term "negotiation"
has been softened somewhat and reframed as "deliberation"
in order to incorporate all types of collaborative decision-making processes.
Finally, the discussion incorporates the work of Susan Carpenter in
presenting a programmatic approach to public dispute resolution (Solving
Community Problems by Consensus, Program for Community Problem Solving,
Washington, D.C., 1990).
Source: North Carolina State University,
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