The Consensus Workshop Method

The Consensus Workshop Method is the second most important facilitation process for any facilitator.

The method taps into the wisdom of the group and creates common ground among participants against a backdrop of diverse opinions, values and perspectives. The consensus reached at the workshop enables the group to forward its conversation.

The workshop embeds the question that seeks multiple, agreed-upon answers. For example, “What are the challenges you faced when dealing with customers?” At the end of the process, the facilitated group will have generated and considered a number of possible answers to the question and come to an agreement on several of them.

The five-step process begins by:

Creating the Question where Answers are Needed – This is a relatively complex process which may involve the person who activated you to facilitate the workshop. In the discussions with your ‘client’, you determine the purpose of the workshop and the expected outcome.

After the discussion, I discovered my ‘client’ wants to know the top three challenges his staff is facing when interacting with its customers. He wants to use this knowledge to acquire the most appropriate customer service training programme for his company of about 100 staff.

So, the question that needs answers is “What are the challenges you faced when dealing with customers?”.

Generating Answers for the Question – Here, the staff is invited to dig into their individual knowledge pool to provide answers for the question. There are many techniques that could be deployed to increase the efficiency of answer generation among the staff.

There are also rules of engagement for this step:

• This is an individual exercise
• Enter a answer on a slip of paper
• No debating or evaluating of answers
• Quantity is more important than quality

Gallery Walk – Next, the facilitator invites the workshop participants to look at the answers that are pasted on the wall. The objective of this step is to encourage them to create more answers by building on the answers of others. So, it is a good idea to ask them to bring along with them writing instruments and slips of papers when they begin on their gallery walk.Grouping Answers into Clusters – The facilitator lead the facilitated into the next step of the process by organising the participants into small teams and inviting them to group similar answers into clusters. Depending on the available time, two teams could be formed to do this part of the exercise.

Naming the Clusters – A third team is organised and tasked to analyse the groupings to create an agreed-upon header for each of the cluster. All the clusters have been named.

Voting to Reach a Consensus – voting is a decision-making tool that enables a group to sort through a long list of answers to identify priorities. This is an individual exercise and no discussion between participants about their vote is encouraged to ensure it takes on democratic and participative path. Because the delicate nature of this final step, the facilitator needs to identify some criteria to guide the vote so that people don't vote at cross purposes. The criteria used for deciding on the vote could include one or two (no more than two to avoid making the exercise complex):

• easiest items to complete
• lowest cost items
• first items in a logical sequence
• most important items
• most innovative items
• most important to the customer

The participants could vote more than once. This is a decision of the facilitator based on the number of clusters already identified.

At the end of the process, the facilitator leads the group into a conversation on the resolve of executing the next appropriate step.

Practice makes perfect. Good luck.

This article was written by Anthony Mok on 14 Aug 2008.
Copyright 2008. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.