Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Refining concerns / needs in a timely way

[Becky Schaller (bschaller]

Rob, I'm still not very certain I am understanding your situation very
clearly.  I understand you are looking for techniques for larger groups to
identify needs and concerns in a more efficient way.   Besides the size of a
group, it seems to me that there are many other reasons that a group may
take a long time identifying and processing their needs and concerns around
a particular issue.  Among them, I would include the following:

1. Is the issue or problem clearly stated?  Does everyone agree that this is
the problem we need to be working on?  If not, maybe the group first needs
to do a little work in this area.

2.  Is this a complex issue?  If so, I'd say accept the fact that concerns
and needs may take some time.

I am also not clear what you mean by the following phrases:

>(Lots of needs and concerns, each one processed in turn)
Does this mean the facilitator is working with each person who names a need
or concern to help her clarify exactly what the need or concern is?

> dealing with peoples stuff in meetings
Does this mean people are bringing in their personal issues which really
don't have much to do with the agenda at hand?

That said, I am also wondering about the order of things.  In our community,
we recently adopted a 3 step process for concensus decision making.   Very
briefly, step 1:  Clarify the problem and identify the needs and concerns.
Step 2:  Come up with a proposal  or proposal and get tentative group
agreement. Step 3:  Consensus.

I've been looking through a book called "How to Make Meetings Work" by Doyle
and Straus and they suggest a different order.  Their order is:  (This is my
summary.)
1.  Define the problem as a question.
2.  Analyze the problem.  Get the facts.  What factors are helping the
problem get better? Which are making the problem more difficult?
(They say that with group problem solving, most of the time should be spent
on these first two steps.)
3.  Generate alternatives.   They give brainstorming as a  good method for
this step.  Also look to see what solutions other people have found to
similar problems.
4.  Evaluate the alternatives.  It's not until this point that the group
decides what the criteria are for evaluating the different alternatives.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think they use the word "criteria" in a similar way
to the way we use the phrase "concerns and needs."
5.  Make the decision.
6.  Start the planning.
7.  Make the solution work.
8.  Feedback.

I find this order for the various steps to be rather intriguing.  I do
wonder if listing the concerns and needs after the alternatives are
generated  might make this step less abstract, more interesting and more to
the point.  I also wonder how helpful the generated solutions might be if
the concerns and needs aren't first noted.

I don't know if any of this is helpful or not to you, Rob.  If not, I hope
that it will at least help you clarify the question for me.

Becky 

Becky 

 




> Becky asked about clarifying what I was interested in around identifying
> needs and concerns in a timely way. I am looking for techniques groups use.
> I have seen this go quickly (not many needs or concerns) and I have seen
> this take 3 meetings (Lots of needs and concerns, each one processed in
> turn). What I was asked for is how groups do this, what methods they use,
> etc. I am especially interested in techniques with large groups, over 25
> people, with lots of needs and concerns. One thing I have observed is that
> there is a balance of willingness to invest personal time in dealing with
> peoples stuff in meetings. There are some people who are willing to spend
> lots of time on this sort of thing, there are others who are not very
> tolerant of it, and want meetings to be short and to the point. It is also
> my observation that folks from the later point tend to drop out of meetings
> that take too long processing peoples stuff. I have also observed that
> sometimes this amounts to half or more of a group not partipating because
> meetings are too much tied into processing peoples stuff (needs and
> concerns). Often these folks who drop out complain loudly about endless
> processing, etc.
> 
> So I am also wondering, how do you keep these people happy when processing
> needs and concerns, or do you just ignore the fact that they drop out?
> 
> Rob Sandelin
> South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
> Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
> Field skills training for student naturalists
> Floriferous [at] msn.com


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