Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Resource request: group evaluations

[M Donovan (events]

Virginia-
I have just borrowed a book from our local library which would seem to
offer the ideas and techniques you are looking for. The book, 101 Ways to
Make Meetings Active, seems (I haven't finished looking at it) very
technique oriented rather than theoretical. It is organized in several
sections with short (3-4 pp) articles with a one paragraph overview, a
procedure, and variations. One of the sections, Building Consensus and
Commitment, addresses several techniques for groups that depend on
consensus. It starts with a nuts and bolts section on active meetings with
140 tips for meeting facilitators. Here is the publisher information:

Silberman, Melvin L., 101 Ways to Make Meetings Active: Surefire Ideas to
Engage Your Group
ISBN 0-787-9-4607-9, paperback, I could not find a price on it.
Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer, 350 Sansome St. Fifth Floor, San Francisco,
CA94104-1342, (800) 569-0443. Visit their website at www.pfeiffer.com

Michael Donovan
Village in the City


>I'm in a 23-household cohousing group which is in its
>last 6 months of construction/development.  We operate
>by consensus, and we are looking for good tools to use
>to evaluate our process.  We already use round robins
>and sharing circles; what I am looking for
>specifically is suggestions of sound, rather
>dispassionate (or less emoto-centric) techniques to
>conduct evaluation of group process surrounding
>controversial decisions which have already passed.
>We'd like to look at whether we stayed true to our
>values and our process, how and in what order events
>surrounding the decision(s) occurred, and how the
>decision(s) both strengthened and detracted from our
>community...something similar to a post-play analysis
>of a football game.