Projects:ConsensusPollTour
Contents
Who
ConsensusPollTour is a One and Done Project
Why we're doing this?
We want any easy way to walk people through the concepts of ConsensusPolling.
It will be done when:
All tour pages are done, with consistent navigation and style, covering all areas of consensus polling.
Project Tasks
- Done. (Please feel free to add to it if you think there is room for further improvement.)
Discussion
trust
I really must express my concern about this tour. The third page ConsensusPolling:How do we know we're making progress? is very objectionable. It really gives the wrong impression of consensus polling. When Pravin Arap agrees with Jane Doe all the way through the poll, it gives one a feeling that he is mindlessly agreeing to something because his friend or girlfriend agrees with it. Although we are influenced by the decisions of others, I don't think this is a good example of this. Should we not encourage people to make an informed decision rather than to follow others sheeplike through a process they may not even be interested in or understand. Surely these are not the kind of people you would like to attract. Tanwir Shah
- I think Tanwir Shah makes a good point, and one that I did not previously consider.
- One of the dynamics in play during a group consensus process, where there are many issues or details to be worked out, is that some of the people engaged, for all manner of reasons, simply cannot follow each thread or topic personally, so too often such people become overwhelmed by the consensus process and drop out – which reduces the size of the group. In contrast there is potential to introduce a “trust” dynamic.
- By “trust” dynamic I mean that when I am not able to follow this or that detail, I am willing to allow another person to speak for me. Since I am very concerned that the consensus meets my needs, I am not going to give this level of trust to just anybody, rather one that I feel knows me and my needs very well.
- So one question that arises is how can we, in short format, address Tanwir Shah's concern, and explain the above? MartinPfahler
I have modified Pravin's statements. Tanwir, how do they look to you now? TedErnst
Great. We can now see the reasoning behind Pravin's yes. He has a good reason to trust Mary's judgments and so makes his statements more acceptable. Thanks. Tanwir Shah
other discussion
Also see User talk:Martin#consensus polls
Good work on this tour - it is not an easy subject to explain! I’m trying to offer some helpful critique. How might we make the tour shorter? My gut level hunch is many in the general public will have glazed over eyes before they complete this entire tour. Is there another potential introductory strategic approach to test – perhaps running new comers through a fake example poll, where there is automation to in effect take the place of real people during various stages of explanation (showing an actual change in poll status, etc.)?
I have this nagging question in the back of my own mind, so wonder if others in the general public will have the same after going through this tour. What if 20k or a million folks are in a consensus poll and 20 percent of the people edit the document as they go from a “not yet” to a “yes” status, which might then change many of the prior “yes” to “not yet”, and so the latter people make a new document edit to again get back to their prior “yes” status? Seems that 20% of such large participation numbers could drag the process on so long many people simply won’t tolerate the long delay. Perhaps to explain what happens in such larger scale situations?
The "age old" problem with the consensus process has been “it takes too long” (time is money, so it is also often too costly). In my talks about the consensus process with other people in the general populace, it has been the promise of novel automation to speed up the consensus process that captures their interest, rather than the offering of a better chance to gain their input. The latter already occurs over a voting process “offline” with traditional consensus, and again this “too long” process is the sticky issue for those I have talked to.
In general software and computer automation have tended to speed up traditionally “very long” processes (starting long ago with eliminating a lot of accounting burdens involving time consuming arithmetic). In contrast I don’t see anywhere in this consensus polling tour how this process adds any efficiency to the already occurring consensus process. If there is promise of increased efficiency can we explain more of the specifics?
Here is one attempt to illustrate a potential problem. The consensus topic is, "should our group board the tour bus leaving at 10:00am or 2:00pm?" – and this poll topic is posted 1 day prior to this group's scheduled trip. With 20 people in the consensus group chances are consensus can be had before the 10:00am bus leaves. With 300 people in the consensus group both the 10:00 am and 2:00pm tour buses might leave before consensus is reached (more people, longer time lag). In the latter case a voting process might be better, because then at least some of the people will catch a bus, even if many have a radically lower level of participation and are not so happy with the vote (how many will be happy if they they miss both buses?). MartinPfahler
- Martin, we don't know yet how it will work when it gets big. That's why we're working incrementally, on problems that we care about. As those problems get more complex and involve more people, the process will evolve. So far, we've just hacked this into the wiki, but as it grows, it's going to need more tech tools. We've already identified a couple of problems with it that need to be fixed. Which pages would you leave out, to make the tour shorter? I really like what you say about the problems of face to face consnesus. We need to add that to our page on it. THe problem with adding it is that I don't see this as a way to speed things up, necessarily. TedErnst
Ted, this tour gets back to a discussion I had with Ray some time back, where we were thinking that likely no single tour is best for different ways that brains work, which might fall into perhaps 3 to 5 different categories. For example my own brain type does not like to read a bunch of explanation, then by the time I actually go to “do it” (whatever that is) I have forgotten half of the instructional information given in the tour (so perhaps you can classify my brain as feeble and having only short term memory). Thus I prefer working explanations – take me through an actual simulation of the process, and have me input relevant data or info, and as the need arises then give explanation during various points of the simulation.
This is likely a more complex tour experience to create, because then Techies must create relevant automation, to gain a simulation where normally humans would be involved, but now the automation does the job.
In terms of “face to face” consensus, the problem has been it's “too slow”. Using online consensus enables one to have consensus at a greater distance, but from what I see so far, not at any increased speed – and it is this later issue that is desired by many folks (me included), because it holds promise of lots of folks making faster progress than is possible with “old fashioned” consensus processes. Again in this context, is the aboutus consensus polling effort intended to gain increased process speed? MartinPfahler
- I suppose it depends on how you measure speed. Time on the calendar from start to finish is unlikely to be faster than one of the other decision-making methods we're familiar with, but I'm guessing if we will show fewer person-minutes spent on the process, and a significantly higher buy-in from those affected. That's just a hunch. No data yet. TedErnst
Ted, you stated, “but I'm guessing if we will show fewer person-minutes spent on the process”
I’m not sure if I understand this explanation Ted. I assume you mean comparing the consensus polling process to a “face to face” censuses process. For people that are physically located far apart, it is obvious that “on-line” methods reduce the need to travel – but that is inherent in all online activity so I don’t think such a novel process differentiator.
If your comment is meant to compare instead to a typical voting process, it takes relatively little time for a person to read their choices then cast their vote – much less time than any consensus process I have seen. Admittedly people taking part in voting might not “buy in” as strongly as with a consensus polling process, but even then the fact is lots of people still do it – a national scale presidential election is just one example.
In many activities of importance time going by on the calendar is the critical issue, and in fact can be so important that one is willing to sacrifice a high degree of “buy in”, just to reduce the costs and downsides of time lag. For example anybody that has ever been involved with the construction industry or real estate development will tell you that many of the decisions made along the way are heavily influenced by trying to reduce the total process time (lag time in construction can quickly eat up ones profit margin – ditto for all manner of other projects).
Ted,I like this back and forth dialog we are having about consensus poling because it helps to flush out various issues. For example it might be that the general populace would be more excited about the potential to radically reduce the consensus time line on a calendar, in contrast to gaining a much higher level of “buy in”. If the former is the case (at this early stage I don’t think one can credibly say which way the general public would veer), then I suspect no amount of consensus polling refinement (assuming no calendar compression time is gained) will gain large public participation and interest – but that’s just a hunch so really holds no weight.
Ted, after reading this http://www.cio.com/article/print/121550 at the aboutus "dailybuzz":
These moments are routine in meetings. But in virtual meetings such consensus can't be read. Lacking this signal to wrap up, an online discussion can be endless. Even worse, because the participants can't read the mood of the "room," the conversation ends up reflecting the interjections of the most frequent and forceful participants, rather than the overall judgment of the group, which is usually different from, and often better than, the judgment of the noisiest few
I wonder, for consensus polling why not have this automation: Each person has on their wiki page (computer monitor) a "mood" slide bar, they can move with their mouse. It is explained that this mood bar reflects their current state of engagement in the consensus process (I'm bored, etc.). There might even be more than one slide bar for each person in the consensus group. Then the automation in effect averages all the individual slide bars and displays the total "group mood" - so one can get a better idea of the visual "stuff" that is typical of a face to face meeting.
A scenario where this might be useful: You are wondering, "I’m getting bored or tired of thus long consensus process, and if I were in charge I would interject a new topic or course of discussion to move it along – but won’t, because I’m afraid that right now I am the only one with such thoughts, so don’t want to make waves". In contrast if I were looking at the group mood indicator and saw that 90% of the consensus group folks were also bored, I would feel more confident in purposely interjecting something else (new).
One might also do a search of the participants names, to discover what is the mood of a particular participant. MartinPfahler
- Martin, until you brought it up, it never occured to me that consnessu polling would be a time saver. Then I started to think aout face to face consensus. It's takes work! Consensus polling also takes work. I think we'd be out of our minds to say that consensus polling is faster (calendar) than any other process that leads to a conclusion. In terms of person-minutes, my hunch is that it'll be shorter than face to face consensus because you simply don't have to sit through the boring parts! You can check out while others are arguing points you don't care about! They don't have to affect you at all. This is one of the reasons I really like consensus polling. It gives you the power of group creativity like face to face consensus, except better because you don't have to sit through the boring parts. TedErnst
Ted, I agree with your analysis of a potential efficiency gain when “face to face” and no longer having to sit through the boring parts. However this might be offset because in “face to face” one has many more feedback sensors in play (visual, body language, etc.) that can gain faster response times. Some of this might be offset by novel online functions such as the mentioned mood indicator.
I personally have interest in novel decision making dynamics with potential to speed up the process, because during my life time I have been involved with projects and people that view this calendar time compression as very valuable and desirable – yet today not achievable. In contrast my read on the current consensus polling focus (could be wrong) is that it is much more about gaining increased “buy in” over processes like voting. Again, based on my experiences, I think when faced with an either/or option lots of folks are more interested in gaining time compression over increased buy in. I realize however that other people have life experiences and community involvement that are different than mine, where the “buy in” issue is more important than the calendar time compression. In terms of gaining more general populace participation and media buzz which headline do you think would capture more interest:
Revolutionary new Internet process enables millions of people to feel they got a fair hearing during critical decision making – that they were listened to and others actually cared about their concerns.
???? MartinPfahler
- Martin, I hear what you're saying about speed, but if we want speed, let's just vote. I don't see that consensus can ever be fast. What motivates me is:
Revolutionary new internet process enables millions of people to make much better decisions than any sub-group could have made alone.
- For me it's not a question of faster or slower, it's a question of possible. There is no way for millions of people to be involved in setting the State budget, for example. Or, looked at another way, they set the budget by electing representatives to do it for them. Can consensus polls replace state legislatures, I think so. Is that the way to market this? I don't think so.
Ted, actually I’m jealous - I can’t make the fancy outlines like you can! Joking aside I want to be sure I understand your meaning.
What is your idea of a subgroup? For example if a million people want to gain consensus on creation of an alternative fuel car project, how is that better than a sub group wanting the same?
Also your PR line states, “make much better decisions”. Seems to me what constitutes a “much better decision” depends on who one asks. For example one might argue that some folks would view a much better decision as one that gains the group's decision much faster. Others might argue it is one that gains most group members a much better “fair hearing” and input. In terms of a PR line wouldn’t people in the general public have this same wonder, “what is meant by ‘better decision’”?
You also say, “for me it's not a question of faster or slower, it's a question of possible”. This confuses me because I am very concerned about “making it possible”. From my experiences it is often long calendar time lags that make "it" more impossible, and if group decision processes can be time compressed “whatever” can become more possible.MartinPfahler
- What is the reason we don't yet have an alternative fuel car? Well, we have a couple, right? But you bring it up as an example. What are the barriers? Why haven't groups come together already? It seems the idea of doing a huge R&D project that's not owned by a huge corporation is another great example. Is it currently possible for a group of citizens to fund something like this themselves? Not really. Anyway, this is all theory, and I think we have a lot of really practical things to be working on here. Is this theory answer necessary for the tour? I'm more interested today in a tour that speaks to consensus polls of 5-100 participants, rather than what we hope will happen in the future.
- As for "What does 'better' mean," I'll give a real-world example. I helped start a housing cooperative. During our formation, we worked under a consensus model. Any objection blocked the proposal, but we rarely had decisions to make that needed this formality, it was mostly a process of getting to know each other. Anyway, when it came time to write the by-laws, we did it in a wiki (of course) where each article had it's own page. We worked on them together, and when they were ready, we adopted them, one by one or in groups that fit together. Anyway, this example concerns the provision in the bylaws that described our consensus process. It was clear from the discussion that 7 of us were in favor and 1 (Ben) was opposed. Imagine a voting process. Ben loses. Done. Very fast. Very unhappy Ben because this decision is so important, that he believes it would be harmful to the group to move forward that way. So with voting, everyone loses because Ben is very unhappy, might even leave the group, and we have no opportunity to come up with a creative solution that satisfies Ben's concerns. What actually happened, using consensus, was that we talked about it for a good long while and decided to adjourn the meeting for two days. This was a do-or-die issue for us becasue we needed to have bylaws in place for our loan. So very high stakes. Two days later we came back together, and voila! Ben had a creative solution for us. We adopted the consensus clause with a sunset. After one year, it would expire and have to be affirmatively voted in again (or another system adopted) at that time. This is what I'm talking about with "better." This solution was better not because Ben felt heard, but because Ben's concern was actually addressed in the solution. We kept the group whole. This was definitely not faster than voting. It required a whole other face to face meeting. I think consensus pollling brings this say dynamic to the online, asyncronous world. TedErnst
Ted, we are all busy with only so many hours in the day, so must make tough decisions on where we focus our limited time. Your explanation of the housing cooperative makes it very clear to me where the consensus polling process might add value for your efforts. Thus it follows that if it can be further improved future cooperative housing projects might go smoother, so perhaps this is one thing that motivates your interest in consensus poling. That said I realize you have many other irons in the fire relative to making the world a better place, and commend and admire you for this, and I assume you feel consensus polling might also add value to your other "passion" activities.
My routine is one of having a group of perhaps 3 to 8 PhD research scientists (typically residing at university or federal government research labs) very interested in wanting to execute a leading edge research project. And typically these are not just any scientists, but recognized by their peers as the global leaders in their particular specialty – in other words very busy and in high demand. Getting such pedigreed folks to a stage where they even will listen and vet a proposed project is itself like moving a mountain, and then to get them to actually formally state “I find this a very novel conceptual solution and very much want to do the enabling R&D” is even harder. The nature of all of these projects is that if the R&D were executed there would be an upside for the average Joe and Jane in the populace, rather than for today’s typical technology players - venture capitalists, academicians, high growth business model entrepreneurs, or large corporations.
I reach the mentioned level of scientific “buy in” and commitment with high caliber scientists often - without need for consensus polling. Then always comes the million dollar question from these scientists, “who will pay for this R&D?” – and thus the projects flops because typically no funding can be found. Thus I am always on the lookout for ways that new decision making or money raising processes can engage large numbers of the populace, so as to raise this funding, while at the same time insuring that the populace gains direct access to the resulting solutions. Pooling money has potential, but this requires very many people or there is little chance of raising the high dollar amounts typical of R&D projects (for example a million people each pitch in $10). Currently I don’t see how the consensus polling process can add value in terms of overcoming this “no money” available barrier, so I must factor this into my time commitments. Perhaps there are ways consensus polling can help with this problem and I don’t currently see it, or perhaps at later stages of consensus polling evolution it might help overcome this barrier, in which case I can always revisit my time commitment on consensus polling after this additional evolution has passed.
Currently I have to spend too much of my time trying to figure out an R&D project upside for large corporations (for any particular project), in effect requiring me to suck up to them, when my real passion is execution of R&D with upsides for the little guy. I have this divergence today, because these “big boys” are the ones that can write the enabling checks – there is no other viable funding game in town.
So far I have not yet seen anything in the Wiki culture that can overcome this funding problem – perhaps this will come at some point in the future of Wiki evolution? – WikiR&D?
In terms of WikiR&D I think the barrier is “culture”. To say that the R&D scientific community I deal with would not be enthusiastic about openly sharing their research and working for free, as do today’s majority of Wiki content contributors, is a gigantic understatement. This community is still very much about signing non disclosure agreements to protect secrecy and getting patents, and wanting financial compensation for their R&D labor (chemists, material scientists, nanotechnology talent, alternative energy researchers, agriculture and plant scientists, genetic engineers, etc.). Unlike working with “digital stuff” typical of Wiki content providers and computer scientists, this R&D talent is typical working with “stuff” that can’t be shoved down a digital pipe. Maybe most of this explanation is not relevant to this topic page, so feel free to erase it or move it. MartinPfahler
- Martin, my example of the housing cooperative had nothing to do with consensus polling. Face to face consensus works just fine for groups like that. I was trying to give an example of what a "better" solution looks like. I want to take situations like those and scale them up. The scholarship fund process at omiyar.net did that, for example. It allowed each person to put a little bit into the plan, and didn't require a huge effort from any one person. And the solution was better than if one person had simipliy proposed something for a ratification vote by the community.
- From your situation, it seems that this "better" solution is not a motivator. No worries. There will be lots of different motivations. I'm fairly certain that we don't yet have any working examples of consensus polling being useful for what you'd like it to be useful for. Will it happen in the future? I don't know. I think it's far more likely to happen if you stay in the conversation (at any level, even just checking in monthly or less if it's not meeting your needs to be more involved than that) than if you were not involved. I really appreciate all the thought and work you've put in to get us to this point.
Ted, I definitely plan to stay engaged in this and other Wiki topics as my time allows. I also think that if new process dynamics for this or that need are to spring up (there are many good causes and efforts that still go begging for better process solutions), to be debated, to be refined, to be brainstormed, and be tested – from my experiences with other communities I think the Wiki community is fertile ground to give birth to new and better process dynamics – keep up your great work! MartinPfahler
