Dotmocracy: Brainstorming Made Easier

February 2nd, 2009 in News, by Head Honcho

Many of us have surely been to brainstorming or groups sessions - whether at home, at work, in school, or in any kind of organization. We know from experience that a well-run group session is smooth-flowing and with a healthy exchange of ideas. However, a brainstorming session can easily lead to a free-for-all chaos if it is not facilitated well. The ideas being thrown around can be hard to track, and whether or not a consensus is reached is even harder to determine. This is especially true if there are a large number of participants.

There are many ways of facilitating a group session, and one of those is through dotmocracy. It is also known as “dot voting,” and is an established facilitation method for collecting and prioritizing ideas among a large number of people. This process makes participants write down ideas and apply dots under each idea to show which ones they prefer. The final result is a graph-like visual representation of the group’s collective preferences. Dotmocracy has similar characteristics with crowdsourcing: both rely on the participation and wisdom of a large number of people in an organized fashion.

For group facilitators, the website Dotmocracy.org is a very useful resource to for a more efficient dotmocracy process. It gives tips and tools to make decision making faster, easier and smarter. You can learn the step-by-step process, as well as the core rules and requirements, if you are a new facilitator. You can download the Dotmocracy Handbook for the guidelines for facilitating the Advanced Dotmocracy large group decision-making process. You can also download a blank sheet necessary for dotmocracy.

While dotmocracy may not apply to every group decision process, it is nonetheless one of the few processes that can reliably lead to the most consensual decisions possible among an infinitely large group of people without the use of computers or trained facilitators. it has been proven to:

• Recognize priorities and direction from rank-and-file members.
• Engage and empower a diverse membership.
• Give a voice to even the quietest of members.
• Recognize and celebrate shared values.
• Focus on solutions while avoiding traditional power dynamics.
• Provide fully documented results that can be easily translated into action plans.
• Garner friendly discussions while efficiently leading to practical conclusions.

What’s more, it can make the process fun, or at least bearable, and takes only minutes to learn and apply. The success stories speak for themselves.

So if you are a group facilitator, it’s worth checking out Dotmocracy.org. There is surely something you can learn from the website.