Community facilitation of problem structuring and decision making processes: Experiences from the EU LEADER+ programme

This paper reports on the work carried out supporting a rural community in Denmark under the LEADER+ programme. This is a programme that supports development in particularly vulnerable rural regions of the European countries members of EU. It supports creative and innovative projects that can contribute to long-term and sustainable development in these regions. The main tasks have been the organisation and facilitation of conferences and workshops to structure the problematic situation of identifying and designing innovative projects for the development of the community and to support decision making processes related to the agreement on action plans. Learning to design, plan, manage and facilitate conferences and workshops have also being another central activity. The main purpose of these conferences and workshops was not only problem structuring and decision making in connection with community development but also the transfer of facilitation skills and appropriate methods to the community.     

Faciliated Work Groups: Theory and Practice

This paper concerns the facilitation of working groups whose general aims are to achieve a shared understanding of issues, a sense of common purpose and a mutual commitment to action. We see the main role of the facilitator in such a group as contributing to process and structure, not content. This view is coloured by our assumptions about groups and how their work can be facilitated: that groups have an emotional life which influences and is influenced by each participant who experiences a tension between what is best for the group and what is personally desired, and that the facilitator's main tasks are to see and understand the group life, intervening only to help the group maintain a task orientation to its work. To understand the group the facilitator observes verbal and non-verbal behaviour, attends to relationships between participants and maintains awareness of his or her own feelings. For some work groups, the facilitator can be helped by computers, which provide an effective means externalizing many aspects of group work. By assigning to the computer the information manipulation and communication tasks, group members can concentrate their attention on the judgmental tasks, and the facilitator can attend better to group processes. Effectively used, computers can help a group maximize the creative and minimize the destructive aspects of its life.     

Developing a visioning methodology: Visioning Choices for the future of operational research

This paper describes the development of a participative visioning methodology, Visioning Choices, which is placed within the family of problem structuring methods, due to a range of characteristics and attributes that are discussed. The Visioning Choices methodology was developed in an action research paradigm, and consists of a number of stages. The case study presented describes an application of the methodology to the issue of the future of operational research (OR). More than 200 individuals participated in workshops to outline a desirable future for OR. Earlier work has shown that while the majority of organizations claim to have visions, and that visions are perceived to have an important role in contributing to organizational success, visions are usually developed using informal small group processes, rather than existing formal visioning methodologies. The paper uses coherence and correspondence arguments to reflect on the methodology described, and possible future developments to address issues such facilitation style and participant numbers.     

Expert and novice facilitated modelling: A case of a Viable System Model workshop in a local food network

This paper provides an empirical study based on action research in which expert and novice facilitators in facilitated modelling workshops are compared. There is limited empirical research analysing the differences between expert and novice facilitators. Aiming to address this gap we study the behaviour of one expert and two novice facilitators during a Viable System Model workshop. The findings suggest common facilitation patterns in the behaviour of experts and novices. This contrasts literature claiming that experts and novices behave and use their available knowledge differently, and empirically supports the claim that facilitation skills can be taught to participants to enable them to self-facilitate workshops. Differences were also found, which led to the introduction of a new dimension—‘internal versus external’ facilitation. The implications of our findings for effective training and facilitation strategies in contexts in which external, expert facilitation is not always possible are also discussed, and limitations of this study are provided.     

Decision development in facilitated modelling workshops

While the facilitated modelling literature recognises the importance of the group process within facilitated modelling workshops, published empirical research rarely examines their dynamic nature. In this paper, we address this gap in the literature in two ways. First, we propose to locate facilitated modelling workshops as the main focus of investigation, and adopt decision development as the analytical lens. Second, we provide guidance regarding how to implement a research strategy that is informed by such a focus. We start by mapping the different conceptualisations of decision development that seem embedded within the facilitated modelling tradition, and contrast them with theoretical models from the group communication field. Our analysis identifies a number of potentially useful areas for the study of facilitated modelling workshops from a decision development perspective, and articulates a number tentative research questions and testable propositions amenable to empirical research. Central to our proposal are research methods for the study of dynamic group processes. We thus discuss the steps required to extract group process data from facilitated modelling workshops that are usable and open to analysis. This includes a review of issues regarding research design, coding scheme development, data coding and choice of analytical techniques. Finally, we offer conclusions and briefly discuss some feasibility issues related to the implementation of our proposal.     

Problem structuring without workshops? Experiences with distributed interaction within a PSM process

Problem structuring methods (PSMs) have been widely and successfully used in many organizations, but the reliance on face-to-face meetings and workshops makes a typical PSM project difficult and time-consuming to organize, and means that the process may only involve a narrow cross-section of the organization. Yet much interaction in organizations is neither face-to-face nor even synchronous. This research seeks to (1) explore how the issues that arise in moderating such distributed interaction differ from the issues involved in facilitating a workshop and (2) identify the circumstances under which it makes sense to consider using the distributed mode of interaction within a PSM process. Three pairs of action research case studies using a distributed variant on the strategic options development and analysis (SODA) process are described, together with our answers to the above questions.     

Facilitated modelling in operational research

The traditional way of employing operational research in organisational interventions has been the expert mode. In this mode, the problem situation faced by the client is given to the operational research consultant, who then builds a model of the situation, solves the model to arrive at an optimal (or quasi-optimal) solution, and then provides a recommendation to the client based on the obtained solution. An alternative mode of engagement is to conduct the whole intervention together with the client: from structuring and defining the nature of the problem situation of interest, to supporting the evaluation of priorities and development of plans for subsequent implementation. In this latter mode, the operational researcher works throughout the intervention not only as an analyst, but also as a facilitator to the client. This paper discusses this latter mode of engagement with clients, with particular emphasis on the use of facilitated modelling as the intervention tool. Drawing on research scattered across a range of publications and domains, the review presented here provides a formal definition of facilitated modelling, together with a general framework that allows the conceptualisation of a wide variety of facilitated modelling approaches to organisational intervention. Design issues in facilitated modelling and their practical implication are discussed, and directions for future research identified.     

Moments of support by a groupware brainstorming tool in handling complex technical policy problems

The article discusses the use of the groupware Group Systems V as a support tool of some moments in the problem handling process of complex technical policy problems. The discussion is based on four years of experience in using a groupware brainstorming tool at Delft University of Technology on real life problem handling, and reflects the support that is given in half-day workshops for boards of directors of companies, high ranked employees of companies and of the government. The different roles of the persons in the workshop, such as the problem owner, the problem handler, the content expert, the facilitator and the participants, and the kind of problems that are supported are discussed. In detail, the preparation of the workshop and the actual activities in the workshop are described. The article alternates reflections from experience with theoretical reflections. The article is written to give researchers, problem handlers and participants of complex technical policy problems an idea how groupware can be used, what its advantages are and what its limitations are.     

Examining novice teacher leaders’ facilitation of mathematics professional development

This paper reports on novice teacher leaders’ efforts to enact mathematics PD through an analysis of their facilitation in workshops conducted at their schools. We consider the extent to which teacher leaders facilitated the Problem-Solving Cycle model of PD with integrity to its key characteristics. We examine the characteristics they enacted particularly well and those that were the most problematic to enact. Facilitators were generally successful with respect to workshop culture and selecting video clips for use in the PD workshops. They had more difficulty supporting discussions to foster aspects of mathematics teachers’ specialized content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. We suggest a number of activities that may help to better prepare novice PD leaders to hold effective workshops. Furthermore, we conjecture that leaders of mathematics PD draw from a construct we have labeled Mathematical Knowledge for Professional Development (MKPD), and we posit some domains that may comprise this construct.     

Systemic problem structuring applied to community involvement in water conservation

Many advocates of problem structuring approaches mix methods to enhance the flexibility and responsiveness of OR practice. A number of ‘multi-methodology’ approaches have been developed to support practitioners in doing this, and one of these is systemic intervention. A distinguishing feature of systemic intervention is boundary critique: a theory and set of methodological ideas for exploring the inclusion, exclusion and marginalization of both people and issues. This paper argues that boundary critique can enhance the choice and process of application of problem structuring methods. An application of boundary critique is presented to illustrate the argument, focusing on community participation in the management of ongoing water shortages in a small seaside town in New Zealand. The theory of boundary critique helped to reframe people's understanding of a 30-year conflict between the District Council and community. This led to the design of a participative problem structuring workshop, and a way forward was identified that both the District Council and community could accept. Feedback from the workshop participants suggested that the intervention generated valuable results for all the parties involved. The paper concludes with some brief reflections on how the research agenda on boundary critique and problem structuring methods can be progressed into the future.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Quid pro quo</Emphasis>: Reflections on the value of problem structuring group workshops

Attracting clients who are willing to invest in using a problem structuring method (PSM) can be particularly difficult for the emerging generation of modellers. There are many reasons for this, not least that the benefits of a problem structuring intervention are vague and evidence of benefits are often anecdotal for example, claims of constructing a deeper understanding of the problem or building the commitment of a group to implementing an outcome. This paper contributes to the evaluation of problem structuring methods by reflecting on the quid pro quo that a client and problem structuring modeller can enjoy from collaboration. The paper reflects on 21 cases, where Journey Making (a problem structuring method) was used with 16 organizations to help managers agree a suite of actions to tackle a complex strategic issue. The reflections are clustered around those benefits that pertain to: PSMs in general; PSMs that use computer-supported workshops; the Journey Making methodology.     

Structuring decision problems: A case study and reflections for practitioners

This article reviews several approaches to problem structuring and, in particular, the three-step structuring process for decision analysis proposed by von Winterfeldt and Edwards: (1) identifying the problem; (2) selecting an appropriate analytical approach; (3) developing the a detailed analytic structure. This three-step process is re-examined in the context of a decision analysis of alternative policies to reduce electromagnetic field exposure from electric power lines. This decision analysis was conducted for a public health organization funded by the California Public Utilities Commission and it was scrutinized throughout by interested stakeholders. As a result a significant effort went into structuring this problem appropriately, with some successes and some missteps. The article extracts lessons from this experience, updating existing guidance on structuring problems for decision analysis, and concluding with some general insights for problem structuring.     

Groups and facilitators within problem structuring processes

In problem structuring methods, facilitators often ask of themselves questions such as: what makes a ‘good’ problem structuring group (PSG) and indeed what does ‘good’ mean? How can group dynamics be improved and does it matter in terms of the quality of the problem structuring that that group engages in? On the surface these questions seem to be straightforward. Indeed, those who have helped facilitate many participatory workshops will think they intuitively know the answers to these questions; they can, from their professional practice, ‘feel’ which PSGs are doing well and producing novel insights and those which are functioning less well and perhaps generating something that is less imaginative and more routine as a consequence. The intuitive, practice-learned insight will depend upon a rich array of visual signals that become more obvious with experience. This paper asks whether there is value in being much more open and analytical about these questions and answers. If so, then how can we make the unwritten processes and outcomes of PSGs written? Indeed, open to whom? Finally, how much of any insights learned by facilitators should be shared with those engaged in workshops?     

Reasoning maps for decision aid: an integrated approach for problem-structuring and multi-criteria evaluation

This paper proposes a tool for multi-criteria decision aid to be referred to as a Reasoning Map. It is motivated by a desire to provide an integrated approach to problem structuring and evaluation, and in particular, to make the transition between these two processes a natural and seamless progression. The approach has two phases. In the first one, the building of a Reasoning Map supports problem structuring, capturing a decision maker's reasoning as a network of means and ends concepts. In the second phase, this map is enhanced, employing a user-defined qualitative scale to measure both performances of decision options and strengths of influence for each means–end link. This latter phase supports the decision maker in evaluating the positive and negative impacts of an action through synthesis of the qualitative information. A case study, which investigates the use of the method in practice, is also presented.     

Exploring new directions for research in problem structuring methods: on the role of cognitive style

Prior research has argued that cognitive style can have a significant impact on group decision making. In addition, several scholars have proposed that cognitive style can play a key role in the design and use of group decision support systems. However, cognitive style has not received a great deal of attention in the problem structuring methods (PSMs) community. This is surprising, given that PSMs are specifically developed to support a group in their decision making. The purpose of this paper is thus to examine the significance of cognitive style within PSMs. The paper identifies and explores the role of four different cognitive style functions in problem structuring interventions. This analysis is carried out by focusing on the different tasks embedded within a group process supported by PSMs. Implications for the research and practice of PSMs are then discussed.     

WASAN: The development of a facilitated methodology for structuring a waste minimisation problem

This paper contributes a new methodology called Waste And Source-matter ANalyses (WASAN) which supports a group in building agreeable actions for safely minimising avoidable waste. WASAN integrates influences from the Operational Research (OR) methodologies/philosophies of Problem Structuring Methods, Systems Thinking, simulation modelling and sensitivity analysis as well as industry approaches of Waste Management Hierarchy, Hazard Operability (HAZOP) Studies and As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP). The paper shows how these influences are compiled into facilitative structures that support managers in developing recommendations on how to reduce avoidable waste production. WASAN is being designed as Health and Safety Executive Guidance on what constitutes good decision making practice for the companies that manage nuclear sites. In this paper we report and reflect on its use in two soft OR/problem structuring workshops conducted on radioactive waste in the nuclear industry.     

Towards understanding problem structuring and groups with triple task methodology ‘<Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis>’

The many issues which confront Problem Structuring Groups (PSGs) engaging in applying problem structuring methods (PSMs) are well reported in the literature. Often group problem structuring work is well organised around an array of processes and methods which has received wide-ranging testing in the field however, the assessment of the group in terms of its output, group dynamic and self-assessment tends to be handled piecemeal at best. Triple task methodology (TTM) has been described as a means to manage the three group assessments—group output, dynamic and self-assessment in one frame. In this paper an experimental version of TTM (TTMe) is described in use in an Education project setting in Abu Dhabi. It was intended to make TTM less cumbersome and time consuming and, at the same time, more systemically integrated, a significant objective being to make it easier to use by practitioners who have not used it before or who have only small prior use of group assessment methods. The paper describes the application of TTMe, provides an overall assessment of the value of the exercise, discusses the outputs of the group work and points to the value of TTMe in identifying and clarifying unique group qualities or signatures. The major contribution of the paper is to bring to PSG processes a degree of rapid, non-specialist, empirically comparable assessment on the richness of the group use of PSMs.     

Problem structuring methods for large group interventions

Problem structuring methods (PSMs) aim to build shared understanding in a group of decision makers. This shared understanding is used as a basis for them to negotiate an agreed action plan that they are prepared to help implement. Engaging in a social process of negotiation with a large number of people is difficult, and so PSMs have typically focused on small groups of less than 20. This paper explores the legitimacy of deploying PSMs in large groups of people (50–1000), where the aim is to negotiate action and build commitment to its implementation. We review the difficulties of facilitating large groups with PSMs, drawing heavily on our experience of working with over 25 large groups. We offer a range of lessons learned and suggest concrete approaches to facilitating large groups to achieve the objectives of PSMs. This paper contributes to the evaluation and development of PSMs.