Guidance for Choosing Technological Tools

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1 Collaborative Values and Principles: Guidance for Choosing Technological Tools Overview New technological tools provide us with powerful and promising new ways of working. To fulfill their potential technological tools need to woven into the fabric of collaborative processes and goals. To use these technological tools responsibly, professional mediators and facilitators need to use them in accordance with the guiding principles of collaborative processes. To integrate technologic tools into the collaborative process the mediator should assess the contexts for the issues and articulate process goals before selecting the specific tools to use. Without attending to goals and context, technological tools can be expensive, distracting, or inefficient. With attention to goals and context, technological tools can expand participants abilities to engage one another meaningfully in plans, decisions, and solutions. Context Finding solutions to environmental, public health and other policy issues frequently involves difficult discussions about social investments, the nature and magnitude of benefits and risks, who gains and who loses, and uncertainties in knowledge. Each public health, environmental, and natural resource problem also arises within political, social, and economic contexts. These contexts provide challenges and opportunities for good collaborative processes. In providing process design advice, professional mediators work with the convenors and stakeholders to understand: the purpose of the collaboration; the environmental, natural resource, or public health issues under consideration; parties interests and concerns; the state of the relevant science, including scientific uncertainties and disagreements; the responsible organizations and agencies, and the policies, laws and external organizations that affect the goal; the timelines, deadlines or forcing mechanisms for the collaboration or the collaborative process; attributes of the sponsoring organization, as well as its legal and organizational environment; characteristics of the interested and affected parties; the history, resources, and relationships dynamics that affect interaction. i The diagnostic process is as valuable in designing processes involving new technology as in designing more traditional collaborative processes. Collaborative Values and Principles The professional mediator, helping parties explore whether and how to integrate new technology into a collaborative process, must also be guided by values and principles of collaborative processes generally ii. For example, an underlying value fundamental to collaborative processes is the principle that people have a right to participate meaningfully in 1

2 making decisions that affect them iii. This foundational principle leads to principles of inclusivity, balanced representation, and group autonomy. An important practice congruent with these principles is to involve stakeholders in the problem formulation and process design steps. The commitment to meaningful participation also leads to the principle, applicable also to processes involving new technology, that participants must have the necessary information to make informed choices or decisions. iv It is critical to consult parties about information needs and resources, and find effective ways to provide that information. In addition, different people and different groups attend to different things and process information differently. Therefore, a principle of collaboration to consider in the use of new technology is to explore whether the format or technology is more readily understood or comfortable for some groups than others. If the format or technology is not understood or comfortable, it is important to find ways to compensate so that the process does not privilege one way of knowing over another. Collaborative processes also rest on values of openness, transparency, and accountability. These values are the basis for collaborative processes designed to develop mutual respect, and high quality dialogue that lead to outcomes. Mediators are well advised to ask participants about their views when designing processes involving new technology. Finally, mediators must operate from the foundational principle of neutrality. Neutrality means mediators cannot design collaborative processes to produce a certain outcome, facilitate the process to benefit particular participants, or reveal confidential information. Mediators value the trust placed in them by the convenors and stakeholders. This value also leads us to develop processes that aim for outcomes that can be implemented so that people do not feel their time or input was wasted. It is important that technological tools further these important values. Questions for Mediator from the Principles During initial conversations, the mediator should ask convenors and stakeholders about their preferred ways of interacting, degrees of familiarity, and access to technology. People must have input into how they participate. As stewards of the process, mediators are responsible for helping people learn, interact, and reach their goals; therefore, mediators must discuss and make recommendations on how to do that responsibly and effectively. The mediator must analyze whether and how the technological tools will engender respect, safety, trust, and personal, high quality dialogue? Who has access to technology, and with what kind of reliability? Mediators are responsible for designing and leading a fair process. If some groups have access to technology and others have unreliable access, or have to go out of their way to access it, the technology is likely to reinforce existing power dynamics in society and in previous negotiations. At the same time, access to technology may affect power dynamics. Low cost technology can link community leaders across borders, providing new access to civil society partners, the media and corporate and government officials. 2

3 All parties with significant interests should be involved in collaborative processes. Will some people drop out of the collaborative process if the tool is used? Will some people join the collaborative process if the tool is used? Different groups have different comfort levels and access to technology. By avoiding technological tools, mediators could prevent a sector of society from participating actively and meaningfully. However, choosing the tools may alienate other people. This is an ethical decision that professional mediators and facilitators must make with the stakeholders and the convenors. How will the tools advance transparency and access to information? How will stakeholders and convenors protect confidential information? How will the mediator protect confidential information? It can be difficult to balance transparency and confidentiality. Confidential business information, federal requirements on notice and comment, and federal and state sunshine laws will also apply to information available on the web. Mediators must work with stakeholders to understand and design tools that balance both principles. Guidance from the Principles Technological tools can collect and synthesize large amounts of information. You can use technological tools to create more useful information to frame the problem and gather relevant information for decision-making. If you use technological tools to gather information to frame the problem, make sure that all the parties have fast, easy, and reliable access to technological tools. However, if some parties do not have good access, using technological tools could create or recreate disparities. If there are any differences and the design cannot ensure equal access then it is better not to use technological tools. Technological tools can allow more people to participate in meaningful ways. Technological tools can involve people over many time zones and over larges areas. They can allow some people to participate who may not be able to travel to face-to-face meetings. They can also help manage larger numbers of people. Make sure, however, that the goal for your collaborative process is to involve more people over large areas. If the group is small and local, it may not be worth the investment in technological tools. It is also important to consider the technological challenges and glitches that can occur and to factor those into planning, including a provision for fallback tools and methods. Make sure that technological tools are creating access to information and supporting parties to learn. Technological tools can coordinate and manage large amounts of information. People can review information, before synchronous dialogue, at their own pace, which can prevent information overload. Technological tools can also present information in different ways, visually and aurally, which may help people who learn and process information differently. On the other hand, there may be cultural or age issues in sharing information and learning with technological tools. It may be beyond the scope and ability of your project to address different comfort with tools. In addition, it is important that the tactics and tools used in a collaborative process integrate all ways of knowing, including scientific, spiritual, or revealed knowledge, expert, intuitive, and experiential knowledge. Some people may learn better on the ground in field trips or from face to face conversation. Make sure that you provide for a variety of ways to 3

4 learn and contribute. Further, creating technological information sharing and learning platforms can be expensive and time consuming. Some projects may not warrant the investment. Technological tools can excel at managing, analyzing, and presenting lots of complex information. Make sure that the technological tools are helping people to have productive dialogue and helping the group reach outcomes. If the focus becomes gadgets and tools, then it is better to use less distracting collaborative tactics and tools. Technological tools are also good for gathering lots of information from lots of people. When planning the collaboration make sure that the information you collect can be analyzed and can be used for decision-making. Try to avoid information analysis for its own sake sometimes the nature of the tool itself can drive information gathering in ways that are not useful. For example, access to computer mapping tools may lead one to develop a series of spatial maps when a field visit would have been more effective. Furthermore, make sure that if you collect lots of suggestions or recommendations, there is a way for the process to acknowledge input and demonstrate that the input was actually used. Depending on the goal, too much information and input can present data overload and not further the goal. Technological tools are particularly useful for transparently keeping track of sub-committee progress and for information flow across initiatives with multiple sets of activity. Sub committees and teams can also use technological tools to support conference calls, document drafting, and sharing. Make sure that the group can use the tools so that the tools are actually helping support groups working between meetings. Guidance for Weaving Technological Tools into Collaborative Processes The sponsor and mediator should ensure that technological tools are woven into the fabric of the collaborative process. The collaborative process context and goals should shape the choice of tools and the focus should remain on the goals, not how cool or irritating the new tool is. Always establish information sharing protocols or agreement. When you negotiate or establish ground rules or a group charter, include expectations and agreements about information. People have to know how, what kind of information is being shared and with whom it is being shared. Assign one person in your team to have oversight on information sharing and tech tools. This should be a person with good tech expertise and people-collaborative experience. Make sure everyone knows who is responsible for tech trouble shooting and make sure that person is linked into the project at all times. Also, make sure there are accessible go-to function and or person for when information problems occur, of any type. Put time on the agenda to check with participants on IT and tech tools. In particular, make sure that the first time you use a tool there is time on the agenda for a demonstration and questions. Make sure to use the time during in-person meetings and calls to talk to participants about how IT and technological tools are working. 4

5 Keep up to date on tech tools. Some tools will work better than others for collaborative processes and some tools will get better faster in revisions. Software developers are rapidly developing tools and the tools are likely to become better as more people use them and provide feedback. Do not stick with one tool just because you have always used it use the tools that are the best for the collaborative purpose and for the stakeholders. Take account of the costs associated with tools. There is often a premise that technological tools are efficient and will save money. This is more likely to be true if the tools are well developed and fit the process. However, tools can come with a significant price tag, particularly tools that are new or tailored made. It is particularly important to pay attention to costs and benefits with new tools or technologies designed for a specific initiative. It is probably better for mediators to begin to develop a core set of effective tools and then build on these tools gradually by testing them and expanding them carefully to new uses. Conclusion Facilitators and mediators are experimenting with new technologies in collaborative and consensus seeking processes. Several organizations and initiatives are focusing on developing and testing new tools. Others are focused on encouraging and providing support for Federal, State and other convenors and stakeholders to use tools. Organizations, including RESOLVE, are using technological tools and assessing which tools are effective for what purposes. Experimentation, careful assessment grounded in our values and principles and professional reflection on experiments will ensure that new tools can fulfill their promise. Follow our blog for more guidance, updates on meetings and initiatives, and comments. Copyright 2010 RESOLVE Inc. i Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making, Thomas Dietz and Paul C. Stern, Editors, Panel on Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making, National Research Council ii Basic Principles for Agency Engagement in Environmental Conflict Resolution and Collaborative Problem Solving, Council of Environmental Quality, 2005 iii Reproduced from T. Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute s Principles to Nurture Wise Democratic Process and Collective Intelligence in Public Participation. The Co-Intelligence Institute, 2002 [ Used with permission. iv Ibid. 5