Should we use Integrative Consent for decision-making in Social.Coop?

Just watched the video, not sure it all sunk in, but think its somewhat like what I've been imagining may work well for some of our decision making.

The coordination work group thread actually had much of what I'm thinking would be good. Guess maybe the conversation inappropriately died when @Matt Noyes redrafted the proposal (think linking to docs, rather than having text in Loomio, risks loosing folks attention - particularly Google Docs or other stuff hosted on similar distrusted megacorps, was the case for me here).

I recently saved a link to this page which I thought may be useful for us. Proposal Two describes another process with some similar features. Think if I had to pick between the two (which we dont) I'd choose integrative consent method, over this, in large part because the only wider consultation/discussion before voting happens via a video call meeting.

Up to now, I have been playing two roles: proposer and facilitator. It seems it is better for someone other than the proposer to facilitate -- any takers?

I wonder if we are doing this correctly? I've probably missed something, but on my reading of the instructions, you need a facilitator to have the "questions and comments" round. The facilitator stops this stage being an open discussion by asking specific people to contribute. (Which sounds like a highly political and powerful role).

In an asynchronous process, I think the equivalent of a round would be something like "no one comments twice until all have had the chance to comment once" but, interestingly, we don't know who is in the discussion (unlike a physical round, where people are all in the same space/time). So, I wonder which is better - to allow for more free exchange at this stage or to do something like no one should comment twice until all have commented once? Or maybe to use this process with a specified group of participants, like a working group? Another question is should there be "cross talk" at this point, i.e. responses to comments?

This sounds to me like what I have seen called "Integrative Decision Making" (https://prototyping.work/prototype/integrative-decision-making-idm/), and coincidentally we use at my current employer (a small EdTech startup). Which is to say that I have some personal experience with this process, but in a very different environment (a much smaller group, with much clearer hierarchy and goals).

What works very poorly with IDM in my current work environment is that pretty much all proposals get "approved" (STTed), but typically with very low commitment from everyone except the original proposer. This then leads to unsuccessful implementation (a lot of these proposals involve group process or behavior change). I'm sure whatever failure modes we run into with IDM in social.coop will be different, so I do not consider my personal data point on IDM a reason to not try it here.

In my experience, formal IDM is a lot more heavyweight, in terms of burden on participants and facilitators, than what I typically see on social.coop's Loomio discussions. So I would not want to make IDM a requirement for all proposals, at least not until we have tried it out a couple of times with some success.

Which is all to say, that I would give this proposal a "Safe To Try", as long as it is not a requirement that formal IDM gets used for all proposals (at least not for now), and as long as we have some process or ritual to reflect at a later date on how this is or is not working for us. 👍

This is all fascinating!

I think the positive response from @Matt Noyes , @Mica Fisher , @Matthew Cropp and myself to this process is that the way that we've been making proposals thus far in the CWG can sometimes feel like the CWG Ops Team is having all of the discussion and then thrusting a proposal at the working group. I think this happens because we haven't really been using the function of a non-vote discussion phase for proposals effectively. As @Mica Fisher alluded to in her comment, I think we all felt a little uncomfortable at how unclear the process by which we discussed and integrated comments from the previous proposal for the coordination committee. It would have felt more inclusive had we had a discussion before crafting the proposal rather than having a vote right away.

All this to say, that I personally love the idea of the CWG Ops Team utilizing this process to give it a try and to keep it non-mandatory. I also like the idea of suggesting that social.coop use some of the ideas as aspirational ways of interacting when making and contributing to proposals/decision making. I agree that it might be hard to 'implement' or make 'mandatory' mostly because of the on-boarding process.

Agreed with @mike_hales that it might be worth trialling this in individual working groups first, though the process does seem reasonable to adopt more broadly in cases where we're already using Loomio anyway. I think as long as the proposer is familiar with the process (and there are some other people who can help guide the proposal through the process) this should work.

I'm actually in the process of introducing a similar process at work - the Silent Meeting Manifesto - for the same reason outlined in the Loomio doc (esp the point about loud voices silencing other participants).

One objection a team mate has is that moving the emphasis to written communication disadvantages those who are dyslexic - probably more of a concern in silent meetings, which happens synchronously, than in the suggested way to run Integrative Consent async where time constraint is less of an issue, but maybe something we need to keep an eye on

A possible solution to the dyslexia issue is to have people upload a short video or audio clip of their contributions. I would not mind reading aloud my inputs if someone needs that. I do prefer to have the asynchronous time to compose my thoughts in writing, as I am a bit weak at synchronous verbal communications. It does seem possible to attach video and audio files to these messages.

I was hoping to have a possiblity to integrate a conset process in loomio for other projects. It's worth trying it out for social.coop.