Deliberative Methods - Mind Map, Consensus Decision-Making, Deliberative Democracy, Democratic Education, E-Democracy, Town Meeting (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 42. Chapters: Mind map, Consensus decision-making, Deliberative democracy, Democratic education, E-democracy, Town meeting, Peer-to-Patent, AmericaSpeaks, Inclusive Management, Collaborative e-democracy, Peer-to-Patent Australia, Charrette, Dotmocracy, Quaker poll, Deliberative opinion poll, Televoting, Online deliberation, Knowledge Cafe, Collaborative governance. Excerpt: Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that seeks not only the agreement of most participants but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections. Consensus is defined by Merriam-Webster as, first - general agreement and, second - group solidarity of belief or sentiment. It has its origin in a Latin word meaning literally feel together.It is used to describe both general agreement and the process of getting to such agreement. Consensus decision-making is thus concerned primarily with that process. As a decision-making process, consensus decision-making aims to be: Consensus decision making is an alternative to commonly practiced non-collaborative decision making processes. Robert's Rules of Order, for instance, is a process used by many organizations. The goal of Robert's Rules is to structure the debate and passage of proposals that win approval through majority vote. This process does not emphasize the goal of full agreement. Critics of Robert's Rules believe that the process can involve adversarial debate and the formation of competing factions. These dynamics may harm group member relationships and undermine the ability of a group to cooperatively implement a contentious decision. Consensus decision making is also an alternative to "top-down" decision making, commonly practiced in hierarchical groups. Top-down decision making occurs when leaders of a group make decisions in a way that does not include the participation of all...