• Home
  • Training
    • Training Calendar
    • DevOps Accelerator Program
    • Live Online Training
      • Certified Scrum Master
      • Certified Scrum Product Owner
      • Advanced Certified Scrum Master® Cohort Based
      • Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner(A-CSPO)
      • Training From The Back Of The Room Virtual Edition
      • Agile at Scale Course
    • Self-Paced
      • Free Scrum Foundations Video Training
      • Certified Beyond User Stories Workshop
  • Consulting
  • At A Glance
  • Our Team
  • Blogs
    • Books and Reference
    • Scrum Mastery
    • Our Stories
    • Product Management
    • Virtual Training
    • DevOps
    • Scrum Case Studies
  • 201-374-0893
  • info@conceptsandbeyond.com
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Youtube
  • Home
  • Training
    • Training Calendar
    • DevOps Accelerator Program
    • Live Online Training
      • Certified Scrum Master
      • Certified Scrum Product Owner
      • Advanced Certified Scrum Master® Cohort Based
      • Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner(A-CSPO)
      • Training From The Back Of The Room Virtual Edition
      • Agile at Scale Course
    • Self-Paced
      • Free Scrum Foundations Video Training
      • Certified Beyond User Stories Workshop
  • Consulting
  • At A Glance
  • Our Team
  • Blogs
    • Books and Reference
    • Scrum Mastery
    • Our Stories
    • Product Management
    • Virtual Training
    • DevOps
    • Scrum Case Studies

  • Home
  • Training
    • Training Calendar
    • DevOps Accelerator Program
    • Live Online Training
      • Certified Scrum Master
      • Certified Scrum Product Owner
      • Advanced Certified Scrum Master® Cohort Based
      • Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner(A-CSPO)
      • Training From The Back Of The Room Virtual Edition
      • Agile at Scale Course
    • Self-Paced
      • Free Scrum Foundations Video Training
      • Certified Beyond User Stories Workshop
  • Consulting
  • At A Glance
  • Our Team
  • Blogs
    • Books and Reference
    • Scrum Mastery
    • Our Stories
    • Product Management
    • Virtual Training
    • DevOps
    • Scrum Case Studies

DevOps  ·  Product Management  ·  Scrum Mastery  ·  Virtual Training

How to build consensus as a facilitator part 1: Applying inclusive principles

By Anil Jaising  Published On September 29, 2022

Great Job!! As a facilitator your meeting is going well, the participants have generated new ideas and you have lead them through discussing these ideas. Now it’s time for the meeting to converge and some decisions to be made. How do you build consensus? 

In many meetings, participants want to stick to their own ideas, get excited with past-paced thinking and make hasty decisions and some others might have trouble thinking creatively.

What can you do as a facilitator to help the group develop inclusive alternatives and synthesize them into a solution that will work for everyone?

Applying Inclusive Principles

Inclusive principles promote a both/and mind set. Let’s take an example:

A large team was organized into two components teams, one building the workflow engine and the other building the user interface and business logic of a credit approval system. The team building the workflow engine were moving slow due to complications they uncovered while the user interface team had created a lot of their solutions and now waiting for the other team. This irritated the workflow team and as they continued to get delayed they became more and more defensive and harder to work with. The business was getting impatient and were always conveyed the message from a outspoken member of the workflow team that they could not find common ground to work with the user interface team.

The scrum master decided to host a one day event to bring the two teams together. The started with a team building event where each group had two participants one from each of the component teams. They had to play a game to compete with the other groups and surviving and winning in the game meant depending on each other.

The event was a huge success where everyone developed good relationships with each other as well learnt a lot about each other and became more and more comfortable with each other. 

The scrum master maintained the same pairs and re-stated their product goal which was to build a credit approval system that would change the game in the bank being able to onboard new customers. He reminded them it was not to build a superior workflow engine or a superior user interface. 

The pairs in each group were asked to work together to discuss the design and plan so the product can come together over smaller iterations to provide incremental value to their customers. This exercise forced each participant to think as a team and bring their best expertise to the table.

The Solution

Initially the two sides locked horns and argued over who was to blame.  The breakthrough came when they all shared a common concern

Principle: Discovering Common Ground

Affixing blame, polarizing into opposite camps and calling for help from the powers that may be is a typical strategy for dealing with problems. In this example the participants focused on discovering a common concern and they aimed at delivering on a shared goal. This helped them collaborate effectively and take constructive self-empowered action

Other principles that promote a both/and mindset

  1. Breaking with tradition: Many of you might have heard this statement “This is how we do things here”. Some the facilitator can do is question anything that seems impossible and Challenge fixed assumptions: If something has been done always one way does not mean it has to be done that way in the future. 
  2.  “You cut and I choose” Create more interdependence between the alternatives: A single conference room on a floor was a shared resource with each vying to book time. Many teams would book in advance and not use it while other teams who did not book would have to find alternatives. Several complaints went to leadership and it was decided that a booking would be valid for the first 10 minutes and if a team that had booked did not show up another team could use it. In addition a few larger offices went unused most of the times. It was also decided to covert them to smaller conference rooms that could be used by several small size teams. This principle enables everyone have an opportunity to the use of the fixed resource
  3. Including the troublemakers in the solution:  Normally we try to “fix” the people who make trouble. Instead it sometimes is better to treat the troublemakers as stakeholders and involved them in the problem solving process.  If their needs can be understood they might become allies in transforming the problem
  4. Creating unusual partnerships: An enterprise was looking for a product that would serve the needs of different business lines. Each business line had different needs. The architect decided to do a build vs. buy analysis and he found that a vendor product gave them the resiliency, security, and stability. It also provided an industry wide established framework. The build solution was by an internal team whose solution was proprietary and needed a large operations team to maintain. It had built several customized solutions that would be appropriate to fit the needs of the business lines. Instead of making a decision of one vs the other, the architect decided to have the internal team partner with the vendor to deliver a product that had the benefits of both.  The groups in this case partnered to identify solutions from unusual  sources that were foreign to their own context

In the next part, I will share another technique, creative reframing to build consensus and help groups make decisions. 

Source: Facilitator’s guide to participatory decision making by Sam Kaner

Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps: Simplifying the jargon

The internet and social media are full of Agile, Scrum, Product Management, and DevOps jargon, including incorrect and misunderstood concepts. This could be problematic for a learner seeking knowledge. Without a course with Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, or DevOps Institute, this knowledge is difficult to achieve.

The Concepts & Beyond blog is a free suite of articles and videos packaged in tiny chunks. You will learn or refine your knowledge and skills to help your team and organization be effective. When you want to take your knowledge further, we invite you to join us for our  Certified ScrumMaster(CSM),  Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Certified DevOps Engineering Foundations (DOEF) and Training from the Back of The Room courses across the USA and Canada.


CSPO certificationDevOpsproduct Owner certificationTraining from the back of the room

Anil Jaising

Anil Jaising is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified DevOps Institute Trainer and a Certified Training from the BACK of the Room – Virtual Edition Trainer. Anil teaches Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Advanced Scrum Master (A-CSM), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM) workshops from Scrum Alliance He also teaches Training from the BACK of the Room In Room and Virtual Edition). He is also the chief product owner of a telemetry plugin At A Glance on Atlassian Jira. Anil teaches “Transforming Organizations” course in the master’s program in project management in New York University

Related Articles


Case Studies  ·  Product Management
Product Owner Case Studies
vision vs product
Product Management
Product Vision vs. Product Goal
DevOps Books
Books and Reference  ·  DevOps
12 Must Have DevOps Books!

Leave A Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

The Scrum Master and Too Many Hats
Previous Post
Starting Scrum Master Tips and Tricks
Next Post

Our Training

Certified Scrum Master
Training From The Back Of The Room
Certified Scrum Product Owner
Design It Yourself (DIY) Training & Facilitation

Consulting

Product Strategy
Technology
Transformation
NimblebyDesign™ Framework

Information

About us
Blogs
Our Team
Contact Us
Testimonials

Connect With Us

  201-374-0893
  info@conceptsandbeyond.com
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Youtube
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
Cookie SettingsAccept All
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT
  • ←
  • Enquire Now

    Enquire Now