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Facilitation and Staffing of Longer Processes

Longer processes require added layers of planning, staffing and communication.

Working time can stretch over months or sometimes more than a year. I facilitated the Consensus Building Workshop for Lake Tahoe over 9 months of meetings lasting 2 days every 3 weeks with much work done by sub-groups in between. Approximately 20 people representing a wide variety of perspectives participated under the leadership of Bill Morgan, Executive Director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Bill served as the mediator in the Workshop. The workshop addressed 31 significant issues ranging from development boundaries to the system for assessing environmental impact. And the process successfully resolved the issues for the next period of time. The process was used as a model for other such processes.

Typical Processes I've facilitated:

• State Task Forces - including the Consensus Building Workshops in Lake Tahoe in the mid-1980's, Restructuring California Public Libraries, Breast Cancer Task Force

• California Public Utilities Commission OIR Workshops - nine over the past ten years, including Public Health Effects of EMF; and the recent OIR on Rule 95 and 128. In the Rule 95 OIR we had 64 issues regarding rules we were seeking to resolve - some minor updates and others significant changes to foundational policies.These tend to have 20-30 parties and extend over 6-15 months.

• Public Involvement Processes - many local processes from bike paths to school closures. The school Closure process lasted about 10 weeks with twice weekly evening meetings to reach consensus on which 3 out 13 schools to close in the Palo Alto Unified School District. The final meetings were attended by 300-400 people - people care about their schools.

Services Provided by Geoff Ball & Associates

Facilitation of Large Group Meetings and small working group meetings; this includes use of the computer technography and other support systems

Process planning for the multiple stages of the longer process - provide ground rules, suggested process tools; maintaining the list of current process agreements.

Staffing of processes - between meeting communication; note taking and distribution; bookkeeping on issues resolved; maintaining accurate records of actions taken

Conflict resolution among parties as requested

Selected Critical Principles for Successful Longer Processes

Clear and understood agreements on key ground rules and operating principles such as how decisions are to be made and who can participate in what actions and activities.

Building relationships among the parties over time that can survive heated differences over the issues.

Clear understandings of the relationships between the working group and established authority.

Well organized and well facilitated meetings; good note taking; adjusting the presentation of information to meet the needs of the group.

Use of working groups to slog thru complex and technical issues.

Paying attention to the higher desires of the group - at Tahoe it was, "we don't want to hurt the Lake," -- that can be used to bring the parties back into collaborative negotiation and problem solving when frustration gets high -- as it will.