Co-op Tools: The Co-op Tools List v2.0

A collection of simple techniques that help make co-operation a whole lot easier.

Does your organization aspire to practice democracy beyond simple elections?

Does one of your organization's aims include being: egalitarian, equal opportunity, boss-less, bottom-up, grass roots, member driven, to use deliberative democracy, collective responsibility, participatory management or other ideals of a flat governance structure?

If so this list of suggestions should be helpful for your goals. I aim to update the list and improve the recommended resources on a regular basis.

Establish ground rules for respectful discussion.

Within the many meetings required within a democratic organization it is possible for some speakers to dominate by the way they speak. The tone, volume, pacing and kind of language used in a discussion can greatly affect the results and outcomes. Some aggressive characters can cause others to feel insulted, pressured or silenced. Many conflicts, misguided priorities and poor communication can be avoided if people can recognize the problems in their speech habits and work towards more fair and respectful forms of talk.

Use breakout groups and dotmocracy to make decisions in your big meetings.

In the standard plenary format meeting the more people participating the less opportunity each person has to speak and the less chance you will find collective agreement on an ideal decision. Using breakout groups of 5-7 diverse people, everyone can participate in thoughtful dialogue and deliberation. Use dotmocracy sheets to recognize agreement among all the participants across all the groups. With this format it is much easier to make more decisions as a group. Questions about mission, aims, objectives, project priorities, group policies, and strategic plans can be collectively answered using this process and thus creating a common base for cooperating effectively.

Recommended Resource: Dotmocracy Handbook (PDF)

Recognize a common plan and celebrate it.

Having a common plan that everyone believes in is the key to an effective democratic organization. When everyone knows what they are collectively working towards, why and how, they have less need for a boss to tell them what to do. To achieve this you need to carry-out a collective process of making a plan and then continually reminding yourselves of that plan. Clear and realistic milestones give short term focus within long term process.

Recommended Resource:Using the Preferred Futuring Process (PDF), Preferred Futuring (Book on amazon.com)

Documentation part one: Love it. Share it.

Information is power. When you write down information and share it your are sharing that power. When you document and share details of decisions, plans, results and other aspects of organization activities you are creating transparency for collective oversight and understanding for cooperation. Common important documents include:

Organization's mission, goals and objectives.
By-laws and policies.
A map of the activities and responsibilities within normal operations.
Project plans and progress information.
Contracts for persons with special responsibilities.
Employee manuals.
Committee terms of references.
Contacts: internal and external.
Budgets.
History and contextual information.
Frequently asked questions.
Minutes from meetings.

Documents are useful for referencing between collaborating parties and for informing people taking on new responsibilities. Without shared documentation people are always dependent on asking someone, creating hierarchy, delays and potential misunderstandings. Keep your documentation up-to-date and ensure everyone who wants or needs certain documents gets a copy. Empower the librarian types in your organization who have a passion for organizing, filing and labelling. Have a decent photocopier and give away binders for people to keep their documents in. Ideally keep copies of documents on-line linked from your organizations web site.

Recommended Resources: Google Docs, Exploring the World of Wikis

Documentation part two: Write with clarity, brevity and structure.

Documentation is only useful if people read it and can find the information they need. Eight pages of dense paragraphs describing discussion from a meeting is generally not helpful. A point form list of facts, decisions, actions items and pending questions is useful. Three years of chronological policy decisions is frustrating to search. A collection of active policy decisions organized by theme and/or relevancy to roles in the organization is easy and sensible to browse. Digital documents are most easily searched on the web.

Recommended Resources: Plain Language guide

Use an open application process and contracts for all important roles.

Any role of responsibility for the organization should be acquired through some form of competitive application process based on merit and capacity. Publicize openings, what is needed from the applying party, and use an ad-hoc panel to conduct a fair hiring process, even for volunteer positions. Once the person or group for the position is selected you will need to negotiate a detailed contract that specifies expectations and the extent and limits of authority and responsibility. Any future performance reviews can than be compared against documented contracts. Contracts should be continually referenced and updates negotiated as needed.

Recommended Resources: Finding and Hiring Good Employees

Use ad-hoc panels to make politically sensitive decisions

To avoid power concentrating in elected directors and other executive positions, ad-hoc panels of 3-7 members can be temporarily formed to investigate a question and make a decision that is not suitable or timely for a general assembly. The members of the panel should be a combination of representatives of the various interests involved in the decision and people independent of conflicts of interests. Examples may include a hiring process, work reviews, interpreting dotmocracy results and addressing conflicts. Using ad-hoc panels decreases the chance of cronyism, nepotism and hidden agendas affecting organizational decisions. This model depends on clearly documented plans, contracts and other organizational details to inform the panel's decision.

Recommended Resources: Citizen Juries

Provide non-work opportunities for community building.

Create time and space for members of your organization to be together without any responsibility. Examples include lunch rooms, retreats, dinners and parties. Use formats that encourage members to break out of their normal work teams and to talk with people they normally don't work directly with. The greater familiarity and trust among the members, the easier communication will flow. When people know each other they will find it easier to empathize, compromise, make agreements and feel the social pressure to keep their agreements.

Recommended Resources needed

Have an official democratically controlled newsletter.

A frequent newsletter can be an essential communication tool for publishing plans, project updates, requesting input and help, disseminating important information before collective decision making meetings and generally promoting common understandings and accountability. The key is recognizing the newsletter as a serious and formal element of the governance process that should be controlled by democratically agreed editorial policy and edited by an non-affiliated contracted individual. For example, the editorial policy may require a pre-publishing review process by an ad-hoc panel, the inclusion of accounting metrics, regular reports from specific roles, fact checking, encouraging multiple perspectives in submissions, and/or other methods of promoting transparency and useful insight. Format the newsletter to look legitimate and distribute it widely. It may help to include some fun elements and light reading so not to make it so boring that no one picks it up. If most of your members have email, you may want to consider using a mailing list.

Recommended Resources needed

Use discussion mailing lists and/or physical bulletin boards for internal communication.

If all the members of a team or committee have internet access then a discussion mailing list can be very useful for communicating in between meetings. Without web access a well organized bulletin board with supplies of pens and sticky notes can be very useful for posting messages and getting feedback within an office without requiring a meeting. In both cases each medium should be considered official and controlled by an agreed policy.

Recommended Resource: Hosting for Online Discussion Groups

Please post comments of feedback, suggestions and questions below...

And here is the rest of it.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

The Co-op Tools List v2.0