Clarification of CoTech decision-making process

"if there is less money at stake the decision should be quicker. Why do you believe that?"

At Outlandish we once went down the "everything must be discussed until there is consensus" route and we nearly went bust. We had a huge number of discussions about whether we wanted to pitch for small projects, and didn't successfully pitch for any while the process/principle was in place.

We now have very clear guidance on what needs discussing properly. Broadly they are things that will significantly address the business, such as changing the rules of membership. Anything that is within the existing rules people just do without asking for permission.

Personally I think that this is currently a do-ocracy - arrange and event, sell a collaboration, organise and exchange with another organisation, etc.

Outlandish want a framework agreement in place. We'll propose one and then enter it with individual co-ops if we can't get consent for the agreement from everyone.

I feel the discussion around Wortley Hall and the more accessible 'young co-operators' camp was an example of how Loomio can be at odds with a do-ocracy. Lots of people said they wanted it to happen, lots of people voted for it, quite a lot of people said they'd help organise it, and then only a group of fairly veteran co-operators who are all going to Wortley Hall anyway ended up going.

In my experience of working within a consensus based decision-making cooperative, the approach taken was about enabling everyone involved to a) understand the issue through Q&A and b) to express their opinion, with the goal of creating shared understanding, and through that achieve the best outcome for everyone involved. Good Loomio practice in support of this approach, again in my experience, means that a proposal is commonly only set out after participants have had the opportunity to engage with the issues, and in that way the proposal can itself take account of the position/s taken by participants and therefore be more likely to achieve broad support.

In a face to face meeting it's also common to have a chair, who can manage the discussion and ensure that the two points above are achieved as much as possible. I think that these are good practices that support consensus.

I support @asimong 's position on this stuff, and so will also disagree with the proposal as it stands. Happy to help draft an alternative.

Do-ocracy.

True.

Yes, and all credit to those who organised and went. Do-ocracy in action!

:)

Pete Burden

And just to say, I am also really enjoying this discussion and dialogue about principles, consensus, consent etc, as well as valuing lots of 'doing'.

Personally, I think we need both (plus a focus on practice and an awareness of the emerging group dynamics!).

I don't wish to block things, but if we are going to accept this proposal as it stands, we should at least acknowledge that it does not amount to consensus decision-making. It does not encourage or incentivise broader participation which, by the evidence gathered by Chris, is clearly an issue that needs addressing. What it does enable is effective control by a vocal minority and removes the right of veto.

What it does enable is effective control by a vocal minority and removes the right of veto.

Can you explain why you think it'll remove the right of veto, @graham2? I think we're imagining that a "block" vote would effectively veto the proposal.

Perhaps I'm misreading the text of the proposal? It says 'no block votes'.

@graham2:

Perhaps I'm misreading the text of the proposal? It says 'no block votes'.

Yes, I'm sorry for the confusion, I meant it to mean that a proposal should not be accepted if it had any "block" votes.

Firstly I want to apologise for not actively participating in this discussion having kicked it off in the first place. I also want to thank everyone who has contributed - I've learnt a lot from the discussion.

I only posted my proposal as a starting point and fully expected people to have alternative ideas. I had also assumed other people would feel free to post alternative proposals which I think Loomio allows.

However, this doesn't seem to have happened and so there has probably been undue focus on my original proposal which clearly wasn't very well thought through. In particular, in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have used the word "consensus" in conjunction with allowing proposals to be accepted when "disagree" votes have been registered.

Like @chrisroos my motivation for kicking off the discussion was to establish some kind of default ground rules for CoTech decision-making on Loomio. I care more about having some default rules than about exactly what those rules are.

What @harryrobbins said about "good enough" decisions resonated with me and perhaps that should've been the title of my proposal.

Given how few people have participated in this discussion and the relatively even split in the voting, I'm not sure it's safe to draw any significant conclusion from it other than that we should continue to discuss the matter. I’ll add an “outcome” to this effect shortly.