Proposal: Proposal

Executive Summary

I find, the way our current workshops go is not productive. This proposal aims to give everyone the possibility to work on the things they deem most important and at the same time give everyone the possibility to receive help from others, contribute and share the knowledge. In principle it’s an ownership approach.

Problem Description

Biggest challenge in Coops is to agree on something. Yesterdays workshop was illustrative, even in a small group of people who trust each other we had a very slow consensus process and we needed even to decide what next to focus on. Furthermore everything needed to be explained vocally. Even though we are quite sophisticated english speakers, sometimes things get lost in translation or in connection.

Solution Proposal

I propose that everyone takes initiative to work on a specific thing if they deem it important enough. The work packages get framed in writing before the actual workshop according to this proposal format. The first 10 minutes of every workshop are spend in silence and everyone reads and gets familiar with those proposals, ideally makes notes, writes down questions. Afterwards the owner will take over and either get’s feedback from the others on work done or requests assistance for doing the work or opens the discussion for the group.

However, even though drafting the proposal will be overhead, the written form will make sure, that everybody understands and the discussion will be productive.

Notes

This is should not remove the soul out of our workshops. We still can joke around, brainstorm, ideate. It’s just an experiment to see if it helps us to get more things done.