Consensus Decision-Making Activities

A Brief Explanation

Consensus Decision-Making Activities involve lists of items to be arranged in a specific order. Participants complete the arrangement individually and then reach consensus in teams. Then they compare their arrangement with an expert arrangement. In the activity, the participants learn more about factors that contribute to the importance of items.

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A Brief Example

Here’s a sample consensus decision-making activity called The Effective Facilitator:

Give this alphabetized list of five desirable characteristics of an effective facilitator to each participant:

  • Empathetic listening skills

  • Inclusiveness

  • Neutrality

  • Sense of humor

  • Tolerance for ambiguity

Ask the participants to work independently and rank the five items in order of importance. After everyone has completed this task, as the participants to share their rankings and come up a consensus ranking of the importance of each item. Later, present the sequence determined by a panel of experts and ask the group to compare their rankings with the expert ranking. During the debriefing discussion, ask each participant to reflect on the changes made in his or her ranking.

More Details

Would you like to read (and use) a more detailed description of a consensus decision-making activity? Check out the next activity on cross-cultural collaboration.