Facilitating collaborative design decisions hands-on @ DDD Europe 2022

If we want to make sustainable design decisions for our architecture that are embraced by everyone, the most effective way is to do this collaboratively. Everyone can feel a part of the decision, and can potentially give the input they have. The group is aligned and knows what is to be expected onward. On paper this sounds great, but in reality we know it is hard to do because we need to deal with all sorts of group dynamics. Dynamics like cultural differences, conflicts of opinions, cognitive biases, and polarities that the group are part of. These dynamics cause people to stop sharing what they want, which ends up in resistance behaviour from sarcastic jokes, to stopped communication or leaving the session. No wonder a lot of people resort to a more autocratic form of decision making, where the architect analyzes and makes the decision. So how can we make collaborative decision decisions better?

Join Gien, Evelyn and Kenny in this hands-on workshop where we explore different models of decision making that can help facilitate collaborative design decisions. We will dive into a variety of facilitation techniques such as:

Working with climate reports to trigger hidden group conflicts
Visualising trade-offs of different models with the pro-con-fix list
Taking group decisions with full buy in with Deep Democracy

Transcript

1. Workshop Agenda
   Modelling a solution
   Resistance line and climate report
   PRO-​
   CON-​
   FIX list
   Making Deep Democratic decisions
   Meet your facilitators
   @EvelynvanKelle
   https://www.evelynvankelle.com
   @kenny_baas
   https://xebia.com/blog/author/kbaas/
   https://speakerdeck.com/baasie
   @selketjah
   https://www.selketjah.com
   https://www.eightpointsquared.com
   We love cats.
   

   View Slide

2. Impromptu networking
   In two rounds 4 min each you will interview each other on the
   following questions:
   Give an example OF A group decision went well and why did it
   go well?
   Give an example OF a group decision did not go well, what
   went wrong and what was the outcome?
   Each round you will do this with someone else.
   1.
   2.
   

   View Slide

3. Into the problem You are a group of architects working for a cinema company and COVID-19 just hit
   the country you operate in, needing to close down all the cinemas. In a debriefing
   with management they told you that they are looking into opening the cinemas again
   within 2-3 months under some strict rules:
   * Customers need to sign a health check
   * Customers can only sit together with their household
   * There needs to be 1.5 meters between reservations
   * A room can hold a max of 30 people in total
   These current rules also need to apply:
   * A reservation can made be for up to a maximum of 8.
   * A reservation can made be for only adjacent seating in a single row.
   You are tasked by management to design a solution so that once the cinema opens up
   again, customers can start using the website and app to reserve seats like they are
   used to, but with the strict rules applied. At this moment the app and website
   communicate by Rest with the reservations system through the same API. The
   reservations system is 7 years old and we build that system, the app and website in-​
   house. The reservations systems holds all the current reservations and the current
   business rules for reserving seats.
   Two things are important for the management:
   1. At all costs, it must go live the moment it is announced that the cinemas can
   reopen again. That way customers can start straight away with reserving spots before
   the cinemas open again.
   2. Once all COVID-19 rules are lifted, we should be able to quickly and with low
   costs move back to the rules that applied before COVID-19.
   Bounded Context Boundary Domain Boundary
   Application/deployment
   Boundary
   Legend
   Reservation system
   Cinema Website
   Cinema app
   Reservation Domain
   Allocations
   Ticketing
   Reservations
   Marketing
   

   View Slide

4. a pattern is a set of ingrained, more or less fixed
   relationships between aspects or components of a culture,
   society, group, organization that can be observed, or can be
   deduced and interpreted from concrete events and
   processes. It concerns observable, repetitive aspects of
   reality. (3 times is a charm)
   patterns are repetitive
   patterns are visible on several layers
   patterns have a systematic coherence
   patterns form energy fields
   patterns are transferred
   What
   behavioural
   patterns did
   you observe
   in the group?
   Deep Democracy
   The lewis method
   
   deep-democracy.net
   WELCOME - Lewis Deep
   Democracy services
   This is now a separate site from the
   Services Site. To get to the Learning
   Center do not log in here, click below
   and log in to the Learning Center using
   your registered email address. Note that
   this is a separate login account and
   needs to be managed f…
   Deep Democracy
   The lewis method
   
   deep-democracy.net
   WELCOME - Lewis Deep
   Democracy services
   This is now a separate site from the
   Services Site. To get to the Learning
   Center do not log in here, click below
   and log in to the Learning Center using
   your registered email address. Note that
   this is a separate login account and
   needs to be managed f…
   Intervention to the group (never the individual) about the patterns you observed
   Neutral, factual observation
   use the words that the group uses
   Now stay quiet and let the group decide what we need to do
   Climate report
   Concious
   Unconcious
   Break-​
   out assignment
   In group Pick some patterns you observed During meetings
   Discuss and decide how you as a facilitator could have given a
   climate report to the group.
   Not everything has to be a Climate report
   Indirectness ->
   talking in the 3th
   person
   Indirectness ->
   Somebody....
   Indirectness ->
   Guardian angel
   Absence
   Interrupt
   each other
   karaoke /
   radiostation
   sliding, not
   deciding
   Asking question
   that are no
   questions
   What do you want to
   say? What do you
   think? What do you
   mean?
   Who do
   you mean?
   Confusing communication
   What do you
   want? What are
   your needs?
   Weather
   report
   Asking questions
   or weather
   report
   Do you have an answer
   yourself? Do you
   already have ideas
   yourselve?
   Logical fallacies
   False
   Dichotomy
   Ad
   Hominem
   Are there any
   other options?
   What makes
   you say that?
   
   en.wikipedia.org
   List of fallacies -
   Wikipedia
   A fallacy is reasoning that is logically
   incorrect, undermines the logical validity
   of an argument, or is recognized as
   unsound. All forms of human
   communication can contain fallacies.
   Because of their variety, fallacies are
   challenging to classify. The…
   Strawman
   How did you
   reach that
   conclusion?
   Conscious
   Unconscious
   Wisdom / potential of the group
   edging behaviour
   

   View Slide

5. Group 1 << option 1 >>
   PRO CON & FIX
   Reasons this is a bad option and possible fixes
   Reasons this is a good option
   << option 2 >>
   PRO CON & FIX
   Reasons this is a bad option and possible fixes
   Reasons this is a good option
   BIKING TO WORK
   PRO CON & FIX
   Reasons this is a bad option and possible fixes
   Reasons this is a good option
   Guaranteed daily
   exercise of 60
   minutes
   Good for
   environment
   Kilometer
   compensation of
   8 EUR / km
   Increase in
   salary:
   3.500 EUR
   Arriving sweaty
   and the office
   I get wet
   when it rains
   Only one car to
   share between me
   and my partner
   Commute is 60
   minutes a day
   Shower at
   the office
   Listen to audiobooks
   or podcasts during
   commute
   KEEP COMPANY CAR
   PRO CON & FIX
   Reasons this is a bad option and possible fixes
   Reasons this is a good option
   Me and my
   partner both have
   their own car
   No fuel
   costs
   Arrive dry
   at the office
   Commute is 20
   minutes a day
   Salary stays the
   same:
   3.150 EUR
   Bad for the
   environment
   No daily
   exercise
   120 EUR monthly
   taxation
   Donate my
   carbon footprint
   to charity
   Use the gym at
   the office before
   leaving
   CURRENT
   SITUATION
   New bike paid
   by company
   Fuel costs of 100
   EUR / month
   Put office clothes
   at office and
   change on arrival
   Buy rain
   repelling clothes
   for biking
   Arrive fresh
   at the office
   No eco bonus
   from the office
   BIKE
   PRO CON & FIX
   Reasons this is a bad option and possible fixes
   Reasons this is a good option
   More
   exercise
   Good for
   environment
   Get bonus
   More
   salary
   Arriving sweaty
   and the office
   I get wet
   when it rains
   Only one car to
   share between me
   and my partner
   Commute is 60
   minutes a day
   Shower at
   the office
   Listen to audiobooks
   or podcasts during
   commute
   COMPANY CAR
   PRO CON & FIX
   Reasons this is a bad option and possible fixes
   Reasons this is a good option
   Me and my
   partner both have
   their own car
   No fuel
   costs
   Arrive dry
   at the office
   Commute is 20
   minutes a day
   Less salary
   Bad for the
   environment
   No daily
   exercise
   Pay taxes
   Donate
   some money
   Use the gym at
   the office before
   leaving
   New bike paid
   by company
   Fuel costs of 100
   EUR / month
   Put office clothes
   at office and
   change on arrival
   Buy rain
   repelling clothes
   for biking
   Arrive fresh
   at the office
   No eco bonus
   from the office
   EXAMPLE OF A GOOD COMPARISON EXAMPLE OF A BAD COMPARISON
   allocation system
   Reservations system
   Cinema Website
   Cinema app
   Reservation Domain
   Allocations
   Ticketing
   Reservations
   Marketing
   Reservations system
   Cinema Website
   Cinema app
   Reservation Domain
   Allocations
   Ticketing
   Reservations
   Marketing
   Allocations
   Allocations
   Add
   functionality to
   a new bounded
   context and call
   that instead
   Add functionality
   to a new
   deployable
   component and
   call that from
   original allocations
   bounded context
   

   View Slide

6. If a product is 29.90 euro at a local shop around the corner,
   and that same product is 19.90 euro in another shop 20 min
   drive away, would you do that?
   Would you do the same if the price is 750 euro and 740 euro?
   The clearest instance in the book, which I set up as a
   sort of foundational myth, is the Pythagorean cult in the
   fifth century BC, which becomes so devoted to the
   perfect rationality of mathematics that it has trouble
   dealing with the discovery of the existence of irrational
   numbers. And so when one of its own, Hippasus of
   Metapontum, starts telling people outside the group
   that the world can’t be explained by mathematics alone,
   legend has it that the leader of the group had him
   drowned in a fit of anger.
   “The desire to impose rationality, to make people or society
   more rational, mutates ... into spectacular outbursts of
   irrationality.” - Justin E.H. Smith
   Deep Democracy
   The lewis method
   
   deep-democracy.net
   WELCOME - Lewis Deep
   Democracy services
   This is now a separate site from the
   Services Site. To get to the Learning
   Center do not log in here, click below
   and log in to the Learning Center using
   your registered email address. Note that
   this is a separate login account and
   needs to be managed f…
   The 5 steps of sustainable decision making
   Gain all Views
   Find the alternative view and make it safe to say no
   Spread the alternative view
   What will it take to come along
   1.
   2.
   3.
   4.
   5 . Go Fishing - the argument (Say what needs to be said)
   Vote
   Concious
   Unconcious
   Break-​
   out assignment
   In your team one of you will be the facilitator the
   discussion on what solution to pick from the modelling
   challenge. Use what you learned from Deep Democracy. You
   can also switch if multiple people want to facilitate.
   If you do not have a facilitator, try to use stickies and write
   down why you want a specific solution and compare and
   relate.
   

   View Slide

7. 1 2 3
   4
   5
   6
   7
   8 9
   On a scale of cat, how are you feeling today?
   

   View Slide