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The Proposal Generating Meeting combines elements of the process for making Personal Decisions with the Holacractic Integrative Decision-Making (IDM) practice. It integrates Metaphor Inquiry, Clean Language and Clean Space techniques in a format that works in a business context.
IDM works well with large groups (10 -15 people) who are given clear proposal. It helps them to agree on a path forward that causes no harm, but it can lose its power when the group is asked to develop a proposal.
The Proposal Generating Meeting is designed to deal with the following aspects of decision-making:
- Identifying the real problem
- Managing constraints
- Developing sound proposals
Unlike the IDM practice, which tends to be structured and rapid, propsal generation is more relaxed and open-ended. In this aspect, it is more like the process for making personal decisions, which stimulates creative unfolding of the metaphor landscape.
The benefit is that better proposals are generated with fewer person-hours. The final decision by consent that integrates all perspectives can be made by a larger group.
The process is energizing and the outcomes are surprising, satisfying and elegant.
The Proposal Generating Meeting requires a smaller group of people than the IDM meeting. About 3 or 4 people with diverse perspectives works well, and their goal should be to generate a sound proposal. The meeting should incude a facilitator and the business leader ('lead-link' in Holacracy terminology), as well as those representing areas such as:
- Financial, Accounting, Staff, Planning etc.
- Sales, Marketing
- Technical, Production, Operations
- Customer Service, Internal Sales and Support
- Quality Assurance
Each representative should have the opportunity to complete a round in which they explore possible proposals. Each round can last for 10 - 15 minutes, and gives the participant the time to step fully inside the creative space, and see what they discover. |
