Talk:Lesson Plan for Teaching the Consensus Process

Some tools that are commonly or seldomly used for building consensus:

• go around
• queue (or stack)
• fishbowl
• straw poll
• weighted voting

These could be explained, or we could develop a handout. RfS

Comparison between consensus and majority rule

Many folks are familiar with terms and concepts from majority rule. Sometimes a side by side comparison goes a long way towards explaining what consensus is. Maybe something like:

• Ownership

  Majority Rule

  The author of a proposal owns it. The group can't change it without the author's approval.

  Consensus

  The author of a proposal gives it the group and the group can change it.

• Abstentions

  Majority Rule

  An abstention is when someone doesn't want to vote against something but doesn't want to get in the way.

  Consensus

  In consensus the closest things is to stand aside

RfS