Design for self-organization; the participants set the rules.
technique — attributed to Mary Boone
Boone designs meetings so there is a huge amount of self-organization. The participants come up with their own set of rules and guidelines for how they want to operate together. They then largely self-police. The facilitator's job is to ask the right questions and intervene at the right time, not to enforce a code the room did not write. The move is not laissez-faire. The facilitator still designs the conditions under which the rules get written, and the questions that prompt the room to write them. But the rules belong to the room, and the room knows it.
For multi-day retreats and immersive workshops where participants will reconvene over time. Self-organized rules outlast the facilitator's presence in the room.
self-organization, rules-of-engagement, participatory-design, facilitation