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Issue Good practice methods

Convener Nuran Yigit

Participants Kerry, Eva, Jasmina, Alexander, Sven, Francis, Antti-Juhanni, Sheila, Hannah, Alexander Shilling, Marei, Agneta

Methods that we exchanged (for further information aske the person directly):

Sheila: Appreciative Inquiry is a simple method focusing on good positive energy and to get out of negativity.

People interview each other in partners or in small groups. Suggested questions are: Whats your best experience in the field we are going to talk about? What made it possible to make those experiences? If your dreams become true, what would they look like? How can we have more of this?

Alexander had a variation of this: Paper ponchos on all participants. In the front the person itself writes the good experiences he/she has around the theme. People walks around and make exchanges of whats written. Later the other participants write positive messages/feed back on the back of the poncho.

Creates a good energy.

Alexander shared his experience how he use this in project reviews ( balanced review). When you end a project people should talk about what was good in the project and learn from this.

Kerry shared Strategy planning with us but please read about it in the book he and Eddie Palmer wrote (The Large Group Facilitator's Manual).

Nuran told us a little about Theatre of the oppressed created by Augosto Boal from Brasil (based on Pedagogy of the oppressed by Paulo Freire). She is using esp. Forumtheatre and Sculpturetheatre. This is a way of putting experience of oppression into a scene and look how to change the situation of the oppressed person. In Forumtheatre e.g. you play a real situation and invite the spectators to replace the oppressed person and suggest a way of solution.

Francis: World-Cafe Create a cafe situation or go to a real cafe. The tables are prepared with paper-cloth to write on them. The group has to decide on a question that really matters in advance. The groups at the different tables have 20 - 25 minutes time to diskuss and write down their conclusions. Then one person stays as host at the table and the others divide to the other tables. After 3 or 4 rounds put the table cloth on the floor, walk around and look. New question for new round: How are we going to do it? After this round, you can point out the strong ideas. Takes about 1 hour to a couple of days. Recommended as a dynamic, relaxed method with a lot of energy. Read more at www.worldcafe.com

Svens's variation: Silent discussion --> same without talking, only writing.

Alexander: Three Rooms (Disney Method) A group has an idea and want to work on that. You have 3 rooms: 1) Positive room, where everybody works on the positives and good sides of the idea (creativity) 2) negative room, where eb. works on the bad sides of the idea (destruction) 3) realistic, decision room, where the group is working on a balanced view

Kerry: Giant Mind Mapping (again look into the book) Using th epower of Visuals. Drawing on a big peace of paper a groups mind map. After 1 hour the group puts stickers to find priority issues (snap shot in time). Next step could be OST or world cafe.

Francis is using a variation: Learning wall On the way to the bathroom you can write on the paper at the wall: What am I not happy with? What can I do about it?

Sven: Circle Talk Using talking stick and let the word go around the circle.

Alexander asked the question, what the weirdest thing we ever did with a group. We combined to answer this question by Agneta suggestion to do a closing circle with talking ball! It was great and VERY funny!

Eva and Nuran


Online Comments

hello nuran! --MichaelHerman

I've recently been exploring Appreciative Inquiry and I'd love some comments on people's experiences of how they have combines AI and OS - VivMcWaters?