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Demystifying Facilitation: A New Approach to Investigating the Role of Facilitation in Group Decision Support Processes

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Group Decision and Negotiation. Theory, Empirical Evidence, and Application (GDN 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 274))

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Abstract

We believe there are still gaps in our knowledge of the facilitator role in group decision support processes and these must be “de-mystified” if use of these methods is to become more widespread. We use the design and analysis of online group model building to form a better understanding of the facilitator role. Our experimental configuration makes use of Group Explorer (Decision Explorer), configured to be delivered across the Internet in a distributed manner. The facilitator is thus no more or less visible in the workshop as any other participant. Data from a workshop is analysed and the findings discussed in relation to the following works; (i) Callon on translation, (ii) Hiltz et al. on the problem of animating methodology, and (iii) White and Taket’s “death of the expert”. We conclude by discussing one possible end-point of this work – the rise of a participant-led group decision support process model.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The initial issue explored was how to support asynchronous modelling too. The Group Explorer setup was left running all weekend, hence the date range, to enable issues to be added and connected in the model without the facilitator being present at the client console. Whilst it worked technically, it was decided fairly quickly that this mode of working would not be explored further. However, we already have requirements for distributed workshops that will involve stakeholders separated by many time zones and the methodological issues raised by periods of un-facilitated participation could thus be investigated with the same experimental setup.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the four anonymous reviewers for their useful review of our paper. We are indebted to Colin Eden for providing Group Explorer software and his patience, and that of Iain Small, in supporting a very non standard installation. We would also like to thank Paul Shabajee who helped with the first online workshop and provided input based on experience in investigating the user requirements for the STEEP collaborative stakeholder engagement platform (https://tools.smartsteep.eu/wiki/STEEP_Platform). We would also like to thank Alberto Franco and Ashley Carreras for their tutorial on Group Explorer at Euro 2015. This work was supported in part by (i) the EPSRC funded Industrial Doctorate Centre in Systems (Grant EP/G037353/1), (ii) the Innovate UK/NERC project Healthy Resilient Cities: Building a Business Case for Adaptation (Grant NE/N007360/1) and (iii) the EU FP7-ENERGY-SMARTCITIES-2012 (314277) project STEEP (Systems Thinking for Comprehensive City Efficient Energy Planning).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Mike Yearworth

  2. Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Leroy White

Authors
  1. Mike Yearworth
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  2. Leroy White
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mike Yearworth .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, USA

    Deepinder Bajwa

  2. TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Sabine T. Koeszegi

  3. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Rudolf Vetschera

Appendices

Appendix A Installation Notes for Group Explorer in MS Azure

These notes are designed to help installing Group Explorer in Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing environment using Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Virtual Machines (VMs) and refers to Group Explorer V2.1 User’s Guide v2.1.3 and install files PublicSetup-v2.exe dated 28th March 2013 and ChauffeurSetup-v2.exe dated 9th December 2012.

Part 1 – Creating the VMs, network, and assigning correct IP addresses

  • Create a suitable Microsoft Azure subscription

  • Create a virtual network

    • Name: netnameXXXX

    • start address 192.168.0.0

    • CIDR/24(251) - creates a submask of 255.255.255.0

  • Create the first virtual machine to host the Public computer

    • Compute->Virtual Machine->From Gallery->Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

    • Name: PublicXXXX (whatever is needed to guarantee a unique name)

    • Region/Affinity: netnameXXXX

    • Endpoint: HTTP

    • Endpoint: GroupExplorerXXXX 8085

  • Download the RDP connection file for PublicXXXX

  • Connect to PublicXXXX

  • Install dropbox

  • Install Azure Powershell

  • Shutdown Public

  • Create the second virtual machine to host the Chauffeur computer

    • Compute->Virtual Machine->From Gallery->Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

    • Name: ChauffeurXXXX (whatever is needed to guarantee a unique name)

    • Region/Affinity: netnameXXXX

    • Endpoint: HTTP

    • Endpoint: GroupExplorerXXXX 8085

  • Download the RDP connection file

  • Install dropbox

  • Install Azure Powershell

  • get credentials

  • Configure IP address of PublicXXXX using Azure Powershell

  • Shutdown ChauffeurXXXX

  • Startup Public

  • Check IP address of PublicXXXX

  • Connect PublicXXXX

  • Configure IP address of ChauffeurXXXX using Azure Powershell

  • Startup ChauffeurXXXX

  • Check IP address of ChauffeurXXXX

Part 2 – Installing Public

  • On PublicXXXX

  • Find the SQL Server 2008 R2 installer download page on the Microsoft website

  • Download the installation file SQLEXPR_x86_ENU.EXE

  • Start the SQL Server 2008 R2 install process by running SQLEXPR_x86_ENU.EXE

  • Kill the install process to preserve extracted distribution

  • Find and copy the extracted distribution tree for SQL Server 2008 R2 to Downloads

  • Start Public Install as per the Group Explorer Install Manual

  • When Group Explorer Installer starts the SQL Server installer change location of source to Downloaded file

  • Let Public install finish

Part 3 – Installing Chauffeur

  • Login to ChauffeurXXXX

  • Start Chauffeur Install as per the Group Explorer Install Manual

  • Let Chauffeur install finish

Appendix B Joining Instructions for an Online Meeting

Appendix C Online Meeting Configuration Checklist

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Yearworth, M., White, L. (2017). Demystifying Facilitation: A New Approach to Investigating the Role of Facilitation in Group Decision Support Processes. In: Bajwa, D., Koeszegi, S., Vetschera, R. (eds) Group Decision and Negotiation. Theory, Empirical Evidence, and Application. GDN 2016. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 274. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52624-9_6

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