Full Report - Knight Program in Community Building

HURLEY | THE PUBLIC PROCESS 11Because facilitators and mediators pay explicit attention to developing groundrules, including a decision rule, consensus-building processes are usually tied veryclosely to a legally required decision-making process. In addition, because consensus-buildingincludes a step in which the group defines the problem or task, thegroup defines the product. The product of a consensus-building process is often astatement of agreement by all of the stakeholders. Frequently, this statement providesrecommendations to the body with legal decision-making authority. Finally, mediatorsand facilitators are trained to “test” an agreement, to make sure that all of the partieshave thought through the implications of the recommendation and that the agreementwill be resilient. These three factors mean that consensus-building processeswork to package an agreement that all parties will actively support.In a charrette, the product of the process is usually defined by the sponsor andthe designers through the RFP and contracting process. The sponsor may or maynot be explicit about how the charrette fits into a larger decision-making process.Even when the sponsor is explicit with the designers about how the charrette fitsinto the larger decision-making process, that connection is not always emphasizedwith the public. Commonly, the products of the charrette comprise plans or regulationsthat the designers recommend that a legal body, usually the City Council,adopt. There is substantial stakeholder input through meetings and pin-up sessionsheld throughout the charrette, but there is not usually an explicit attempt to reachconsensus among all of the stakeholders. Because of the short time frame, the productis not always completely finished when the charrette ends. All of these factorstogether contribute to charrettes creating products (plans and regulations) that donot get implemented.Lesson: Be clear about how the charrette fits into the larger decision-makingsystem. Be clear with members of the public about what their role is. Pay explicitattention to “packaging an agreement” that satisfies most parties. Question peoplewhen they agree with you. Tie up the loose ends.Step 3: ImplementationThe third major phase of consensus-building is implementation. People involvedin consensus-building include implementation as a phase of the consensus-buildingprocess (and not something else altogether) for two primary reasons. First, legislativebodies cannot legally give away their authority to make decisions. That is why theproduct of a consensus-building process is usually a set of recommendations to alegal body. In early public policy dispute resolution experiments, people sometimesdevoted extensive amounts of time and resources to processes that led nowhere,because the legal authority ignored the collaborative group’s recommendation.