Scriptapedia/Dots

Dots

This script is used to sift through many possible choices and select those most important to the participant group. For example, there are many times during GMB sessions where it is important to prioritize or reduce the number of items on which the group is working. This might take the form of choosing the top graph over time for inclusion in the model, or picking the stocks that will be incorporated.

Status:

Best practices

Primary nature of group task:

Evaluation

Time

Preparation time: 0 minutes

Time required during session:10 minutes

Follow-up time: 0 minutes

Materials

Three to five adhesive dots per participant, or markers

Inputs:

An array of items to vote on with dots, for example, a set of behavior over time graphs

Outputs:

Prioritized choices

Roles

Facilitator to introduce the exercise

Steps

The facilitator gives every participant the same number of dots.
The facilitator instructs participants to place their dots beside the items they think are most important to them. They can distribute the dots any way they want (e.g. put all of them on one behavior over time graph or spread dots out across several graphs).
The facilitator tallies the dots beside each item to create a ranked list of importance.

Evaluation Criteria:

Participants have prioritized their choices
Participants have achieved consensus on the most important items
Example 1: Dots Exercise

Authors

Unknown

History

Unknown

Revisions

None

References

None

Notes

This is a nice activity to introduce before break or lunch as people will take various amounts of time
The item with the most dots isn't "the winner," but helps the participants focus on important emerging themes as they move into the next activity
If there is a large group, have participants come up in smaller waves to avoid congestion