Page 85 - Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

When making a decision on a topic for a long deliberative process, your focus when choosing a topic should be on sharing difficult issues that no one would otherwise touch. This is where you will have the greatest benefit. Aim for topics with contested sources, difficult or complex trade-off choices and issues where the time frame requires long-term thinking. “Can we agree that this is the scope of the remit?” is a question you may ask at the outset of a heated project. If the decision is controversial, you may need to include a process around agreeing on the scope of the project. You will need to consider if you are prepared to have this conversation. In a situation like this, you may want to ask the participants “This is the remit, can you live with it?” This will be useful in setting the limits on what the group considers but with dramatically change what happens on Day 1 of a process. Any jurisdictional issues should be resolved by providing clarity and setting expectations about what can happen. 83