10-3 The How: Group Structure and Process

The final element in organizing a group is designing the structure that will allow the group members to work together in order to accomplish its defined purpose and achieve its outcomes.  The structure serves to give the group its form in which to operate and defines the overall organizational structure (roles, meeting times, committees) as well as the processes that will guide its decision making, conflict resolution, and operational rules.

The following two slides are examples of two very different structures for accomplishing the purpose of a group. The first relies on a committee structure with representatives serving on a core coordination team.

The second chart illustrates a typical “accordion” design with representatives of diverse interest groups coming together for planning and decision making then taking those decisions back out to their constituencies for input.

The other part of a group’s structure is defining its decision making processes and other operational agreements including its meeting ground rules, communication with the media, etc. The better the group is able to define these ahead of time, the more it will avoid problems later in the process.

If compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) is a concern, it should be considered in how the process is designed.  A separate post on FACA considerations will follow.  However, at this point you should be able to reflect on your project and recommend a basic structural design you think best suits the situation.  How would you advise the group to be structured?  Would there be one agreement-seeking group which meets all together all the time with no other input or meetings?  Or would there need to be some kind of central group that is representative of special sub-groups or task groups that meet between sessions of the larger group?  How often would the group(s) meet; what kind of time frame would they be looking at?  Is there a need to take parts of the process to the larger public?  Or to have public input on occasion or at every meeting?  How might that be handled?  Put together any ideas you have on how your group might be structured, and post them as Student Blog Assignment (HOMEWORK) 10-3.

Since one of the principles of collaborative agreement seeking processes is “consensus based decision-making”, we’ll explore consensus a bit in the next blog before we put all the organizational pieces together in a set of working agreements for the group.

Any questions so far?