Whether working with code authorities, conducting testing for our customers or building thought leadership, we maintain a steadfast commitment to accuracy. Even before we began creating the 2024 Convening of the Councils (CoC) Report, we established a clear approach to gathering the information and feedback necessary to produce a thorough and unbiased result.
For the success of initiatives like the CoC report, effective stakeholder engagement serves as a pivotal foundation. A structured methodology also helps harness diverse perspectives to address emerging safety challenges comprehensively and openly. This methodology integrates established facilitation techniques — notably, the divergent and convergent thinking processes exemplified by the “diamond approach” — to foster inclusive and productive discussions. However, the “diamond approach” is only one of eight important steps we took to build a comprehensive report.
Eight crucial steps to creating the 2024 CoC Report
- Preparation and planning – Before convening stakeholders, meticulous preparation is essential. Along with defining clear objectives and planning logistics to create a comfortable environment and offer all necessary resources, we wanted to clearly identify all stakeholders. Identification allowed us to map these stakeholders so we could better understand their interests, influence and potential contributions.
- Facilitating divergent thinking – Divergent thinking encourages the generation of a wide array of ideas and perspectives. The foundation of this is an inclusive environment where all participants feel comfortable sharing their perspective. With that environment in place, we facilitated brainstorming sessions to support creativity and consider unconventional approaches. From there, we could clearly mind-map all ideas.
- Navigating the “groan” zone – Moving from divergent to convergent thinking usually creates frustration, leading to what we think of as the “groan zone.” To move through this successfully, we acknowledge the confusion created as the group processes diverse ideas, and we structure facilitation to bring clarity (such as clustering similar ideas) and keep moving through the process.
- Facilitating convergent thinking – This is where were we started to narrow our focus and make decisions. With clear criteria for evaluating ideas, we employed prioritization techniques, such as multi-voting (also known as dot voting). The goal at this stage was to facilitate consensus while considering all voices.
- Implementing the diamond approach – This approach supports a balanced process that values both creativity and critical evaluation. Ideas expand before our focus narrows.
- Continuous engagement and feedback – Keeping stakeholders informed and offering the opportunity for feedback throughout the process were essential. We value all voices within the council and the expertise they provide to the report throughout the entire development and creation process.
- Evaluation and reflection – Our opportunity to assess how well our process worked based on how well we met objectives. We also held debrief sessions with stakeholders to gather their input.
- Documentation and reporting – The final step, of course, is the CoC Report itself. In addition to creating a thorough report, we had two primary goals: first, to maintain detailed records of discussions, decisions and rationales to maintain transparency; second, to make the report accessible to all stakeholders.
By applying this process, and with the support of many stakeholders and industry experts, the CoC successfully harnesses diverse expertise to explore comprehensive and innovative safety approaches. We are grateful to everyone who contributed, and we look forward to exploring how the landscape has changed during our next council.
Looking for additional details? Review our findings by accessing the full report here.