Boxing time is of the essence
Or you may find yourself boxing against time....
Yesterday, I saw this video
And suddenly understood the true power of timeboxing in a group decision setting.
Timeboxing is a key tool in actualizing the sociocratical philosophy of "good enough for now, safe enough to try". The idea is ridiculously simple. Based on the fact that we want to take a decision on a proposal today and move forward, the facilitator gives the group a time (let's say 20min) to reach a decision on that proposal. Maybe at the end of the time slot the decision is not fully baked, or it looks different from the starting proposal..but the the elements to move the topic forward have been defined.
The proposal can in this way start being executed and can be later refined in an iterative way. It's the ultime commitment to evidence-based learning...rather than wanting to control and predict everything in advance. Give up control, perfectionism, recognize need to move forward and to try things rather than being blocked by group inertia.
It's a reverse engineering of our default group decision process were we discuss something until we are satisfied. And since everyone- due to past experiences- expects the discussion to be long, it becomes long (look up: Parkinson 's law..if you are interested in understanding more)
The idea that it takes a long time to come to a collective decision is wrong. Time is a design parameter (and an important one!). We can decide how much time we allot to a decision and take it. Then the test of reality will tell us if we need to change it.
It's an iterative approach to decision-making which I find amazingly attractive because I think it can work so well as to be a paradigm shift in our capacity to exert collective power. And I really want to experiment and learn new ways of working together with others.
Yes it needs good facilitation, but if a group is trained and cooperates..I think this is perfectly doable. Yes, the process may seem rushed, imperfect. It is. But think about the alternative: NOT considering time as a part of the equation: decision by exhaustion. No, thanks.
I am my own guinea-pig, so I also started introducing time-boxing in my personal life as part of a "time-based" approach in planning all those things I wanna do and learn. ~I set aside time to advance on something and -based on the time available -I decide where I want to be by the end of the session. This forces me to focus on the essential and by the end of the slot I produce results that are not perfect, but nonetheless a great step forward.
