Brainstorm and Prioritise

From Peacebuilding

Contents 1 Note: 2 Aims: 3 Time: 4 Participants: 5 Materials: 6 Procedure: 7 Note:

Note:

This is an easy tool for helping a group to strategise its actions. It should be used with an already formed group that it working to achieve nonviolent social change and has a clearly stated goal. It might not work well with a group of participants from different walks of life who have only come together for the workshop and will go their separate ways afterwards.

Aims:

• To help the group identify the conditions that prevent them from achieving their goal

• To brainstorm responses to the conditions identified

• To prioritise and strategise actions for achieving the group’s goal

Time:

An hour and a half

Participants:

At least five or six

Materials:

• Flip charts

• Markers

• A4 paper and pencils

• Index cards

Procedure:

I) Divide the plenary into groups of 5-6 people.

II) Tell the groups that their task for the next 15 minutes is to identify the conditions in their community/school that prevent them from achieving their goal. Ask them to note down each individual point. Encourage them to be as specific as possible.

Example:

A peace club is campaigning to stop the sexual abuse by educators in their school. They should work on identifying the conditions that are preventing them from achieving their objective. Encouraging the groups to be specific means trying to avoid statements such as “the state does not care about us”, and rather focusing on conditions such as “teacher union support the educators”, or “a majority of the parents of the learners are unaware of the campaign” or “the media is only concerned with negative issues”.

III) Start group work. Walk round the room and give assistance if necessary.

IV) After a brainstorming session, ask the groups to review the list of conditions they’ve identified and choose the top three – i.e. the most important ones preventing them from achieving their goal – and write them down on an index card. Allow 3-5 minutes.

V) Collect and shuffle the index cards. Redistribute the index cards to the groups (each group should receive a card that is not their own).

VI) Tell the groups their next task is to brainstorm the actions they should take to deal with the three conditions listed on each index card and to get closer to achieving their goal. Suggest trying to be specific and realistic. Remind them to take notes. Allow sufficient time for group work – at least 20 minutes.

VII) Stop group work, return to the plenary and get group representatives to present their results. Write them down on a flip chart.

Note:

This procedure may be varied:

• After step VI ask the groups to prioritise their actions, choosing the top three they should implement.

• After step IV ask the plenary to choose the top three conditions preventing the group from achieving its goal. There are several ways to do this. For instance, write down all the conditions on a flip chart. Give three small Post-it® notes to each participant and ask them to vote for the conditions they think are most important. They can do this by sticking Post-it® notes on the conditions. They can allocate their “voting power” as they wish – e.g. by sticking three Post-it® notes on one item, two here and one there, or one on three different items). When voting is finished, count and highlight the top three conditions. Then you can get each group to work on one of the top three conditions.