Dialogue Models for Small Group Collaborative Problem Solving

Three-Day Skills Training

19.5 Contact Hours

This course examines structured dialogue models used to support collaborative problem solving in small-group settings. Participants will explore approaches for establishing conditions for constructive engagement, surfacing multiple perspectives, identifying underlying interests and assumptions, managing disagreement, and moving groups toward shared understanding and informed action. Emphasis is placed on facilitation practices that support equitable participation, reflective inquiry, deliberation, and collective learning when addressing complex or contested issues.

1) Course Goals

• Equip participants to design and facilitate dialogue processes that move from understanding to collaborative problem solving and action.
• Strengthen participants’ ability to help groups identify common interests, set priorities, develop options, and make inclusive decisions.
• Build practical capacity in consensus building, action planning, accountability, and sustaining working relationships.
• Support the use of dialogue as a foundation for practical cooperation and longer-term change.

2) Learner Objectives

• Describe the stages of a collaborative dialogue process from perspective sharing through action planning and follow-through.
• Facilitate the identification of concerns, interests, shared priorities, and areas of common purpose.
• Use structured techniques to support inclusive participation and prevent dominant voices from controlling the process.
• Guide groups in generating, organizing, and evaluating possible solutions.
• Facilitate consensus-building and other inclusive decision-making approaches appropriate to the group’s needs.
• Translate broad ideas into specific priorities, commitments, responsibilities, timelines, and next steps.
• Establish accountability and follow-up mechanisms that support implementation.
• Address disagreement and unresolved differences while preserving relationships and forward momentum.
• Design dialogue processes that connect relationship building with practical outcomes.

3) Learner Outcomes

• Participants can facilitate a structured process that moves a group from dialogue to collaborative action.
• Participants can help groups identify shared interests and convert them into practical priorities.
• Participants can use inclusive decision-making and consensus-building techniques to develop broad ownership of outcomes.
• Participants can guide groups through option development, evaluation, prioritization, and action planning.
• Participants can help establish clear responsibilities, timelines, and accountability mechanisms.
• Participants can sustain productive engagement when disagreement remains and can support relationships needed for implementation and long-term cooperation.

4) Core Skills

• Collaborative dialogue design
• Facilitation of shared-interest identification
• Inclusive decision making
• Consensus building
• Priority setting
• Option generation and evaluation
• Collaborative problem solving
• Action planning
• Commitment setting
• Accountability planning
• Managing unresolved disagreement
• Relationship maintenance
• Follow-through and implementation planning