Deliberation and Decision-Making

This Chapter seven focuses on how the participants in a collaborative governance group actually work together to forge a solution. First, this chapter explores how to navigate the transition from organizing to deliberation and then describes four areas of deliberation and decision-making that are critical to achieving the best collaborative outcomes: (1) agreement on purpose and operating principles; (2) joint learning; (3) joint problem-solving; and (4) consensus decision-making.

This chapter also addresses a number of issues and challenges inherent in the deliberative portion of the collaborative process, including the use of technical information and experts, inclusion of public input, and the responsibilities of constituency representation.