ABSTRACT
Many devices have been used to increase the participation of members in the events of conferences and training programmes. They have been developed in the hope and belief that participation, by reducing passive attendance, makes communication more effective. Small groups have always been used for training and learning. Since the Second World War many institutional conferences have adopted a pattern whereby speakers address the whole conference, and then discussion of the lectures takes place in small groups, which subsequently reassemble in plenary session to report back to the total membership. In 1947, at a conference run jointly by the Tavistock Institute and the Industrial Welfare Society, this technique was modified in that there were few speakers, and they only set themes, leaving the members to decide the content of the conference. Many variations are now common: in some, the small groups are given a specific question to discuss, either all the same question, or different ones for different groups; in others, usually the larger conferences, sections have their own speakers. 'Buzz' sessions (in which members form small units of from two to six persons without moving out of the conference room), role-playing, sociodrama, brains trusts, panel discussions, and debates are among techniques that have been used with success. Other conferences that have been concerned with understanding problems of human relationship and leadership have introduced forms of joint consultation' — committees composed of members and staff — in an attempt to reproduce, in the conference, the kind of relationship and leadership the conference has been advocating. All are attempts to establish organizational mechanisms that will allow an individual member to make his views heard without exposing him to the difficulty of addressing a large group.
