Concept Star overcomes conflict in strategic planning

How Concept Star process overcomes conflict in strategic planning sessions

Concept Star uses a structured decision making process that prevents people from trying to push their ideas without first going through discovery and analysis. This makes the participants more receptive to others' ideas. The process does not permit discussion of the merits or drawbacks of ideas until the third phase of the decision making process.

The first phase is for creating and clarifying ideas. Clarification involves brief discussion of each idea to ensure all participants have a common understanding. Critique of ideas is not permitted. Ideas may be identified as requiring further research if there is a general lack of knowledge. Concept Star process can deal with many ideas.
The 2nd phase is for analysis of the interrelationships or links between ideas within the context of the situation. This is a focussed structured discussion during which participants gain a lot of knowledge and understanding of the situation and significant new insights. (Concept Star software tracks the links between ideas and displays the relationship map)
The third phase of the decision making process is for analysis of the merits & drawbacks of the ideas and selection of decision making criteria. By now, people have good knowledge and understanding of the issues necessary to make logical decisions.

Verbally aggressive & manipulative people, who are accustomed to getting their way, may find these sessions to be rather unsettling. However, most people enjoy the sessions because:

They were able to contribute their knowledge in a productive fashion.
They gained a lot of knowledge about areas other than their own.
They understand the logic behind and support the decisions that are made.
They gained new insights, much more so than in ordinary sessions.