Section 10.5.  Consolidation Is a Consensus Process

10.5. Consolidation Is a Consensus Process Consolidation must be the product of team consensus. Consensus first allows team members to feel genuine ownership of recommended solution and then gives their recommendations a real authority when they are considered by the organization at large.[4] [4] The general characteristics of consensus are: Common basis of understanding. General agreement on a clear alternative to which most team members subscribe. No strong minority dissension. Team members understand the decision clearly and are prepared to support it. Retention of group integrity and mission focus [Dunaway 01c]. In general, to achieve consensus, it is important that team members: Share viewpoints and actively participate in discussion. Listen carefully; then identify and rank issues. Focus the discussion on data. When teams have difficulty coming to consensus, it is usually the result of one of a few recurring circumstancesinsufficient information may have been collected, team members may have misunderstood the categories of judgment prescribed by the process maturity model, team members may have preconceived notions about the strengths and weaknesses of the organization (which may be their own), or team members may be acting under the pressure of interests governed by their place in the organization (or a connected organization). Consensus is facilitated by goal-oriented, objective, informed, relevant communication. If team members disagree at any point in this decision-making process, the team should immediately identify the data required to resolve the disagreement and attempt to obtain that data. Additional data is obtained, the issue is revisited, and, if consensus is reached, no more data is required. If consensus is not reached, the process of obtaining additional data continues. If the Lead Assessor sees that team members are uninformed or confused about the categories prescribed by the process maturity model, he or she should take strong and immediate steps to discuss the disagreements and give a tutorial about the letter and spirit of the relevant requirements. If, on the other hand, it seems that the team's lack of consensus is due to preconceived notions or interested judgments about the organization, it is the Lead Assessor's duty first to allow team members to express their views fully and then to alert team members (either during discussions or in private conversations) that the difficulty seems to have grown out of a lack of objectivity. If the situation descends to such discussions, the problem is serious and will require great tact and resolve on the part of the team and especially of the Lead Assessor. A common problem involving team members from organizations associated with the one being assessed derives from their intramural sense of competition. Such members commonly contend that that their own organization "does it better," and if these team members feel that their own organizations have been unfairly criticized for the way they perform an activity, the process of judging the assessed organization becomes a perfect place to vent. The Lead Assessor must be constantly on guard for such situations and must be prepared to diffuse them by bringing the assessment back to the facts and the objective criteria of the model. Example: For a Level 4 assessment of Organization T, two team members had been chosen from another division in the same company, which had not succeeded in a previous Level 4 assessment. These team members did not believe that their own assessment had been fair, and over two weeks they consistently overemphasized whatever problems they found. The internal team members of course felt aggrieved but understood that they were in no position to argueit would look too defensive. Noting this pattern, the Lead Assessor during consensus sessions ensured that the two team members were always given time to discuss their concerns and was careful to schedule extra reviews to gather as much information as possible. After each review, the issues these two team members had raised seemed to be resolved, but at the end of each day, they voiced a variation of the same concerns all over again. Still more interviews were arranged. Finally, when the team agreed that no more interviews or documents needed to be reviewed, the rest of the team concurred that the organization was operating at Level 4, but the two skeptical team members still dissented. Recognizing that the team was never going to come to consensus about the rating, the Lead Assessor attempted to resolve the situation by bringing the discussions back to the data and the expectations of the model. First he asked the two skeptics to make a presentation the next day and explain exactly what areas they felt did not satisfy the Level 4 requirements and why. The Lead Assessor then asked the three internal team members to explain why they felt the organization did satisfy the Level 4 requirements. Before the presentations, the Lead Assessor explained the background and meaning of the relevant Level 4 requirements to the team. After he was through, the team realized that the two groups were not so far apart. Although there were some questions about how the organization was approaching a problem on one current project, the team agreed that the organization in the past had demonstrated a viable approach to similar problems. The team also agreed that the organization was approaching the current problem practically and within the scope of the means outlined in the model. The Lead Assessor had convinced the team that achieving Level 4 did not necessarily mean that all the organization's issues had been resolved but rather that the organization was approaching its problems as the model suggested by using statistical process control. At that point, the team felt confident enough to rate the organization at Level 4.