© 2010 Jack Park; License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

A Brief User’s GuideJack Park

Latest: 20100905

“Dialogue Mapping™ is a proven method for building shared understanding and shared commitment. If you deal with wicked problems, that's a capability you are going to need.”—Jeff Conklin*

*http://www.cognexus.org/

What is an IBIS Conversation?

IBIS Conversation Basics

Basic Node Types

Various views of IBIS conversations

Starting a Conversation

Participating in a Conversation

Conversation Best-Practices

IBIS = Issue-based Information Systems Created for solving Wicked Problems

Structured conversation

Wicked Problem: Highly complex

Many world views, passionate beliefs

No obvious known solution(s)

Frequently don’t know what the right question(s) to ask are

Requires lots of conversations Collect and organize—structure—those conversations

IBIS Extension for MediaWiki

Install to facilitate IBIS Conversations

To participate

Must be logged in

Must be willing to participate in thoughtful ways

Must be willing to listen deeply to what others are saying

IBIS collects and organizes conversations in tree structures

IBIS conversations are structured collections of nodes:

Maps to collect conversations

Questions to describe issues or ask questions

Answers to take positions when answering a question

Pro nodes to support a position

Con nodes to refute a position

Click on the new conversation tab

Describe the conversation

Click Save

Now ready to add nodes

Click the response link

Select Node Type

Ask the question (end with a ? )

Explain with details

Click Save

Select Node Type

Answer the question

Add details

Click Save

Goals for any conversation

Collect and structure questions, ideas, and arguments about a particular situation

Maximize the amount of signal (beneficial information)

Minimize the amount of noise (useless conversation)

Maintain the integrity of the social setting

No personal attacks in arguments

An IBIS Conversation be:

Like a chat room where people want to get to know each other better

Like a design room where people are collecting design ideas

Like a situation room where people are trying to organize information resources about some situation

Like a debate room where arguments are collected and structured for varieties of purposes

A Single IBIS Conversation cannot be all of the above

The purpose of any node in a conversation is to provide a root node for further conversations about one topic A question should be about one topic Each answer node to a question should cover one topic Example: Question: “what are the known causes of climate change?” Answer : “ CO2, Methane, and Waterfalls cause climate change”

Reasons that answer is a poor one: We might agree with the first two topics—no further dialogue

needed We might disagree with the third topic captured in that single

answer. By breaking that one answer into three separate nodes, we gain the

opportunity to treat each topic individually, as if it is the beginning of a new conversation

Goals to keep signals high and noise low call for care in forming arguments Example arguments: “I disagree” The only information conveyed is that someone disagrees. A

conversation benefits when everybody learns why there is a disagreement

“I disagree because…” Possibly a valuable argument, but that will depend upon the

nature of what follows because e.g.: “because I read it in the newspaper” further begs the

credibility of the argument e.g.: “because (Smith, 2007, p-34) argues that…” is liable to

convey beneficial information to the conversation