”I hear the word all the time, but what does consensus really mean?” Here are some commonly used definitions:

Informed Consent - the grudging willingness of opponents to (grudgingly) go along with a course of action that they actually are still opposed to. (Hans Bleiker, Institute for Participatory Management and Planning)

Grudging Consent - mutual agreement that addresses the central issues but may not address every concern or be perfect from every possible perspective. In a consensus, the level of agreement is not usually perfect but is acceptable enough to the consenting parties to allow the process to proceed. (GCI’s working definition)

Consensus - an opinion held by all or most; general agreement in opinion. (Webster's Dictionary)

Consent - implies compliance with something proposed or requested, stressing this as an act of will. (Webster's Dictionary)

Your definition of consensus may be different and that's okay. What is important is that the stakeholders agree on how decisions will be made. GCI will help you craft the consensus-based decision-making process that will work best for your project and will implement that process using a wide variety of public involvement tools and techniques.

INTERACTIVE DECISION MAKING - CoNexus®

To prevent voice votes that can splinter a group and derail consensus building, GCI offers an interactive decision-making system (CoNexus®) that allows participants to anonymously express their opinions and focus discussion on issues where the stakeholders have substantial disagreement.

The CoNexus® system consists of multiple keypads communicating with a single computer running CoNexus software. Group members use the keypads to privately register opinions on issues displayed on a shared screen. Such a system gives groups the power of collaborative analysis of critical problems.

Click here for more information on the CoNexus System.