2. “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/
3. 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
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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
7.
8.
9.
10. Click on the new conversation tab
Describe the conversation
Click Save
11. Now ready to add nodes
Click the response link
12. Select Node Type
Ask the question (end with a ? )
Explain with details
Click Save
13.
14. Select Node Type
Answer the question
Add details
Click Save
15. 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
16. 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
17. 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
18. 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