What is the purpose of having issues framed in terms of choices for action?
Having the choices framed ahead of time by others helps participants in the deliberative dialogue forum get quickly into the meat of an issue and forces them to come to grips with the major tensions and trade-offs associated with it. The choices are not meant to be exhaustive and participants are encouraged to bring up ideas that they feel aren’t included in the framework. But a well-developed issue framework should provide the building blocks for the group’s work of co-creating a general sense of direction for where they want to go on an issue. The objective in a deliberative dialogue is not to take a vote at the end on which choice individuals prefer. Rather, the goal is to arrive at a better common understanding of the issue through a thorough examination of the major choices we have in relation to it. Ultimately, participants are trying to discover and create some sense of common ground among them upon which future action might be taken, creating their own approach which may involv
