Feedback Frames—a low-tech tool for anonymous voting

Feedback+Frames+open+with+coinsJason Diceman is developing a novel tool for anonymous voting — Feedback Frames.

Unlike high-tech audience response systems, Feedback Frames are refreshingly low-tech (no computers, clickers, smartphones, power, or technical support required). One graphic explains the tool:

Feedback+Frames+-+how+it+works

 

Although I tend to prefer public and semi-anonymous techniques for the participatory voting I use extensively in my facilitation practice, Jason’s approach is a refreshing alternative to the complex (and typically expensive) high-tech ARS methods routinely used for anonymous voting at meetings.

Jason created an even lower-tech (free!) tool Idea Rating Sheets in 2004 (originally called “Dotmocracy”) to “make it easier to find agreements in large groups”. He has been a Senior Public Consultation Coordinator for the City of Toronto since 2010. Jason is working to crowdfund his invention.  His FAQ should answer all your questions. Visit his website to learn more.

3 thoughts on “Feedback Frames—a low-tech tool for anonymous voting

  1. Thanks, Adrian! I really appreciate getting support from such a leader in the field of facilitation. Much respect!

    I’m a techy and love good apps. But I’ve been in many situations where clients could not afford devices for everyone, or where not everyone has a fully charged smartphone, or where wifi failed, etc. Feedback Frames work anywhere any time. Even hand held and outdoors.

    You can also use different size tokens and different color tokens for different type of participants, which can give more insight into who think what within the results. E.g. compare opinions of employees vs. customers vs. management. Fun stuff.

    Keep up the great work and thanks for giving us such great references with your books.

    1. The different size/color tokens are a nice addition, Jason! For public voting, you can do something similar with body voting by adding a 2nd dimension, splitting a line vote into two or more parallel lines, one for each of the different sub-groups.

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