Tools for Transparent & Accountable Collaboration and Decision-Making
An absurd number of conflicts, relationship break-downs and experiences of inequity come from seemingly mundane, benign sources:
decision-making & consultation.
And here’s the good news: by getting really clear and intentional about the processes by which decisions are made and who needs to be consulted about those decisions (and what that consultation should entail), huge shifts in organizational culture can occur. It’s one of our favorite ways of institutionalizing equity and accountability within an organization, team, or among partners and coalitions.
The primary goal of this work is to establish role clarity to enhance collaboration, transparency and accountability.
The primary tools we use are DARCcI and a Decision Redress Process
What is DARCcI?
It's a convenient acronym to remember each common role that people often make fuzzy assumptions about. This clarity can prevent all kinds of common mishaps in organizations and groups.
It can be applied to a task, a project, a function or area of an entire organization.
What is Decision Redress Process?
An agreed upon set of “triggers” (like this decision puts a partnership at risk) that when occur, puts into motion an agreed upon process for reviewing the decision. Having a DRP can allow for more expansive or creative DARCcIs.
HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF A SIMPLIFIED DARCcI CHART
But no really, what is DARCcI?
DARCcI just is. Whether you explicitly name roles or not, the roles are happening, and people are making assumptions about who is playing those roles for everything all of the time. For every task, function or project, people either consciously or unconsciously assume who is making the decisions, who is working on it, who is going to get it done if everyone else falls through, who is being consulted about it (and what consultation will entail), and who is being told about it. Creating and practicing a DARCcI chart can be shockingly useful when not everyone shares the same assumptions about these roles.
INFORMAL
ORGANIZATIONAL INTEGRATION EXAMPLES:
Team edits the DARCcI document to fit their own team culture.
Project managers appoint, or collectively decide, roles and communicate them (using a chart and acronym or not)
At the end of a meeting where someone suggests a new task ask - “who is the A?” or “does anyone need to be a capital C for that?”
Before a meeting where people might be weighing in on, or making a decision, send along the DARCcI with the meeting invitation or calendar hold
FORMAL
ORGANIZATIONAL INTEGRATION EXAMPLES:
Leadership edits the DARCcI document to fit their own culture
Run a DARCcI Audit (what are roles as practiced vs intended)
Establish an intentional organizational DARCcI based on org values and decided on criteria, informed by audit outcomes
Create internal training and onboarding materials
Include in MOUs with partners (sans acronym)
Options for working with us
Here are some of the ways we have partnered with organizations in the past to support their internal processes. You can contract with us for any combination of these:
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Is your organization DARCcI Curious? Learn the tool and practice creating a few no-stakes DARCcI’s together. The purpose is to jump-start the conversation of explicit processes internally and write your own version of this to use together.
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Tailored to your internal systems and culture, involves considerable preparation to edit the tool and workshop in collaboration with organizational leadership.
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No need for an entire organization to be bought in to use DARCcI; we coach managers in developing and clarifying healthy decision-making and consultation processes with their team. In this context, we just use DARCcI as a framework for identifying potential approaches for addressing acute or chronic issues.
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We survey staff to learn what roles and processes are actually practiced (whether or not intended or codified in job descriptions), what changes are desired, and then we recommend a new, values-aligned role tinkering for the organization.
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Same as above with an additional layer of looking at the demographics of staff members to identify gaps and potential inconsistencies with equity values in where power is held and practiced. We then follow up with facilitating an explicit conversation with all parties about how to counter any unconscious behaviors and practices to fully implement an ideal DARCcI that has been designed with equity in mind.
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For organizations who have want to fully institutionalize and integrate a new structure for transparent collaboration, we typically facilitate engagements in the following sequence:
Begin with meeting with leadership to develop a tailored DARCcI document.
Conduct a decision-making audit.
Collaborate with managers to develop organizational and/or project DARCcI charts.
Design and facilitate workshops with all staff.
Everyone has assumptions about everyone's role in everything all of the time
DARCcI Project Partners
past & present
Amazon Watch
As You Sow
Climate Finance Action
Climate Nexus Water Hub
Daily Kos, Kos Media
Free Press
Learning Policy Institute
Movement Strategy Center
Next 100 Coalition
Rainforest Action Network
Restore Oakland
The Cultural Conservancy
The Sunrise Project
Sierra Club
Soil and Shadow