Scale
The importance of structural agreements and formalized process become more critical as the group of participants increases. A small organization may be able to afford more flexibility in their process, but a group of several hundred or several thousand participants requires a strict procedural structure to ensure that equal opportunity is given for everyone to voice their opinion.
It is possible for a Formal Consensus model to be employed for decision-making bodies of up to 100,000 participants. However, this requires that much smaller groups be formed, so that real discussion is made possible. Ideally, each individual would be able to discuss topics and proposals among an “affinity group” of 5 or 6 people, and each affinity group would then be able to participate in larger-scale discussions by way of a representative.
Read more about this topic: Formal Consensus
Famous quotes containing the word scale:
“... the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God’s will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“I don’t pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“The most perfect political community must be amongst those who are in the middle rank, and those states are best instituted wherein these are a larger and more respectable part, if possible, than both the other; or, if that cannot be, at least than either of them separate, so that being thrown into the balance it may prevent either scale from preponderating.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)