Debate

Debate is a dispute resolution technique which breaks down the elements of a disagreement indicating the dependencies between supporting points and the larger points they support or attack.

Structured debate is similar to a courtroom where the proponents make their case in front of a jury of peers.

Uses of the method

Resolve differences of opinion on future policy, long-term decisions
Improve participants perspectives and collaboration
Develop innovative solutions

Benefits

Determine best route forward through structured collaboration and agreement

Disadvantages

Heavy time and resource commitment
High 'Emotional intelligence' required

Steps to complete

Proponent makes best case
Opponent makes best case
Proponent and opponent share best cases
Proponents and opponents rebut each others cases
Proponents and opponents reply to the rebuttal altering their analysis as appropriate
Each side alters its best case as appropriate and presents to the jury
The jury seeks and notes any clarifications
The jury debates the cases and makes a decision on the side of the team refuting the best arguments of the opposing team
Capture your most exciting idea and biggest fear
Determine the fixed elements (almost certain hard trends) that will inform your strategic response: slow-changing phenomena e.g. demographic shifts, constrained situations e.g. resource limits, in the pipeline e.g. aging of baby boomers, inevitable collisions e.g. climate change arguments.
Capture critical variables i.e. uncertainties, soft trends and potential surprises. Both these and the fixeded elements will be key to creating scenarios and examining potential future paradigm shifts.
Capture unique insight into new ways of seeing that can be utilized by the organization.
State alternative hypotheses drawn with different assumptions and judgments.
Finish by noting the jury's conclusions
What conclusions can we draw from the exercise(s)?
- How might the future be different?
- How does A affect B?
- What is likely to remain the same or change significantly?
- What are the likely outcomes?
- What and who will likely shape our future?
- Where could we be most affected by change?
- What might we do about it?
- What don't we know that we need to know?
- What should we do now, today?
- Why do we care?
- When should we aim to meet on this?

Next steps could include a further round of iteration, a recommendation on how to get the answers to loose ends in the arguments or use of other methods such as 'Brainstorm' to create more vantage points on the issue.

Collaboration
This method and your response can be shared with other members or kept private using the 'Privacy' field and through the 'Tag', 'Report' and 'Forum' functionalities. Use 'Tag' and/or 'Report' to aggregate your analyzes, or add a 'Forum' to ask others where they agree/disagree and encourage them to make their own analysis from their unique vantage point.

Click the 'Invite tab to send invitations to other members or non-members (colleagues, external experts etc.) to ask for their input. You can whether or not you want anonymous responses. These can be viewed and exported within the Responses tab.

Further reference

Structured Analytic Techniques, Heuer & Pherson, CQ Press 2010
Issuepedia: Structured Debate
5 Ways to debate with an open mind: Lindsay Lavine, Fast Company, June 2014

Contact us

Even with all the advice and tools we have provided here starting a foresight project from scratch can be a daunting prospect to a beginner. Let us know if you need help with this method or want a group facilitation exercise or full project or program carrying out by us. We promise to leave behind more internal knowledgeable people who can expand your initiative for better organizational performance.

Are there other enhancements or new methods you would like to see here? Let us know and we will do our best to respond with a solution quickly.

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Debate

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