Playing the new devil’s advocate role in facilitated modelling processes to address group homogeneity

Giovanni Cunico, Nici Zimmermann and Nuno Videira

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2024, vol. 75, issue 8, 1587-1610

Abstract: To address complex issues, facilitated modelling aims to represent and accommodate plural worldviews from many stakeholders and experts. In these contexts, group homogeneity can become problematic when participants’ plurality of perspectives and information is missing and people attending facilitated sessions have similar problem perceptions and interests. This is a challenge because it can lead to narrow discussion, groupthink and undermine output quality. Despite not being uncommon, effective approaches to deal with homogeneity are hardly reported. This paper presents a new role—the New Devil’s Advocate—in which some facilitators leave their neutrality-oriented stance and act as the missing stakeholders. The paper illustrates a first application to a group model building process aimed at supporting the development of energy efficiency policies in the UK. To evaluate the results, workshop transcripts were coded, participants’ and facilitators’ feedback collected, and the modelling output assessed with respect to the New Devil’s Advocate interventions during the workshop. Although the role performance appears to increase facilitators’ workload and be influenced by role performers’ personality and background, the analysis shows positive results as a promising practice to address homogeneity. Additionally, it offers a practical experience of how facilitation teams may temporarily abandon neutrality and intervene on content.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01605682.2023.2263101 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tjorxx:v:75:y:2024:i:8:p:1587-1610

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjor20

DOI: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2263101

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Operational Research Society is currently edited by Tom Archibald

More articles in Journal of the Operational Research Society from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().