Deliberations

Jury Analogies Originally uploaded by clickcraftsman.

In a Citizens Jury, experts share their expertise with the members of the Jury, who then make recommendations to the sponsor in answer to whatever the initial Charge (ie. question or issue) was. But it occurred to me that organisers and sponsors see CJs in different ways. So I drew this diagram to illustrate a few of these perspectives..

The Funnel analogy sees a Jury aggregating what is presented to it, making coherent sense from it all. Just pile in the facts and out flows something meaningful. Only, what happens if you pour too much in? The Jury suffers cognitive (over-)load as too much detail backs up without making sense. And does it all mix together nicely? Is it okay to leave it to the Witnesses to select the inputs that will contribute to the solution?
The Filter analogy sees a Jury selecting the relevant items from what is presented to it. Just pile on the facts and screen out what isn't necessary. But where does the filter come from and can the Jury make reliable selections? Will the Witnesses provide the right inputs? How are the remaining fragments mixed together?
The Instrument analogy sees a Jury probing the Witnesses for data. In this model, the Jury drives the inquiry rather than the Witnesses. The Jury itself does the sense-making, iteratively collecting, combining and interpreting the data to generate knowledge that relates directly to the Charge. But the methodology may not be so linear and organised as implemented by a laboratory instrument.

Perhaps these abstract analogies only reinforce the view of some organisers and sponsors that Citizens Juries engineer results. The presumption is that a dozen rational people, like clockwork, tick out the best recommendations through information aggregation, selection and probing. Instead, I think we need to reaffirm that Citizens Juries are real people who pull the woolly threads together in ad hoc, unpredictable yet insightful ways that emerge from the complex, distinct and diverse community experiences and commitments they wear. They'll only know how they wove their solution after it's done. Oh gosh, another deliberative analogy.

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