The Organize tool addresses one of the greatest challenges the participants face: taking a list of items and discussing, editing, and organizing them to create a common understanding. Unlike Evaluate and Generate steps, the participants do not use their workstations, rather, they discuss out loud to clarify, correct, merge, or otherwise edit list items to produce coherent results.

Organize screen with outline

During an Organize step, the facilitator leads the group through the process of organizing their ideas while the chauffeur uses the Organize tool to display their decisions. These “electronic flip charts” can be viewed by all participants — especially helpful for those who are not in the meeting room.

Organize systematically processes lists using two modes of operation. In Discussion Mode, each item on a list appears in the Discussion Window and is considered for clarity, uniqueness, and appropriateness. It can be edited

Organize screen with tiled windows

or completely reworded. Then it is used to create an outline structure in the Discussion Results window. A time budget can be used to keep on track.

In Outliner Mode, the relationships between the clarified ideas are identified and the items are grouped together and sequenced. Multiple methods are available to accomplish these tasks, allowing the group great flexibility.

The facilitator can use either or both of these modes and can switch between them at any time during the step.

Here are some examples for using Organize:

• After brainstorming, the group names several categories, then places items into the categories.
• A “Parking Lot” remains open during the meeting so the group can keep track of items they want to save for later work.
• During a conference call, the facilitator “scribes” as he/she would do on paper in a meeting room, thus creating electronic flip charts.

The result of an Organize session is a clearly worded and structured outline of the group’s ideas. All or parts of this outline can be saved in a file and used in subsequent steps or activities.

Organize features include:

• Full editing capability
• Drag and drop capability, plus all Windows keystrokes
• Spell checking throughout
• Extensive outlining
• Ability to save output as Microsoft Excel, HTML, Microsoft Project, or text
• Multiple tiled windows for viewing multiple lists concurrently