Decisions are at the core of any successful endeavour. The challenge is how do we make the right decisions at the right time for the right issues and people?

Introducing OPPi’s Decision Matrix (DM). A tool that helps any organisation to extract insights from the noise of data, opinions and conversations.

1. How does the Decision-Matrix work?

There are two axes to the DM. The x-axis is the Consensus Factor while the y-axis is the Participation Factor. The size of the bubble is correlated to the Certainty Factor.

Consensus Factor = |No. of Agrees — No. of Disagrees| / (No. of Agrees + No. of Disagrees + No. of Undecideds)

Participation Factor = (No. of Agrees + No. of Disagrees + No. of Undecideds) / Total no. of Participants (i.e. both active and non-active participants)

Certainty Factor = 1 — [No. of Undecideds / (No. of Agrees + No. of Disagrees + No. of Undecideds)]

Consensus Factor shows how much participants actually agree or disagree with a statement that they have seen. The higher the consensus, the greater the amount of agree-ness or disagree-ness from the participants.

In OPPi, certain statements are crowdsourced from the participants, so naturally, not all participants may have seen every statement. Participation Factor indicates how many of the participants have voted on the statements. To increase the participation factor on a statement, organisers can consider re-inviting the participants to vote on new statements whenever they are available.

Certainty Factor refers to the amount of certainty that participants expressed in agreeing or disagreeing with a statement.

Statements and opinions in the OPPi conversation are classified into six distinct categories as depicted in the diagram below:

The six categories offer poll organisers insights on how they can interpret the voting patterns of the participants.

Common Ground Category

Common ground statements have a high level of consensus and participation. This means that there is either an overwhelming agreement or disagreement with the statement. Finding common ground is central to the ethos of OPPI because:

1. It provides the first step to resolution. It shows that there are issues that unite participants among the issues that divide them.
2. It allows the facilitator to nurture trust with the people when they identify and focus on common ground instead of what divides participants.
3. It starts the process of self-awareness among the facilitator and the participants. Beyond the immediate concerns and perspectives that colour the debate, there are other opinions that matter to others as well.
4. Decision-makers can act on these issues swiftly and decisively. The common ground category shows statements or potential solutions that most people have a common view on.

Divisive Category

On the other extreme, divisive statements have a low degree of consensus and a high level of participation. In other words, there is about an equal distribution of participants on the two camps: agree and disagree.

These statements are critical points of polarisation in the debate and should be given significantly more attention and be dealt with with greater sensitivity and patience.

The goal for facilitators is to guide the bubble from the left side of the matrix to the right side, towards the common ground category. This shows that there is progress in building consensus on an issue that was previously divisive.

Acknowledge Category

Acknowledge statements are neither common ground nor divisive — they are in between both categories.

They indicate that, in contrast to common ground statements, there is a significant minority opinion on these issues. These issues will require greater prudence and sensitivity in recognising the presence of alternative minority voices that should not be ignored. Decision-makers should engage the minority voices within these statements by addressing their concerns and hope that they progress rightwards towards common ground statements.

Emergent Category

Emergent statements are statements that have a low participation rate. This means that these statements are in their early stages. It could mean that most participants have not seen these statements or have decided to pass on them.

Emergent statements can be a source of surprising insights that can broaden the perspectives of the decision-makers or poll organisers. They are usually statements that challenge the existing models of the poll organisers. It is important to take note of these issues and conduct follow-up focus group discussions to understand where the audience or participants are coming from.

To reduce the number of emergent statements, poll organisers can consider re-inviting participants to share their views on these new statements.

Uncategorized Category

Uncategorized statements have a very low participation factor, thus it would be unwise to form any conclusive assessments or opinions on them.

Undecided Category

Undecided statements are statements that people are doubtful, uncertain or tentative about. These statements can also belong to other categories at the same time.

Undecided and divisive statements call for deeper focus groups with the participants to suss out the root causes for why they feel that way. Communication messages could place more emphasis on addressing these root causes to allow these issues to progress towards the top right segment of the decision-matrix, in the common ground category.

2. Why is the Decision-Matrix important and what is its purpose?

OPPI’s proprietary decision matrix allows key decision-makers to do three things:

1. Structure and design their next course of action and follow-up engagement sessions (e.g. focus group discussions and physical townhalls) according to the five buckets.

2. Allocate resources (time, energy and money) optimally across the five buckets.

3. Monitor the evolution of the issues and adjust strategies accordingly in real-time.

In other words, OPPi’s DM allows leaders to go from noise to actionable insights and effect change faster and more effectively.

The ultimate goal of the DM is to help an organisation or society keep track of the “hot-button” and difficult issues and measure their progress over time. Beyond a progress-tracker, OPPi’s DM gamifies the entire process of consensus-building for all members of an organisation and society.

3. How does OPPi’s Decision-Matrix help organisations and societies transition towards collective decision-making and participative democracy?

OPPi’s DM has the potential to transform decision-making and democracy in organisations, societies and nations on the global stage.

Traditionally, an elite few at the helm of large organisations make decisions on behalf of the collective whole. It is almost impossible to listen to and consider the viewpoint of every person for every decision that is made in an organisation. Collective decision-making slows down an organisation’s ability to respond with agility.

But what if that barrier ceases to exist with OPPi’s DM? Thousands of signals on what employees, audiences and citizens are thinking and feeling can be clustered in OPPi’s DM in real-time for leaders to enable collective decision-making and buy-in, thus making their organisations truly democratic, inclusive and empathetic.

Participative-X is a proprietary process designed by OPPi to help leaders do just that.

Participative-X leverages the wisdom of the crowds without comprising speed, accuracy and agility in decision making or giving in to populist and polarising sentiments that could be detrimental to the long-term success of organisations and societies.

Participative-X harnesses the collective intelligence while preserving the opinions of minority groups and cultivating self and collective awareness of the group.

With Participative-X, OPPi’s DM has the potential to influence policies and laws in countries around the world and on the global stage. We are trying to bring democracy and consensus-based decision-making back to the citizens at our citizens’ town-square.

Imagine a world where citizens design the future direction of a country together with the government. A world where policies are co-created with their citizens. Participative-X has brought that dream of participative citizenry and government into reality.

Contact us to learn more about how OPPi’s DM can help your organization or society track the progress and evolution of various issues and ensure that everyone becomes accountable for building consensus on these issues.