Workshop Exercises: Decide

Decider Vote

Each participant shares their opinion and lets the decider cast their vote

Illustration of Decider Vote
Run a Decider Vote play

Alternative plays: Fist to Five, Roman Voting, Straw Poll

Follow-up plays: Fist to Five

See also: Dot Voting, Five-Fingered Consensus

Timing: Execution

Run time
2-10 minutes

Group size
3-12

Why: Leverage the collective wisdom of the group while providing a clear mechanism for decision-making

When: Use to end lengthy decisions in the need to make a final decision or reach a consensus on a specific issue or topic

This workshop exercise is part of the Workshop Patterns printed card deck.

A collection of workshop exercises that will help you ditch dull meetings and facilitate with confidence. It will help you master the design process and have more productive time with your team. The card deck will be ready for purchase in the end of 2025 and is now undergoing rigorous testing.

Reserve your deck!

Instructions for running this play

  1. Let the decision maker of the group listen to each team member’s point of view and collective their interests.
    • Ask questions to gain clarity.
    • Share their own thoughts.
    • Ask for feedback before making a final decision
    • A precursor to this exercise could be Dot Voting, Roman Voting, Blind Voting, or any form of group voting.
  2. The Decider places the “decider dot” (with their initials) or vote on their final choice, determining the path, the idea, or concept the team will move forward with.

Tips to perfect this play

Master and adapt the play to fit your context and needs.

Tip: Two solutions is OK

The final dot can be duplicated if more than one solution is useful

Tip: Add Star votes

2-3 additional ‘star’-votes to be used to select individual ideas and bits from other concepts that should be added into the final concept

Tip: No roll-back

The Decider Vote is a critical milestone as the decision won’t be changed, rolled back or back-tracked. You are committing to the course of action 100%

This workshop exercise is part of the Workshop Patterns printed card deck.

A collection of workshop exercises that will help you ditch dull meetings and facilitate with confidence. It will help you master the design process and have more productive time with your team. The card deck will be ready for purchase in the end of 2025 and is now undergoing rigorous testing.

Reserve your deck!

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Ice Breakers

Relieve initial group awkwardness and establish a safe space

Educate

Broaden knowledge or insight regarding the behavior or situation to inform decisions.

Demonstrate

Show practical examples or models of the desired behavior for clear guidance.

Alert

Highlight current actions and their reasons, bringing unconscious habits to awareness.

Train

Develop necessary skills and competencies to enable effective action.

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