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Cumulative voting

Speed up collective decision-making

Pratique


Aim

The aim of this method is to decide between several ideas by assigning them points. It’s a way of enabling each participant to express their preferences in relation to the proposals presented.

Instructions

Time needed: 30 minutes

Material :

Key steps

Option 1

  1. Start by presenting the proposals to the participants. It’s important that they properly understand the different choices before proceeding. You can choose to present the proposals in various ways: verbally, in the form of posters, information sheets, etc.
  2. List the various options that they can choose from in a table (draw this up in advance on a flip-chart or something similar).
  3. Next, give each participant an equal number of stickers, representing the number of points they have to allocate.
    E.g.: A maximum of 10 stickers for 5 proposals
  4. In line with their preferences, each participant must allocate “points” to each proposal by applying their stickers on the table next to the proposal’s name.
    E.g.: between 1 and 5 points per proposal

Traditionally, the proposal that gets the most votes wins. You can also initiate a group reflection:
What about the other ideas that got lots of votes, or those that got the least, etc.

Option 2

In this variation, start by presenting the options (1) and presenting them in a table (2), but then get the participants to use different coloured stickers so that you can gather additional information.
E.g.: ask the participants to put a green sticker for “I want to put this idea into practice” and red for “I don’t want to put this idea into practice”.

Tips and advice