‘R’ – Reason and Rationalise

The objective of ‘R’ sessions is to help participants complete the thought process they started with in ‘F’. While the previous sessions have been more explorative, this session is aimed at helping participants reach the conclusion of that thought.

However, it should be reiterated to participants that this conclusion can continue evolving as they engage with the though outside of the program as well.

To close the loop, participants should be asked to articulate their reasoned position in writing on all of the themes. The facilitator should remind the participants that these conclusions are more for participants to understand the progression of their own thoughts, as opposed to providing the “right” answer.

The ‘R’ sessions that you would conduct are as follows:

Submitting reasoned positions: This would include emailing the participants and asking them to articulate their positions on all themes.
‘R’ Discussion: This would include participants discussing their reasoned positions on call.

Session Structure

Since this is the last step of the Methodology, participants should provide their reasoned position on all themes. While participants may be hesitant in doing this since they would have focused on a specific theme for ‘A’ and ‘I’, they should be encouraged to provide positions on other themes as well, based on what they have heard from other groups.

It is also important to reiterate to participants that this is their position only for the formal program and that this could continue changing as they engage with these themes going forward. You should emphasis on the importance of using ‘R’ as a tool for assessing the progression of one’s thought process as well.

Once the reasoned positions have been collected over email, a group call should be set up to give participants the opportunity to discuss this with each other.

Part	Time Allocated	Objective
Part 1: Collating final positions	They should be given between 1-2 days to submit this.	Each participant will articulate their reasoned position on all of the themes.
Part 2: Group call	120 minutes	Participants should discuss their reasoned positions with each other in breakout rooms and in the main session.

Steps to help facilitate this are provided below:

1. Sending email on final positions:

An email should be sent asking the participants to record their reasoned positions. Here is an email template you could use.

2. Setting up ‘R’ session group call:

The ‘R’ session group call should be set up with a 120-minute time slot. These 120 minutes should be divided between breakout rooms and discussions in the main session. For instance, if 60 minutes are set out for the breakout rooms then 60 minutes should be for the main session discussion.

Group Call Session

Part	Time Allocated	Objective
Part 1: Breakout Rooms	60 minutes (30 minutes per breakout room)	There should be two rounds of breakout rooms with 30 minutes per breakout room round. Breakout rooms here should be longer since each member of the breakout room should have time to speak on their reasoned positions. A 5-minute time period should be accounted for to change breakout rooms.
Part 2: Main Session Discussion	60 minutes	Discussions amongst all participants in the main session where they should be encouraged to speak on their reasoned positions.

Since this session is more interactive, your role will be more active and will include encouraging conversations amongst participants. While the idea is to listen more, you should be prepared to jump into conversations and facilitate them in case of silences.

A few points of note are:

For the breakout sessions, you should try and avoid pairing participants who were in the same group for the ‘A’ and ‘I’ sessions.
Participants should be asked to summarise their conversation on chat after each breakout room round.
For the main session, while you want the conversation to take its course, you should also try and ensure that all participants are getting the opportunity to talk.
Since this may end up seeming like an Open House, the 60 minutes in the main session could also be structured by giving each participant 5 minutes to speak.

Takeaways from ‘R’

For the participants

Since ‘R’ is the last step of the Methodology, it is important to ensure that participants are able to see the conclusion to their thought process is. Since the Methodology so far has been explorative, it is important to help participants to see the end to the thought they started with at the beginning of the program.

At this stage, it is also important to ask participants to actively consider the previous steps and to help them see how each step has contributed to the decision they have arrived at.

For the facilitator

For the facilitator, it will be important for you to ensure that everyone submits their positions prior to the call. It is also important for you to encourage them to submit their positions on all of the themes and not just the one assigned to them for ‘A’ and ‘I’.

Examining the reasoned positions would be useful for you as well to see the impact of the Methodology and track the different stages of change in thought process in the participants.

Logistics

Logistics for organising ‘R’ includes the following:

Calendar invite
Message on WhatsApp Group

Each of these communications should be sent at regular time intervals in the days preceding the ‘R’ sessions. Here are the templates for the communications.