What is Standpoint?
Standpoint is an enjoyable but challenging deliberation game played by 3-4 people who share a common mission but differ on how to achieve it. The goals are to:
Get to know and understand each other better.
Discover what unites and divides you on a shared topic that matters.
Understand why you agree or differ at a deeper level.
Prioritise and create new impetus for action.
Identify practical next steps you can take individually and together.
Why is it needed?
We can find it hard to have frank and liberating conversations across the boundaries that define our working worlds. Deeply rooted hierarchies, geographies, expertise, histories, assumptions and identities are just some of the factors that can make healthy disagreement and generative dialogue hard. Standpoint provides makes it easier to explore novel options and powerful perspectives that might otherwise never get discussed.
Who is it for?
Standpoint works best for people who already know and/or work together to some extent, perhaps as part of a stakeholder coalition, as fellow practitioners, service providers and/or as an intact team. Players must share a common cause they can define in the form of a question that they are motivated to solve and hold diverse views on how to address it.
What does it involve?
The timing and format can flex depending on your requirement, but the default is a a 1 hour 45 minute virtual (Teams) conversation for 3-4 players, using a virtual game board. It can be facilitated or self-facilitated.
You’ll use several rounds of the game to deliberate on a set of propositions generate about the topic of your choice, mapping where you agree and disagree, and the reasons that underlie these responses.
It’s not a debate where one side looks to defeat the other. The aim is mutual understanding and insight, but we of course invite you to come in with open mind and be willing to be altered by the conversation.
At the end you will immediately receive an in-depth report on the content and dynamics of your conversation, revealing patterns and themes that weren’t necessarily apparent in the moment.
Contact us
If you are interested in holding a Standpoint session please contact Julian (julian@bramble.co) and he will answer any questions you may have. If we agree it’s a good fit he’ll send you the registration and pre-game form to complete.
