Multilogue Library
The Multilogue Library is the shared stock of reusable questions, framings, and hooks that OnTrackWorld and its clients draw on to guide an inquiry. A multilogue is one worked inquiry inside an IntelliConference, both the process and what it leaves behind. The Library is what makes the next one faster than the last.
Every question here has been used in a real convening. Take them, adapt them, and send back what you learn.
Why a library
No one has time to read long white papers on this work. Stakeholders need summaries linked to the evidence behind them, much as an encyclopedia links facts. The Multilogue Record is the accumulated result across all inquiries; the Library is the front end of it, organized so that a facilitator opening a new inquiry does not start from a blank page.
Organized by the Solution-Driven Research spine
The five stages below organize the Library. Most inquiries move through them in order, though a given round may sit in more than one.
Purpose
Questions that establish why a group is convening at all, and what would count as progress. Why are we in this room? What would have to be true a year from now for this to have been worth doing?
Conception
Questions that open the problem before anyone proposes a solution. What is actually happening here? Whose account of it are we missing?
Design
Questions that turn a shared picture into options. What would a system look like that served all of these interests at once?
Implementation
Questions that convert options into commitments. Who does what, by when, and what would tell us it is working?
Dissemination
Questions about carrying the result outward. Who else needs this, and in what form will they actually use it?
Reusable framings
Framings that have transferred well across industries and regions.
- The stakeholder completeness question. Which stakeholder groups should be included to ensure a robust gathering of all perspectives? Asked first, and asked again after every round, because the answer changes.
- The intent pair. What does each party intend to gain? What does each party intend to deliver? Asked of the same actor, in that order.
- The outdated-rule sweep. Which rules are counterproductive, redundant, inconsequential, or improvable, and how? Portable to any regulated industry.
- The mode-share reality check. What share moves by truck versus rail, and what are the volumes? A question that reliably surprises the room.
- The unavoidable-harm question. When harmful impacts are unavoidable for a supply chain activity, how do we mitigate them? Keeps environmental discussion out of yes-or-no debate.
- The lessons question. What lessons from past attempts help illuminate our thinking now? Opens the past without relitigating it.
Templates in use
- RE-FOREST IntelliSynthesis templates — background, stakeholders, material supply, logistics and processing
- Rail Regulatory Excellence IntelliConference — the regulatory sweep, in full
- EMIP: Essential Minerals Industrial Planning — five linked inquiries sharing one stakeholder map
Propose an inquiry
Stakeholders bring questions to OnTrackWorld as well as answering them. To propose one, describe:
- The question. One sentence, phrased as a question, not a topic. See IntelliSynthesis on why this matters.
- Who has to be in the room. The stakeholder groups whose absence would make the answer wrong.
- What already exists. Reports, plans, data, prior attempts.
- What would change if the group reached an answer.
Send it through Contact Us or raise it on this page's Discussion tab. Proposals are reviewed by the facilitation team and, where a principal and roster come together, opened as an IntelliConference.
Related
- IntelliSynthesis — the method, including the art of question design
- IntelliConferences — the inquiries currently open
- Multilogue Records