18. Facilitation: Liberating Structures in Dandori

Dandori's ceremonies need to be short and focused while generating genuine insight. Liberating Structures, developed by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, solve this by distributing participation by design.

Pipeline Sync

1-2-4-All: One minute scanning the board silently, pairs discuss stuck items for two minutes, full group surfaces top systemic issues.

Min Specs (monthly): What is the minimum set of things that must be true for our pipeline to be healthy?

Spec Handoff

What I Need From You (WINFY): Spec Owner states what they need the Reviewer to focus on. Reviewer responds with what they need clarified.

Decision Request

Helping Heuristics principle: Template forces requester to specify -- am I asking you to decide, advise, or clarify?

Pre-Mortem

TRIZ: "How could we guarantee catastrophic failure?" Then invert: "Which failure modes are we actually at risk of?"

15% Solutions: After identifying risks, each person identifies what they can do immediately within their authority.

Integration Review

What, So What, Now What (W3): What shipped. What patterns we see. What we change.

Critical Uncertainties: Map changes on confidence vs. interaction axes. High interaction + low confidence gets immediate attention.

Spec Retrospective

Troika Consulting: Each Spec Owner describes a failure. Two colleagues consult while the owner listens silently. Rotate.

Ecocycle Planning: Which spec patterns are mature, emerging, stuck, or ready to retire?

Prioritization Reset

25/10 Crowd Sourcing: Each person writes top priority candidate. Cards circulate, scored 1-5. Highest rise.

Impromptu Networking: Pairs discuss constraints. Two rounds, then surface top blockers.

Intent Review

Discovery and Action Dialogue (DAD): How do we know this is real? What have we tried? What are the barriers? Who else has useful knowledge?

Shift and Share: Split intents across stations, rotate team members through 10-minute discussions.

Team Retrospective

Conversation Cafe: Structured rounds with talking object. No cross-talk during rounds.

Heard, Seen, Respected (HSR): Pairs share stories about moments of challenge or energy. Listener only listens.

Demo Day

Appreciative Interviews: Pairs interview each other before demos: "What are you proud of?"

Celebrity Interview: One presents, another interviews with audience questions.

War Games

Wicked Questions: Identify paradoxes before running scenarios. "How is it that our specs are individually correct but the system is becoming more fragile?"

Purpose-to-Practice (P2P): For each failure scenario, work through purpose, principles, participants, structure, practices.

Post-Mortem

Nine Whys (adapted): "Why did the spec not prevent this?" nine times. Forces depth beyond surface causes.

User Experience Fishbowl: Inner group discusses, outer group listens. Then swap. Prevents cross-team blame.