Breaking consensus in IS evaluations: The agitation workshop

As researchers evaluate organisations, there is a desire for a consensus from those within the organisations who are participating in the research. A common consensual perspective from a team appears to reflect an optimal state where those being studied have a common understanding of the current state of events within the context of their environment. The question arises, though, whether an evaluation finding consensus reflects the reality: there are a variety of reasons why a common understanding may be false consensus. This paper proposes an evaluation method where, when symptoms of problems such as groupthink are identified, a consensus of perspectives is challenged before they are considered valid. This is achieved in a workshop where participants reflect on their own perception of reality and represent this reality in a matrix of influencing and relevant factors. The individual matrices are then combined and used to highlight disparities in the participants' perspectives through a single matrix visualisation. Discussion in the workshop then focusses on the areas, highlighted by the matrix, where differences of perspectives are identified. In effect, the common understanding presented by those being evaluated will be challenged, and a new common understanding will have to be created.