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Exercises/Relationship Mapping/Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)
Introductions ยท Relationship Mapping

Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)

State the purpose of the initiative being discussed and the DAD and invite brief round-robin introductions.

5 to 15 minutesTIME
Medium group (9-25), Pairs, Small group (4-8)GROUP SIZE
ActiveENERGY
In person, RemoteSETTING
High cognitive loadCOGNITIVE LOAD
Strengthens Network Design This relationship mapping exercise strengthens Network Design, one of the eight Gathering Effectiveness pillars.

How to run it

  1. State the purpose of the initiative being discussed and the DAD and invite brief round-robin introductions. 5 min.
  2. Ask your recorder to recap insights, action ideas, and who else needs to be included. 5 min.
  3. Above: Button from a Canadian infection-control project that employed DADs extensively.
  4. Engage frontline people in finding solutions to thorny challenges
  5. Discover tacit and latent behaviors and practices that are positively deviant from the norm
  6. Inspire rather than compel behaviors that solve complex problems
  7. Generate changes that are sustained because they are discovered and invented by the people doing the work, rather than imported and imposed
  8. State the purpose of the initiative being discussed and the DAD and invite brief round-robin introductions.
  9. CollaborationCollaboratively create agendas in real-time.
Live facilitator

Run this exercise live

The facilitator console stays in this browser. Its QR handoff is a short-lived participant snapshot containing only public exercise instructions, phase, prompt, and timer state.

Prompts to use +

State the purpose of the initiative being discussed and the DAD and invite brief round-robin introductions. 5 min.

Ask your recorder to recap insights, action ideas, and who else needs to be included. 5 min.

State the purpose of the initiative being discussed and the DAD and invite brief round-robin introductions.

CollaborationCollaboratively create agendas in real-time.

Run this with your AI assistant +

Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.

Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD). Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: State the purpose of the initiative being discussed and the DAD and invite brief round-robin introductions. 5 min.; Ask your recorder to recap insights, action ideas, and who else needs to be included. 5 min.; State the purpose of the initiative being discussed and the DAD and invite brief round-robin introductions.; CollaborationCollaboratively create agendas in real-time.. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.

Origin unverified

  • Where we observed it: The strongest current observations come from Liberating Structures; aggregators are listed as additional observations, not origin proof. (2 sources observed, including Liberating Structures, SessionLab.)
  • What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
  • No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
  • Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.

Pairs well with