KerDST

The KerBabel Deliberation Matrix permits an individual or group of users to create the structure for a participatory multi-stakeholder multi-criteria Evaluation Exercise.  In general terms, it allows the users to work on-line, to build up a didactic presentation of the judgements offered by each category of stakeholders, for each of the objects under evaluation, with reference to a spectrum of governance or quality-performance issues.  

The principle is that that each stakeholder class should offer a judgement (e.g., satisfactory, poor, intolerable, etc.) of each object of evaluation (e.g., a policy option or investment scenario) in relation to each of the key governance or decision issues.  One obtains in this way, for each stakeholder (or actor class), a rectangular array of cells, each array being a layer of the Matrix, within which each row represents (issue by issue) the evaluations furnished by the given class of stakeholders for successive options/scenarios.  Or, looked at from another angle, one obtains the evaluations by each stakeholder, of a given option/scenario.

In technical terms, the method of the KerBabel Deliberation Matrix is for Signals to be placed in a cell, or “basket”, where they are attributed a qualitative value (typically with a colour code, such as “Green-Yellow-Red” or any other sequence according to need) and a weighting relative to other Signals in the same basket.  Several tool variants are available for the composition of an evaluation exercise.  

• The simplest procedure, which can be carried out on paper or on-line, is that of “Colouring in the Cells” by single representatives of each stakeholder category (or by a single expert acting “on behalf” of all stakeholder categories) for a qualitative multi-stakeholder multi-criteria assessment of a situation or of options for action.  This simple procedure can then be enriched:

• With variations where several participants within each stakeholder category contribute to a “composite” judgement per issue (that is, per cell); and,

• Towards mechanisms for “deepening” the knowledge resources, where representatives of each stakeholder category (or experts acting “on behalf” of all stakeholder categories) work to produce an evaluation supported by indicators, thus linking indicators to each of the societal performance-quality issues.

In the case of an indicator-supported evaluation, it is necessary to compile a ‘basket’ of indicators that, in the eyes of the stakeholder, signal key attributes of the object (scenario/choice or activity/site/territory) under scrutiny, relative to the performance issue.  The judgement at the cell level in the Matrix is obtained not by a simple choice of colour for the cell, but as a weighted “amalgam” of the qualitative judgements assigned to each indicator in the “basket”.  Each cell therefore carries a “composite” signal.

The Signals to be contributed into Deliberation Matrix cells can take many different forms, passing through a continuum from the most primitive (as a simple opinion ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’), to the more sophisticated forms.  In some applications, we make a distinction between:

• Discursive Arguments or Justifications expressing the judgement being conveyed about the situation (in our case, a feared or forecast impact of an accident); and then, as a further dimension, the opportunity for this Argument to be supported by reference to auxiliary references (e.g., with hyperlinks to any sort of contents on websites). and
• Various classes of Attributes of the Object/situation that, with the weights and value judgements attributed by the participant, are given the status of Indicators relative to a specified Quality concern.

There is a continuum between ‘Arguments’ and ‘Indicators’.  We employ the generic term Signal, understood in a broad sense, as any pertinent feature, qualitative or quantitative, of the situation or scenario being analysed.  Data, documents, or any other knowledge proposition considered by a participant in the deliberation to constitute evidence, may be mobilised as a Signal.

From a method point of view, what is important is this declarative process, is the triangulation that situates each of the knowledge-value propositions brought to bear as an indicators or argument in the evaluation, simultaneously relative to one or more stakeholders (WHO?), one or more considerations of action (WHAT?), and one or more fields of normative preoccupation (WHY?).  The mobilisation of signals by a given Stakeholder class, for a given performance Issue, applied to a given Site or Option for action, constitutes a declaration de facto of the pertinence — or fitness for purpose — of the knowledge-value proposition as a signal about the Quality of the different objects or options for action.