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Dotty Priorities

One workshop tool used to minimize the time associated with prioritising involves voting with dots. The items to be prioritised are listed under each other on a poster or large sheet of paper. The facilitator gives each participant five dot stickers, and asks the participants to place them by the item on which the participant wants to focus. The participant can distribute the dots across five different activities or place all five on one activity. The dots against each item are counted, and this number is written on the same line as the item. Counting the dots easily identifies the top 10 items. The 10 items with the most dots become the prioritised list

This process avoids long arguments about why one activity is valued more than another is, when both activities are included in the list of the top ten program activities anyway.

Source: Fetterman, D. M. (2001). Foundations of Empowerment Evaluation. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Page 25.