Issue Resolution Processes

Structured Approaches for Working through Complex Public Issues

Public challenges are rarely simple. They often involve competing priorities, incomplete information, different lived experiences, and many people or institutions with a stake in the outcome. The Forum is exploring structured processes that help citizens examine these challenges together. Each approach offers a different way to bring people into the conversation, make multiple perspectives visible, and move from discussion toward greater understanding, informed decisions, or collective action.

The Cycle of Intelligence
Richard Knowles

The Cycle of Intelligence brings a cross-section of citizens together in a safe, facilitated setting to address a shared and compelling question. Participants explore the issue from nine interconnected perspectives, including identity, intentions, relationships, information, principles, context, and action.

The process helps people share knowledge that may be dispersed throughout a community, listen to one another, discover new possibilities, and create a plan they can act on together.

Best suited for: Communities or organizations that feel stuck and need a structured way to move from frustration to shared action.

Cycle of Intelligence →

COMPRAM
Dorien DeTombe

COMPRAM is a methodology for understanding and addressing complex societal problems involving multiple disciplines, stakeholders, levels of decision-making, and competing forms of power.

Rather than treating a public challenge as a narrow, single-issue problem, COMPRAM considers the wider system surrounding it. The method is designed to support democratic, transparent, and sustainable approaches to challenges such as healthcare, climate change, infrastructure, public safety, and major technological projects.

Best suited for: Large-scale public problems that cross institutional, disciplinary, or geographic boundaries.

COMPRAM →

The Institutional Compass
Michèle Friend

The Institutional Compass is a decision-support method that combines different kinds of data, values, time horizons, and stakeholder perspectives into a clear visual assessment.

The process can include economic, social, environmental, cultural, and personal forms of value. It also allows citizens and other stakeholders to contribute information that may be missing from standard institutional data. This can help decision-makers better understand conditions on the ground and recognize gaps between expert analysis and lived experience.

Best suited for: Institutions, regions, and public systems evaluating their direction, priorities, or policy choices.

The Institutional Compass (book) →

Issue Discussion Process
Daniel Wolk and Linda Sepe

A structured Forum approach for helping participants examine a public issue, consider different perspectives, and develop a clearer understanding of the choices involved.

Additional materials, examples, and demonstrations will be added as the process is further documented.

Best suited for: Groups seeking a practical framework for thoughtful and inclusive issue discussion.

Issue Discussion Process →

Topic-Focused, Invited Citizens Assembly (TOFICA)
John Niles

The Topic-Focused, Invited Citizens Assembly is a proposed process for helping elected leaders gather informed, current input from a representative group of constituents on a specific public issue.

Participants would be selected to reflect a range of political views and would review a balanced briefing paper before attending. During a facilitated half-day assembly, they would discuss the issue, develop possible courses of action, and use the Nominal Group Technique to rank recommendations for the elected leader.

The leader and staff would listen, document the discussion, and later explain how the Assembly’s recommendations influenced subsequent decisions. The model is intended to strengthen communication between citizens and elected officials while creating a structured, informed, and constructive setting for public participation.

The concept is still being developed by Niles and is expected to be tested through an online role-playing simulation. A proposed demonstration would examine how a congressional representative might use a TOFICA to gather constituent views on U.S. policy toward Cuba.

Best suited for: Elected leaders seeking informed constituent guidance on a clearly defined public issue that may require government action.

Coming Soon →

Another?

Which Process Fits Your Needs?

Choose a starting point based on the challenge you are facing:

Bring a community together around a shared problem: The Cycle of Intelligence
Address a complex, multi-stakeholder societal challenge: COMPRAM
Combine data, values, and public perspectives: The Institutional Compass
Guide a focused civic discussion: Issue Discussion Process
Gather informed constituent input for a public leader: Topic-Focused, Invited Citizens Assembly (coming soon)

What These Approaches Share

Although the processes differ, each recognizes that citizens bring valuable knowledge, experience, and insight to public problem-solving. They are designed to:

Create structure around difficult conversations Include multiple voices and perspectives
Make complex information easier to understand
Connect discussion with decisions or action Strengthen trust, learning, and civic participation

See the Processes in Action

Explore interviews, explanatory videos, simulations, and live demonstrations showing how selected approaches work in practice.

Click below to watch videos and demonstrations →

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Contribute to the Collection

The Forum’s collection of issue-resolution processes will continue to grow. Members, practitioners, and visitors are invited to recommend additional methods, share examples, and contribute tools or case studies.

Click below to share a resource with The Forum.

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Join the Conversation

America’s 250th anniversary is a time to look back — and to think seriously about what kind of democracy we want to carry forward. The Forum invites citizens, educators, community leaders, and others interested in civic renewal to explore new essays, emerging models, events, and conversations about how we can talk, think, and participate more constructively in democracy’s next chapter.