The Discussion Book

Preface

This is a short book so this will be a short preface.

The two of us have long wanted a brief and accessible book—a manual, really—that collected the best techniques to start discussion, keep it going, and stay focused. This would be the kind of book you could stuff into a pocket or purse as you walked to chair a meeting, teach a class, or run a professional development workshop. On the way you could scan it to get a couple of new techniques to try out that day. To paraphrase Dragnet's Joe Friday, we wanted a manual containing “just the facts ma'am” or, rather, just the techniques.

Audience

Our audience for this book is probably the largest one either of us has ever written for. Essentially we hope that anyone who uses some kind of group ...