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Dot Voting

Dot Voting by @benry

Object of Play
In any good brainstorming session, there will come a time when there are too many good ideas, too many concepts, and too many possibilities to proceed. When this time has come, dot voting is one of the simplest ways to prioritize and converge upon an agreed solution.

Number of Players: At least 3 participants; in larger groups, tallying votes will be more time-consuming

Duration of Play: Short

How to Play
First, the group needs a set of things to vote on! This may be something they have just developed, such as a wall of sticky notes, or it may be a flip-chart list that captures the ideas in one place. Ask the group to cast their votes by placing a dot next to the items they feel the most strongly about. They may use stickers or markers to do this. As a rule of thumb, giving each participant five votes to cast works well.

Participants cast their votes all at once and they may vote more than once for a single item if they feel strongly about it. Once all the votes are cast, tally them, and if necessary make a list of the items by their new rank.

This prioritized list becomes the subject of discussion and decision making. In some cases, it may be useful to reflect on ideas that didn’t receive votes to verify that they haven’t been left behind without cause.

Strategy
This technique is used to collaboratively prioritize any set of items. It could be used to hone a list of features, to agree on discussion topics, or to choose among strategies and concepts. Giving participants five votes is enough to be meaningful while still asking for individual prioritization; however, this is not a hard rule.

The original source of the Dot Voting game is unknown.

3 thoughts on “Dot Voting

  1. […] more attention than others. From here, it may be worthwhile to have participants dot vote (see Dot Voting) or “vote with their feet” (See Open Space) to decide what ideas to pursue […]

  2. […] Dot Voting – In many occassions, there are just too many good ideas running around. As in everything we do, there’s only so much time and resources going around. I like to use sticky tabs for voting. Each participants gets a set amount of sticky tabs, as agreed upon by the group. We then determine if an idea could have more than one vote. […]

  3. […] also go one-step further, once you’ve discussed these opportunities and ask people to use “Dot Voting” or “Prune the Product Tree” to choose the top opportunities they want you to deliver […]

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