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What is ORID?

ORID is an acronym describing the 4 stages of questions that facilitators can use to focus a conversation towards a useful result. ORID stands for:

  • Objective: questions about facts, about what is.
  • Reflective: questions about how people react to and feel about the facts.
  • Interpretive: questions to figure our what it means, and the implications.
  • Decisional: questions to figure out what to do and what happens next.

ORID is a foundation of the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) Technology of Participation (ToP) method. In the book The Art of Focused Conversation includes 100 meeting designs that use this four-stage process, each bookended by an opening and a closing.

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4 Question Meeting, Powerful Starting Question


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