The Discussion function has the potential to bring the following benefits:
- By getting peoples' views on a topic before a meeting you can save time and have a much more focused debate on what to do, rather than lose time getting everyone up to speed.
- Pondering an issue in your own time sometimes gets some better ideas than one does under time pressure in a meeting.
- A clear record of discussion and opinion in one place, for all to see - rather than needing to 'piece together' and email thread where the participants and recipients may differ
- There is no risk of a discussion being 'forwarded' via email, keeping all communication centralised and secure
Top Tips:
It is important for the person creating the Discussion to frame the question for discussion appropriately. Try to:
- Pose an open question but one which nevertheless has some boundaries which give guidance as to the scope of the views you seek
- Add any relevant information (attach files or links)
- Give a clear date by when you wish people to post their views
- Use the SHARE and SUBSCRIBE functions to alert users to the fact that their input is required
Discussions are created in the main Discussion area (Actions/New Topic) or in any Discussion Folder in each Committee Area.
Discussions can have restricted access (like any document in the GVO) and comments etc can be 'subscribed to'..
Below is a screenshot seen during the creation of a 'New Topic' - you can add the title, the details of the discussion (including links to internal GVO documents and external websites) as well as attaching files. Once saved you can consider using SHARE to notify other users about the discussion and then they can SUBSCRIBE if they wish to be notified when other people add comments.
