I received many enthusiastic responses to my menu of mediation checklists, including that they are “interesting,” “informative,” “so very useful,” “really helpful,” “great,” “excellent,” “wonderful,” “fantastic,” “invaluable,” “impressive,” “very thorough,” “brilliant,” and “utterly awesome” resources.  “Just wow!”

No kidding.

The checklists are part of the Real Practice System Project.  Although it has focused particularly on mediation, the same principles apply to other processes.  For example, many attorneys have their own regular practice systems for the way they advocate in mediation or engage in unmediated negotiation.  Many of the items in the mediation checklists would be relevant in those situations as well.

The checklists are designed to help practitioners and parties make good decisions.  They are not cookbook recipes to be followed strictly, thoughtlessly, or completely.

I have produced oodles of materials to help practitioners, academics, program administrators, and students.  I always wonder how people use them.  In the Stone Soup Project, I invited faculty to write assessments of how they used it in their courses and I posted them online.

I would like to get people’s ideas about how you might use the real practice checklists in your work as practitioners, program administrators, and faculty.  I would summarize people’s responses in a post, and I could refer to people’s contributions by name or anonymously.  There is no required format and responses can be as long or short as you like.

There are many different ways that the checklists might be helpful that I can’t anticipate.  Which is why I would like to hear from you.  Here are a few ideas to “prime the pump.”

Practitioners

• Update website
• Check for conflicts of interest more systematically
• Update protocol for preparation before mediation sessions
• After talking with participants and getting their written materials, develop plan for mediation session
• Update protocol for initiating mediation sessions
• Pay more attention to parties’ intangible interests
• Pay more attention for possible decision fatigue
• Get ideas – in the moment or during a break – to deal with difficult situations in mediation sessions
• Do retrospective self-assessments of cases more frequently and systematically
• Participate in reflective practice group
• Share checklists with colleagues who might appreciate getting them

Program Administrators

• Circulate checklists to practitioners and encourage them to update procedures in their practices
• Develop procedures or guidelines for preparation before mediation sessions
• Conduct educational program inviting mediators to reflect on why they mediate the way they do
• Include checklists in program materials for continuing education programs
• Convene advisory group to develop checklist of recommended, discouraged, and prohibited procedures
• Organize reflective practice groups
• Share checklists with colleagues who might appreciate getting them

Faculty

• Use checklists as required or recommended reading assignment
• Assign students to tailor checklists for their real or simulated cases by deleting, modifying, and adding items to the Real Practice System checklists
• Use self-assessment questions in debriefing cases
• Require students to meet outside of class as reflective practice groups
• Provide cites to applicable statutes and rules for listed ethical requirements – or require students to find them
• Share checklists with colleagues who might appreciate getting them

So would you like to use the checklists to do these and/or other things?  How would you consider using them in your work?