Harmonic Team

Concepts

Harmonic Team’s 3 main data types (Notes, Decisions, Commitments) correspond to 3 general concepts.

Awareness indicators

Awareness indicators are things that communicate awareness of some given information. A simple example is emoji reactions in chat apps like Discord or Slack. When someone reacts to a message with an emoji, the mere presence of that reaction indicates that the person who reacted is aware of the message. If they had read the message but not reacted, it would be ambiguous whether or not they were aware of the message.

From a group coordination perspective, information is often not actionable until people know that other people know the information. In other words, it’s possible for everyone in a group to know the information and yet not be able to act on it if they don’t know who else knows.

Notes in Harmonic Team include a confirmation button to signal awareness. This makes the information more actionable because it makes it clear who knows about the information.

Acceptance voting

Acceptance voting is a voting method designed to mirror the way that groups naturally make group decisions that require negotiation. It is similar to approval voting, but with a distinction between acceptance and preference. In the context of negotiation, acceptance is the primary factor in determining the outcome, and preference is secondary. The goal of the process is to find an option that everyone finds acceptable, even if different people prefer different options.

Acceptance voting first narrows down the list of options to what people are willing to accept. If there are multiple options that everyone finds equally acceptable, then preference is taken into account to determine the outcome.

Decisions in Harmonic Team use acceptance voting in order to converge on the path of greatest acceptance as quickly as possible.

Reciprocal commitments

Reciprocal commitments are commitments that are conditional on all participants making the same commitment.

Commitments in Harmonic Team are reciprocal commitments with an explicit critical mass threshold that must be reached in order for the commitment to take effect. It’s a mechanism that is similar to a Kickstarter campaign, except people pledge their participation rather than money.