Relationship Tip #9:

Pit the Pairs! This exercise is very helpful when your team needs to prioritize a list of things that require a group to "get their priorities straight."  Begin by making a list of all the items to be placed in priority order. Put them on a flip chart or white board so all can see. Usually, this works best if the list is not longer than 10 or 12 items.

Next, go through a process of comparing each item with each other item and asking the team to decide the priority within each pair. For example, in a list of 5 items, pit item 1 against item 2 by asking, "if you could only have one of these, which would you choose?" The one that holds higher priority gets a hash mark. Then pit item 1 against item 3. Again a hash mark for the one with highest priority. Continue pitting the pairs: 1:4, 1:5, 2:3, 2:4, 2:5, 3:4, 3:5, 4:5. You have just made a comparison between all of the possible combinations (or pairings) of the five items.

Now look at the hash marks. The items with the most have been deemed more important than those with the least. If this is an agenda for a meeting you have just provided the order for the meeting. If it is a training design, you have given a "weight" to each of the topics.

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