The "Sort-Your-Own (SYO) Method" of Collaborative Sorting: A Practical Technique to Improve the Efficiency of Group Convergence

This work represents an initial attempt to formalize a practical facilitation technique for collaborative sorting tasks that are used to help achieve convergence outcomes. The “Sort-your-own (SYO) Method” is a simple approach to a collaborative sorting task that (in practice) promises to be an efficient way to complete the idea organization phase of a session more quickly, and with improved accuracy, over other methods. Because of its inherent design, the SYO Method mitigates several of the classic psychological pitfalls frequently observed in idea organization activities that usually lead to declines in participant satisfaction. The discussion focuses on the potential benefits of this method and describes the ideal settings/conditions for its use.