DOCE Introduces the IFAR

Dust-ups, Run-ins, and Kerfluffles.

Community is built and maintained in collaboration with others who play meaningful roles within our day-to-day experience. Let’s be honest. Wherever passionate, smart people regularly interact, misunderstandings, clashes, and conflicts will arise from time-to-time. While our subheading makes gentle fun of these moments, in real life, they’re not very fun at all. Every team will need to address difficulty–a blow-up with a lingering or worsening aftermath, a meeting that hit rocky terrain and never recovered, a difference in approach that has caused deterioration in relationships and/or work flow, etc.

Introducing the IFAR

DOCE developed the IFAR process to navigate a situation of our own. Because it worked well for us, we believe that it could guide other teams in making their way through moments of heightened tension that are centered on a specific incident or event. The IFAR involves solitary reflection and writing, as well as a facilitated conversation. The experience is designed to move through a comprehensive debrief of the conflict, preliminary plans for preventing replays of recent events, and laying the foundation for greater function in relationships. 

Supervisors or facilitators may wish to supplement the IFAR by using it in combination with other conflict resolution interventions or by adding  follow-up meetings of their own design to monitor progress.    

You’re welcome to download the form and use the process as you see fit or reach out to us for support.

IFAR Request Form

  • Find a Facilitator. We recommend requesting the support of a third-party facilitator before beginning this process. Optimally, this person should be either a supervisor who is senior to all discussants or a Dornsife HR professional. This person should assume the administerial aspects of the process–setting meeting dates, providing the form to all parties, and leading discussants through the conversation that is the centerpiece of the process.

  • We Can Help, Too! As your Community Engagement & Support Partners, we are happy to facilitate IFARs. Supervisors, chairs, leads, and organizational advisors, if you would like a member of our team to facilitate an IFAR process for members of your team who are not engaging on the best terms, please fill out a services request form and select CONSULTATION. In your brief explanation on the form, please include mention of the IFAR process and your assessment of the situation as appropriate for our intervention. Severe, highly confidential, or especially sensitive conflicts may be better suited for the support of others as suggested above.      

  • The IFAR consists of four parts: 

    1) Into the Incident: Invites each discussant’s recollection of the event and understanding of its impacts. 

    2) Following the Incident: Initiates review of the response of leadership to the incident, as well as some initial thoughts on how incidents of this kind may best be avoided in the future.

    3) Agreements: Through close listening and skillful questioning, the facilitator summarizes the immediate outcome of the discussion they have led up to this point. Most importantly, the facilitator documents the points on which the parties have reached common understanding and those that reflect differences of lingering opinion.  

    4) Resolution: Brings each discussant back to themselves to contemplate their own responses to the outcomes of the IFAR and to determine what they will carry forward from the experience.