Assessment - Conditions must be appropriate for dispute resolution to take place successfully. The parties must agree on groundrules for communicating, decision making, and organizing the process. They must agree on objectives for the process and an agenda of issues to be discussed. Organization - Logistics for meetings must be set, including mutually agreed upon times and places. People have to be contacted and encouraged to attend.
Minutes have to be kept, and information has to be distributed before and after meetings.
The parties must agree on what technical background information is pertinent to the dispute, on what is known and not known about the technical issues, and on the methods for generating answers to relevant technical questions. Satisfaction of one another's interests should be the common goal of the parties' dispute resolution efforts. In order to resolve their dispute, stakeholders must invent alternative ways for satisfying the interests identified during the previous step. At this step the parties must agree that they will not judge ideas or be held to any of the options suggested. Creativity, not commitment, is to be encouraged.