Compare and Merge Multiple Drafts

What this session can decide

Create a merged draft and list of unresolved items. Legal review, formal approval, and official publication of the document are separate steps.

Outside its scope

• Do not assess the authors of the original drafts.
• Do not guarantee legal compliance.
• Do not delete minority views and label the result unanimous agreement.

Primary caution: Do not assess the authors of the original drafts.

Before starting

Question and scope

Separate common elements, boundary conditions, and choices across drafts to create the outline of a merged draft. Before starting, state the subject and time period in one sentence.

What this session decides

Create a merged draft and list of unresolved items. Legal review, formal approval, and official publication of the document are separate steps.

Output recipient

The Recorder stores the final ranking and reasons for optional clauses, distinguishing the order for inclusion in the merged draft from unresolved items. Do not use ranking in place of agreement or include unresolved deferred judgements and disagreements among items to merge or implement.

Participation and information boundaries

Explain the choices to pass, take a break, or leave. Keep personal information, confidential information, and attribute-based evaluation off the record surface. Assign Participant support separately.

Operating roles

Assign Lead facilitator, Recorder, Timekeeper, and Participant support before starting, and confirm who announces switching and stopping.

Next review

Set a review date, viewers, and the person responsible for the next decision on the ranking and reasons for optional clauses.

Who takes responsibility

Lead facilitator

Keep Compare and Merge Multiple Drafts within its purpose and exclusions, and announce the start and end of each stage.

From before the start through the end

Recorder

Record the merged-draft tree, list of agreement, conditional agreement, and unresolved states for each proposal, and ranking and reasons for optional clauses at each stage, then hand them to the recipient at the end.

From preparing record surfaces before the start through storage after the end

Timekeeper

Notify the Lead facilitator 3 minutes before each stage ends and when switching to breaks or buffer time.

At the start of every stage and 3 minutes before its end

Participant support

Receive requests to pass, take a break, leave, or check individually, and decide with the Lead facilitator whether resumption is possible.

From before the start through the end

Session flow

Minutes are measured from the session start. Method time, transition time, breaks and buffer are shown separately; they are not additional overlapping activities.

1. 0–123 minutes

   Map common elements and branches across drafts

   Method: Draft Merge Tree · 0–120 minutes. Transition: 120–123 minutes (3 minutes).

   Compare each draft's purpose, subjects, actions, and exceptions in the same fields. Draw common elements as the trunk, compatible differences as branches, and incompatible points as forks.

   Responsible: Lead facilitator; Recorder; Participant support

   Output: Merged-draft tree

   Handoff: Pass branching items to the agreement-state check.

   This stage may be shortened only in accordance with the stated conditions.

2. 123–161 minutes

   Check agreement states for each branch

   Method: Partial Agreement Grid · 123–158 minutes. Transition: 158–161 minutes (3 minutes).

   Place each branch in one of 3 columns: Agreement, Conditional agreement, or Unresolved. Within Unresolved, distinguish Judgement deferred while awaiting information needed for a decision from Disagreement. For Conditional agreement, write proposed wording and whom to check with. Do not include unresolved items among items to merge or implement, or treat conditional agreement as unconditional agreement before checking its conditions.

   Responsible: Lead facilitator; Recorder; Participant support

   Output: List of agreement, conditional agreement, and unresolved states for each proposal

   Handoff: Pass items needing a choice to ranking with their agreement states. Keep deferred judgements and disagreements distinct within Unresolved; ranking does not replace consent to merge or implement them.

   This stage is not marked as shortenable.

3. 171–194 minutes

   Prioritise optional clauses

   Method: Ranking · 171–191 minutes. Transition: 191–194 minutes (3 minutes).

   Put optional clauses on cards at the same level of detail and order them by criteria decided beforehand. Record ties, out-of-scope items, and insufficient evidence without forcing them into ranks.

   Responsible: Lead facilitator; Recorder; Participant support

   Output: Ranking and reasons for optional clauses

   Handoff: Pass the merged draft, rankings, unresolved items, and whom to check with to the document owner.

   This stage is not marked as shortenable.

What is retained and who receives it

Materials and setup

Material names, quantities, groups and handling instructions retain the fixed draft's original helper-derived guidance. Where a format is marked “Source material specification”, the entire bound English source material entry takes precedence over the old helper-derived format guidance. This format-only correction does not resolve other instruction or safety concerns. English names are not substituted into a Japanese-keyed lookup.

Setup for each method

When to switch or stop

Fallbacks

There are more than 4 original drafts.

Beforehand, bundle drafts with similar purposes and subjects, then compare 4 representative drafts.

Method guide: Draft Merge Tree

Stop conditions

A judgement on legal, rights, or rules compliance becomes necessary.

Hold the clause and refer it for specialist review.

Someone proposes removing minority views from the record.

Retain them as disagreement or reservations in records outside the main text.

Sources, rights and limits

This site has composed this programme's purpose, connections between methods, facilitation, roles, outputs, and switching conditions. See each method's individual page for its sources and licence.

Original source records and their required notices are retained below. Their presence does not mean a new legal or cultural-safety clearance. Original citation titles are kept in their source language.

Japanese resources and historical source records

Original Japanese plan and its print view · Japanese operation pack or starter materials

An English print edition is not provided here. The linked plans, print views and operation materials are Japanese resources.

Historical recorded publication holds

The following original hold statements are retained verbatim with their fixed source versions. They are not a statement of current acceptance, nor does this historical label resolve a source-specific restriction.

• English translation and rendered-page independent acceptance pending
• Method dependency source/text SHA binding and current source-specific rights verification pending
• Publication not cleared