I’m new to this and still in training, but am wondering what happens when after the early stage of the first session there is no real agreement on the problem. My initial response would be to ask the group if they wish to gain agreement before continuing.
If it’s the first in a series of planned encounters, I would probably suggest to the stakeholders that if the problem is complex and not well understood, that a whole session be dedicated to defining the problem. This would mean that the issue presented is lack of clarity and agreement on the problem itself…but then I’m a researcher and have been trained to think that there needs to be clarity on the problem before you can go out and solve it, ie. you need to know what you’re solving. I would be interested in other views.