Dear Councilors, Originated from the Council’s PDP 3.0 initiative and a subsequent Additional Budget Request, the Consensus Playbook has been completed for the ICANN community to reference and use. This Consensus Playbook aims to provide community volunteers with practical tools and best practices for building consensus, bridging differences, and breaking deadlocks within ICANN processes. It does not seek to change the definition of consensus, the methods of decision making as prescribed in each community group’s rules and procedure, or create any new requirements. The Consensus Playbook was developed by the Consensus Building Institute (CBI), an external vendor contracted by ICANN org, with the requirement of broad applicability across the community, beyond just GNSO PDP working groups. CBI interviewed fourteen (14) ICANN community leaders across ICANN’s SOs and ACs, who shared their extensive consensus building experience in leading and participating in working groups and community groups. The playbook is quite detailed and provides guidance from the beginning to the end of the consensus building process. It stresses that consensus building should be treated as a journey and that it does not just take place at the end of deliberations. To that end, I’d like to draw attention to Appendix A, which serve as a reference guide to help inform you which “plays” within the playbook are applicable to the various phases of the community’s work. The Consensus Playbook, as developed by CBI, was designed for the ICANN community and is only permitted to be used by the ICANN community in support of ICANN related work. The playbook shall not be used for any non-ICANN related purposes. If you have any questions, please let us know. Best, Steve Steven Chan Policy Director, GNSO Support Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300 Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536 Email: steve.chan@icann.org Skype: steve.chan55 Mobile: +1.310.339.4410 Find out more about the GNSO by visiting: https://learn.icann.org/ Follow @GNSO on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ICANN_GNSO Transcripts and recordings of GNSO Working Group and Council events are located on the GNSO Master Calendar