Abstract: A method for managing business, social, and/or personal communications utilizing a programmed computer system including certain defining steps. All communications between a set of participants are defined as moves in conversations for declaring specific realizable possibilities or as moves in conversations for producing actions to complete specific possibilities. These conversations are defined as taking place within a set of declared or understood domains of possibilities. A set of conversational roles played by participants in the conversations is defined. Each participant plays at least one conversational role in any conversation. A set of types of incompletions which occur recurringly within the conversations is also defined. A set of types of permitted moves in conversations is defined on the basis of the defined incompletions, the defined roles, and the specific types of incompletions produced by the permitted moves. For each of the types of moves a set of associated data is defined.

Abstract: A method for managing communications between individuals utilizing a programmed computer system. The method involves several definitional steps that are critical to achieving a practicable methodology for conversation management. The integrated concepts of "moves in conversations" of two basic types (Conversation for Action and Conversation for Possibilities), conversational roles, types of incompletions, and logical/functional relationships between moves, incompletions, and roles, provide a set of constructs on which a powerful and practicable methodology for conversation management may be built. They provide a basis for defining a meaningful conversation record format which can be integrated into a conversation data base using standard data base building and management tools. A system for managing communications which incorporates the methodology of this invention provides a powerful framework for structuring human conversations.