A fair amount of work has gone into analyzing different voting setups (e.g., first-past-the-post, ranked voting, borda count, etc.)
Is there any similar area of research, and what would it be called, for processes that allow people to develop and decide on ideas? It seems that techniques (e.g. secret ballot) for voting only really work when you have preset options that you can’t control, not for situations where you’re developing a single solution that everyone needs to agree on, that they’re all in the process of developing actively. Once you’re dealing with people who are aware of all of the other solutions, small tweeks, etc. and have personal animosities against other developers, it becomes routine for people to vote to reject everything despite what they may have said publicly.
The solution to this which has been used in the world is to make voting public, which enables vote buying and intimidation to occur.
I am hoping to find solutions that allow a diverse group to come to a single solution in a reasonable timeframe without allowing for vote buying and intimidation.