Participatory decision-making strategies have been suggested as effective in groups with the task of solving unstructured problems or creating innovations. Concerned about evaluating children's affective growth in open classrooms, eight educators in a large metropolitan area agreed to meet regularly after school hours to develop an instrument to assess affective growth in children. The five teachers and three administrators who formed the Open Education Evaluation Group (OEEG) were drawn from five local elementary schools and shared an interest in open education. The case study of the OEEG suggests that there may be important differences between the desire of the group participants to use these strategies and their ability to use them effectively. After 15 months the OEEG, using participatory strategies, failed to accomplish its goal. The presentation focuses on problems in four areas that appeared to have implications for the OEEG's failure: skill level, consensus decision-making, self-oriented needs, and hierarchical differentiation. (Author/MLF)