One key text would probably be Peter Checkland’s “Systems Thinking, Systems Practice”. Studied properly, it prepares people to cope with the variety of points of view that are likely to be met with in any human-oriented technical systems development. Other systems analysis techniques might also help in the task of trying to unpack any particular individual’s model of a piece of reality that they are trying to represent in a system. Usability and HCI techniques are also relevant. There’s a whole literature on cognitive modelling and mental models which I reviewed in my PhD (read that as well!) – I think also particularly of Kelly’s Personal Construct Psychology (see Wikipedia).

I don’t really know what the best sources are for Semantic Web and ontology matters. There is a lot of material around, a great deal of it on the Web (of course), but the choice of material really needs to be tailored to the learner.

Transforms just need a good technical reference – I’ve recently bought a good-looking new one by Michael Kay which I’ll be getting round to read in due course.

How do you get people to understand the fundamental differences between different people’s points of view? I have found William G. Perry’s “Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years” very stimulating and relevant, and it would be very useful for the capable learner. (By the way, I was put onto it by Janet Strivens.) But it treats ethical development as a maturational process, not giving any particular ideas how to stimulate it.

Consensus process? I haven’t read the literature, but in any case I am a devotee of the Quaker business method.