broadening assumptions to find a better way - innovation tools current method better way
DESCRIPTION
Every company, team and person has established patters of What, Where, When, Who and How something gets done. It ranges from simple things like arriving at work and when we take a break to complex things like employee onboarding and hiring practices. Taking time as a team to challenge existing presumptions and work to create small steps, can break inertia (stuckness) in how your project team operates, while creating a shared understanding of why we are here and how we can improve things. www.create-learning.comTRANSCRIPT
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www.create-learning.com http://asqbuffalo.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
The insidious thing about the causal point of view is that it leads us to say: “Of course, it had had to happen like that.” Whereas we ought to think: It may have happened like that – and also in many other ways. (Wittgenstein ‘Culture and Value’, p.37e)
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
What’s in it for me? Taking time as a team to challenge existing presumptions and work to create small steps, can break inertia (stuckness) in how your project team operates, while creating a shared understanding of why we are here and how we can improve things.
Outcomes from Broadening Assumptions to Find a Better Way Understanding and various uses of the Current
Method :: Better Way Matrix. Use of Current Method :: Better Way Matrix to illicit
feedback from various people who work at the site of the problem.
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
What Where When Who How
Current Method
What happens?
Where is it done?
When is it done?
Who does it? Why is it done?
Reason
Why do it? Why do it there?
Why do it then?
Why them? Why do it this way?
Better Way?
Can we do something else?
Can we do it somewhere else?
Can we do it some other time?
Can somebody else do it?
Can we do it some other way?
Current Method / Better Way Matrix
Reference: First saw this technique in ‘The Team Handbook’ by Scholtes, Joiner, Streibel.Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Change Innovation
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Finding what works and doing more of it.
People & decisions are drivers of innovation.
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
“When you take all non-verbal judgment out of a decision it becomes a calculation and not a decision. The possible outcomes are predictably limited, and you can mechanize (computerize) the process – under the W = FS process of mechanics (Work = Force through Space). Human work is the application of mental concentration over target time: W = F / TT (Work = Force over Target Time) and the possible outcomes are always unpredictably open.”
- Elliott Jaques Requisite Organization
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Closed Decisions“determinate and
tractable and has a clear-cut objective.”
Open Decisions“loose multidimensional nature of our objectives,
the subtleties of our interactions with others,
the complexity of the systems we handle.”
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Decision Making in a Closed & Knowable Environment There is one & only one solution, and when it is identified we know we
have found it. Objectives are clear and constant. The implementation or action decision is not influenced by the responses
of others to one’s actions or decisions. Interactions with others, if they are relevant at all, are limited and controllable or predicable.
There is a complete list of possible actions, and we know that all the potential actions we consider are in fact available to us. Even if we do not know what will happen in the future, we know the range of possibilities and can sensibly attach probabilities to them. The problem is closed.
The number of alternative ways of completing the task, although running into many millions, is nevertheless sufficiently small that all can, at least in principle, be evaluated. Complexity, even if extensive, is bounded.
- Obliquity. Why our goals are best achieved indirectly; James Kay pp. 72
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Current Method / Better Way Matrix
Purpose / Objective: Challenging assumptions about
what is possible. Team Project tool to create shared
language of progress & regress Innovation tool
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
What Where When Who How
Current Method
What happens?
Where is it done?
When is it done?
Who does it? Why is it done?
Reason
Why do it? Why do it there?
Why do it then?
Why them? Why do it this way?
Better Way?
Can we do something else?
Can we do it somewhere else?
Can we do it some other time?
Can somebody else do it?
Can we do it some other way?
Current Method / Better Way Matrix
Reference: First saw this technique in ‘The Team Handbook’ by Scholtes, Joiner, Streibel.Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Example from Lindsay
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
The reason you used it? We recently had a global team meeting with 20+ people from our organization around the world. Our objective was to develop an updated training strategy. We used the current/better way method to get the discussion started. By first talking through the current training strategy, we were able to start to build the team trust (since everyone pretty much knew how it was today). Once the trust was build, we were able to get people to open up to talking about/brainstorming the better way to do things.
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
What about the tool you found useful? For us, it worked as a teambuilding tool and helped open the communication door. First we talked about something most people were comfortable with already, which them allowed them to open up into a broader area of discomfort.We also used the tool to really break down different components. We talked about the current/better way for different pieces of the training (such as the online prework, then the classroom work) versus the training program as a whole.
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Some concrete and abstract results? Where you are now maybe from using the tool? The current method/better way team discussion led into a 3-day work session completely redesigning out training program. This was unplanned, but a wonderful surprise that the group opened up to this and accomplished so much. The strategy has been well received by upper management and will be piloted later this year.
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
Uses & Questions Coaching & Development Thinking tool As a team As individuals 1 to all Meeting individually complete
Current Method / Better Way. At meeting share ind. responses
2 Project Teams a) Control current problem b) Develop solutions
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
www.asqhdandl.org
www.create-learning.com http://asqbuffalo.com
Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com
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Michael Cardus - www.Create-Learning.com