Facilitating the superordinate goal statement (Step 1 of 5)
https://team.earth/facilitating-the-superordinate-goal-statement-step-1-of-5/
The first step in the team.earth process with stakeholders is to obtain a single statement of about one sentence (up to about 3 sentences), constructed through the participation and consent of all the stakeholders, in a way that every stakeholder can enthusiastically agree, “Yes, I think this statement describes my understanding of where we want our system to be once our work is complete, and I was an active participant in the writing of this statement.”
One tendency that needs to be managed—kept in check—is that stakeholders will tend to prematurely offer “what we should do.” It would be incorrect to focus on this question during the initial step, and the facilitator has to firmly steer clear of such a diversion of attention during this first step.
Stakeholders will also tend to offer what they think the problem is, and again the facilitator must maintain the discipline to prevent the diversion of the conversation prematurely.
The goal of step one is to obtain a succinct statement of common understanding with universal participation, concerning what we envision the condition of our system will be, what it will look like, when we have successfully completed the work of improving the system.
Step 1: Hypothetical example of a superordinate goal obtained to solve a challenge of “a lack of innovation,” identified in discussion with about three dozen representatives of industry, government, academia, education, philanthropy, and others.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Categorizing and scrutinizing the hindrances to the superordinate goal (Step 2 of 5)
https://team.earth/categorizing-and-scrutinizing-the-hindrances-to-the-superordinate-goal-step-2-of-5/
The second step in the team.earth process with stakeholders is a facilitated process to answer the question, “What is keeping us from currently being at the goal that we envision?”, referring to the superordinate goal formulated in the first step. This second step uses technology-assisted visualization and a clear, large, graphical note-taking display for capturing participant input in a visually clear and coherent fashion, simultaneously visible to all stakeholders and individually navigable on all the stakeholders’ electronic devices. This step requires the facilitator to do preparatory work with the stakeholders individually and in small groups beforehand, so that the facilitator gains an understanding of the general outline that will likely emerge during facilitation.
The goal statement from Step 1 is graphically visualized in a circle at the center of a large display, visible to all stakeholders. A concentric circle drawn around the goal center represents the first, most general, broadest description of the hindrances, grouped into a handful of categories. These are broad categories of the impediments to achieving the goal the stakeholders envision. Subsequent concentric circles are used to break down the previous one.
Step 2: Hypothetical example of how three dozen representatives of industry, government, academia, education, philanthropy, and others identify and agree on a first layer of categories of issues keeping the system—their country—from achieving the superordinate goal they previously articulated.
This step can require patience and perseverance, as the goal is to continue to break down each issue category into sub categories in the next concentric circle, and break those down further in subsequent concentric circles, to the point where the sub-issue is small enough or simple enough that the stakeholders recognize that it might have one or more functional solutions. In this step, we won’t identify those solutions yet, but we’ll stop subdividing along a certain branch once the leaves at the end of that branch are simple enough to obviously lend themselves to one or more solutions.This step is about describing the problem, not about discussing solutions. Stakeholders may tend to start offering solutions, and this tendency must be kept in check by the facilitator. Instead, the focus must be kept on, “This is the goal that we all agreed on in the center, now what are the issues that are keeping us from getting there?”
A technological aid is used here to keep track, to maintain order, and to visualize what can become a massive problem description. A visual, graphical technology tool is needed to be able to visualize the branches and leaves, manipulate the tree, navigate the tree, and for the facilitator to add and edit nodes quickly without distracting the audience.
What results from this process will likely become a massive number of hierarchically structured problem components. Technology has no qualms with simple components arranged logically in massive numbers. The visualization technology makes it easy for the stakeholders to focus on just one piece at a time and its subdivided immediate parts.
We trade off time for scale. We use a small window of focus to keep the attention on one limited, manageable piece at a time. We permit the process to continue over a longer time period so that the details of each window can be completed to all the stakeholders’ satisfaction.
At the end of this process, we end up with a massive number of leaf nodes along the outer edge of the circle (or on the surface of the sphere since our technology lets us visualize the structure as concentric spherical surfaces in three dimensions).
This concludes Step 2, through which we’ve constructed a structured, graphical description of the challenge.
Step 2, continued: Hypothetical example of continued refinement through additional concentric circles where three dozen representatives of industry, government, academia, education, philanthropy, and others identify and agree on additional sub-categories of issues keeping the system—their country—from achieving the superordinate goal they previously articulated. This begins the construction of a hierarchical tree, with superordinate goal at the center, whose leaf nodes will eventually be simple enough issues that functional solutions can be proposed for them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Functional solutions (Step 3 of 5)
https://team.earth/functional-solutions-step-3-of-5/
Continuing the team.earth stakeholder process after facilitating the superordinate goal statement and categorizing and scrutinizing the hindrances to the superordinate goal, we now wish to identify functional solutions to each leaf issue. This already lends itself to massive parallel participation and the input from a crowd, e.g., through web presentation technology that permits controlled inputs from massive numbers of stakeholders. For every leaf node, we attach one or more descriptions of what kind of solutions we envision for those simple, leaf node issues.
Here is an example of one sub issue broken down into further sub-sub-issues until functional solutions were identified:
Unsafe neighborhoods
Crime committed on the streets
Crime-prone street conditions
Streets too dark at night
The facilitator ended the subdivision into sub-sub issues because the stakeholders recognized that the issue, “Streets too dark at night,” may easily have functional solutions, such as: 1) Install new street lamps, 2) Replace street lighting, 3) Fix street lighting, and 4) Adjust the automatic turn-on and turn-off times of street lamps so that they start shining earlier, stay on longer, and have fewer periods at night when they are off. The issue “Streets too dark at night” became a leaf node.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inviting resource providers (Step 4 of 5)
https://team.earth/inviting-resource-providers-step-4-of-5/
To identify a good match between the desired functional solutions—identified in step 3 of the team.earth stakeholder process—and the resources who are able to provide those solutions, we use an additional visual technology, where we can visually assess important aspects of the competencies needed. This technology assists us to graphically match required competencies with equally visual assessments of the competencies offered by the resource providers.
We’ve transformed a complex system of limited elements into a massive system of simpler elements, well-suited for input from the crowd whose members ask, “I’m just an ordinary citizen, what can I do?”
For those who ask, “As a normal citizen, what can I do?” now there is an answer. The team.earth process produces a list of the things that need to be done. Pick any items to do from this list, and by design you’ll be contributing towards moving the needle in the right direction.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Managing solutions—coordinating, measuring, and visualizing (Step 5 of 5)
https://team.earth/managing-solutions-coordinating-measuring-and-visualizing-step-5-of-5/
In the previous steps of the team.earth stakeholder process, we transformed a large-scale challenge made up of a small number of massively complex components into a massive number of small, simple components. We have a list of leaf node issues and their straightforward functional solutions, so a list of things that need to be done. This list by construction, by design: If you implement any one of those functional solutions, you will be contributing to moving the needle, and moving it in the right direction, in the direction all the stakeholders agreed on that they wanted to achieve at the outset.
|