Notes File 1 starts from next page.
TPI Workshop Notes, March 29-31, 1999.
Day 1 – Monday, March 29, 1999
Preparations:
Colin and Fran put flip chart sheets together on a white board to make a large paper area (4 feet by 8 feet)
Chuck put up a 5 foot by 6 foot paper on the wall next to the projector screen.
Room arrangement:
9:00 - David’s Introduction: (using slides for this introduction; see slides for details)
Introductions of the team
Time expectations: start on time, break on time, reconvene on time.
Etc. (see slides)
Overview of the day (slide); Monday night session cancelled, but Tuesday night session will happen.
9:15 - Chuck
Rowing slide with one rower, lots of coswains
Slide of key thoughts on strategic planning (slide)
7 +/- 2
Can’t change someone’s mind; can elaborate their thinking
People are rational
People will not commit to a plan unless they own it.
Stratetic planning is common sense.
Strategic planning is one of the hardest things an organizaation can do.
Slide of organizations are transition mechanisms (print too small – revise this slide)
Three components
Slide of three components (problems issues or opportunities) (slide too wide – revise)
“that’s why organizations exist” sounds like a gross oversimplification – have to watch out for such summary statements.
Too much talk, no involvement of the group (9:23)
What are your hopes and fears for this exercise? (9:27) We call this the “MUSE” exercise, because it involves us “wondering” (unclear reason for the name)
Two questions, to be answered on paper: (slide)
“In terms of expectations… and the challenges you anticipate, both from a personal and group perspective (long question!), identify at least two hopes and two fears.”
If there is only one thing you could bring from this course, what would it be?
(John stands in front of 5 foot by 6 foot paper area to join in on posting the hopes and fears)
Instruction: put your most important hope and most important fear on an oval (have to select) . Identify H (hope) and F (fear).
Introductions start at 9:35: name, hope, and fear.
(10 minute warning given) Instructions on putting blue tack on the oval (why not have John do that?)
Samples of hopes and fears:
Help for work in schools.
Fear of wasting my time.
Fear that I’m not a model building person.
Hope for a one-page summary of strategic planning.
Fear that leave with disorganized thoughts.
Hope to gain a systems perspectives.
Fear that time schedule will prevent learning.
Fear that it will be difficult to do this stuff without a lot more learning.
Hope for better understanding of systems approach to organizations.
Fear that I won’t learn enough to do it.
Hope to understand techniques to do them with clients.
Fear of too much theory.
Fear too busy to use these techniques to solve problems.
Hope for better understanding of strategic planning.
Fear won’t get enough in this seminar.
No specific fear at this time!
Fear too academic.
Hope limit academic nature and emphasize practical applications.
Fear: make problems harder than they really are.
Fear that systems thinking process may be too complicated to apply.
Fear that system dynamics and strategic planning don’t work well together.
Fear that fuzzy math background will prevent operationalizing maps.
(writing on the ovals is tiny – completely impossibe to read on the walls)
Hope for learning about face to face communications in small groups.
Hope sense of what strategic thinking is about.
Fear that language difficulties will get in the way.
Fear that I will get lost on the way.
(John puts the maps on the wall in clear columns – which have no meaning yet for the participants because they can’t be read). Chuck’s look more haphazard.
Chuck says we have the same hopes and fears.
Sometimes we put hopes and fears together; sometimes we categorize them.
“During the workshop think about these categories” (but the categories have not been identified)
Question gets John to explain his categories (main clusters)
Chuck says he has three categories (but the map on the wall is a hodge-podge).
(I missed the categories)
(John gives to the recording team his categories of hopes and Chuck’s of fears; Colin will put the complete list in DE. My list is missing some hopes and fears; it tries to capture what people said, since I could not read what they wrote. I note that John rearranges Chuck’s ovals into other categories before bringing to us. Doesn’t conflict with what participant’s see and know, because no one can read the ovals anyway from where they’re sitting.)
John: Hopes translate into goals; fears translate issues to be addressed.
9:50 – David begins to talk about the GORA case
Instructions to dig out the case. “GORA is our client.”
Asks p’s to take out a piece of paper and note some suggestions for what Benchman should do. Explains what GORA (the organization) is for.
People write silently. David puts white sheets of paper on the wall, one on top of the next, taped to the wall next to Chuck’s 5 by 6 area of paper, not to each other (so they can be peeled off one at a time). People have been writing for about five minutes (10:00).
David begins to talk again at 10:04; asks them to talk with their neighbors about their lists; let’s them know they can add (say) new things as they pop into their minds in the discussion. Discussion noise level rises after about two more minutes.
David starts the elicitation at 10:10.
“First blush thoughts…” Writes suggestions on the flip chart paper he taped to the wall; moves a page when it’s full.
Clarify the mission of GORA. Clearing house or technical assistance?
Reforecast based on statewide possibility of 400,000 transactions; step up to statewide.
Opportunities to leverage the business (consulting) community to help, maybe partnering.
Realistic look at possible resources; 400,000 transactions is clearly impossible.
Reduce the content of manuals; maybe improve things with technology.
Maintain a “human aspect”; training source to minimize worker stress.
(Around again? At 10:15)
Build a model to analyze what’s going on.
Internet consultant.
Stick to a training standard; can’t contact a customer until you really know what you are doing.
Kris Kelly susgests the strategy of an experiment that was used in the original case. (10:17)
Bring benefiting agencies together for a joint effort to share resources.
“OK – we’re done with this review – we’ll spend the next three days on this case in various perspectives.” (10:18).
Cartoon: “Al realized his problem were much worse…”
Break at 10:20.
10:30 – David begins again.
Announcements (laptops, installing DE, don’t spill drinks)
10:24 - Chuck begins.
Summary of what happened to this point is sketchy and unclear; I missed it.
Tuchman quote (slide)
Stakeholder definition: any … that can make a claim on a government’s attention, resources, or output, or that is affected by the government’s ouput.
Key to success is the satisfaction of stakeholders.
So we should pay attention to them.
Stakeholder mpa for a nonprofit organization (big star with org in the middle; unclear how such a “map” is better than a list)
What we need to know about stakeholders (slide – print too small)
Who are they?
How important are they?
Who supports and who doesn’t? How much?
Do any stakeholders have a mgmt or production function in the org?
Relationships between those inside the org and outside?
In GORA, satisfaction of key stakeholders will be crucial.
Cartoon: How to recognize moods in a Irish setter.
Introduces stakeholder grid (10:41)
Shows slide of concentric circles and calls it a stakeholder “grid.” Center is the organization and more distant stakeholders are farther out.
Slide of an actual grid (circles with stakeholders placed – print WAY too small)
“Hourglass” form slide of internal and external stakeholders. “Tend to support” and “Support” bounded by hyperbola. (Print again too small)
Replaces with a straightline map with internal stakeholders in an oval in the center, externals stakeholders outside the lines.
Slide of same actual grid again with “less” and “more” handwritten in, and the two vertical lines or internal and external. Then adds horizontal line with Management above it and Production below it. “Most organizations don’t think about the Production function.” “Only think about the big people,” but the others can be stakeholders too.
(I think I have the lines and circles mislabled – inside, outside, near, far, supportive, opposed, …?)
Asks for people to brainstorm the key stateholders in GORA (10:51). Will put them on the wall. “If it isn’t on the wall it isn’t real.”
Stakeholders
Governor
Benchmen
Production staff
Business coming from outside the state
Existing business owners
State senate
Senate Democrats
Taxpayers (“I’m going to hold on this – how would we address this group? – are they “key”?)
Business consultants
(Invites group to put their ovals on the paper wall map 10:55. They put ovals on map, with negatives on left and positives on right.)
Voters
Land developers
Other agencies that provide these services. Collaborating state agencies.
IRS (questioned by Chuck)
(“We’ll discover more as we go on.”
Chuck suggests drawing lines on the wall map.
Circles an internal group of stakeholders. “Is the Governor internal?”
Draws double headed arrows between Senate Democrats and the internal set and something else and the internal set.
Draws a dotted line through ovals representing groups who are likely to lose if GORA (and we) are successful. The dotted lines apparently now represent the dividing lines between heavy support and light support; I’m confused here. (Lines too light on the map; make them dark.)
“A very quick and dirty run at stakeholder analysis.”
Who would be doing this analysis? One person? A group? Answer: Two components get mixed up in stakeholder analysis: analysis (who?), and management (how to handle?).
“Does the map capture importance as well as support/opposition?” Answer in terms of the cmplicated slide with tiny print, explaining what the ovals and lines and geometry mean. In close means important. “A five-dimensional concept, so hard to capture.”
Shows Nutt and Backoff grid slide (this is a grid): Oppose/support on vertical axis; Least to most importance on the horizontal axis. Four cells: Problematic, antagonistic, supports, low priority (clockwise from top left)
“We have to organize to succeed.”
“Next step is really to ask the questions that help lead to the success of the strategic effort. What do businesses really not like about GORA? Is there a way Senate Democrats will be brought on boad?” (The group never questioned or analyzed the pro/con positions for the groups as claimed by the suggesting participant; unexamined positions placed on the map and become “real” on the map without question or analysis.)
Question about stakeholder analysis for something that shouldn’t be perpetuated in the first place? Strategy that accepts the vision or that works toward a new vision. GORA as it is, or GORA as it could be with a different mission.
(Shows the tiny-text slide again to talk about technology replacing production staff, to illustrate there are people inside the organization that might not be supportive of aspects of improvement efforts.)
“Use a wall (nobody owns the wall). The wall gives you the opportunity to have a group conversation. The wall allows for the conversation to be us.”
Q: What if satisfying a key stakeholder means deviating from the organization’s mission or vision? “Good question – if can’t satisfy both, could be a failed strategic plan.”
Q: What does “political” mean? Answer: different viewpoints, goals, which need to be addressed. Small “p” in political. (11:23)
(David alerts Fran she will be on in the next couple of minutes.)
Analysis of stakeholders and management of stakeholders; draws arrows to make a loop – calls it a feedback loop.
11:25 – Fran begins.
Surface strategic issues in the case.
Think about stakeholders in relation to strategic directions.
How can we begin to surface issues? (Slide of Oval Mapping Technique)
Get a broader, holistic picture using OMT.
(David and Colin put up another 4 by 6 foot wall of paper in place of Chuck’s.)
Wall posting lets people concentrate on what others are saying rather than on what they want to say next. People can speak “simultaneously.” Map helps see interactions, how things fit together. “Map helps to begin to see stakeholders. (Maybe we should have Fran begin, then follow with Chuck, if OMT leads to stakeholders.)
(Picture of OMT workshop showing map, placing ovals, and recorder – using beam projector.) Followed by projected image of a DE map of the oval map.
“Cause maps” picture showing tear drops with ends at top, means toward the middle, options toward the bottom. Desired outcomes at top, options at the bottom. A hierarchy, that helps to surface deep knowledge, common understanding. Notes wording with a verb in the phrases in the cause map; get rid of questions in the phrases.
11:40 - Colin announces we will divde the group into groups of seven, to try surface issues.
“You may want to play the role of the unruly bugger who tries to inhibit the group process.”
Introduces blue tack, instructs how to use it (a small bit, so we can move the ovals around). Blue tack is therapeutic – manipulate to relieve stress. Emphasizes 6 to 8 words, using blunt pen that forces brevity on the oval. Emphasizes an active verb, not using “should” or “ought.” Worst is “yes” or “no” or “I agree” and the like; express a point of view. “Six to eight words, some action.”
Why ovals and not Post-Its, for example? Rectangles push people toward columns and rows, and problems are not structured that way.
Q: Is public authorship a problem? A: Not really a problem, since people can’t identify handwriting and they forget who said what. Group ownership has been checked – who put up this item? – more than one person says they did.
11:47 - Groups are set out by Colin, assigned to a location and a facilitator (John, Chuck, Colin, and Fran)
(Notes stop at this point as I’m going around to watch.)
Gave 5 minute warning about 12:14. Go back to whole group about 12:20 for debrief.
Debrief
Fran shows Powerpoint slides of an OMT session. Later on the process.
Sticky dots for prioritization. Group shown is about 10 to 12 people. Wall is full of ovals. Colin and Fran tend to use 10 – 12 pieces of flip chart paper.
How to make sense of all this? “Don’t panic – just move things around to see what emerges. At first you won’t see clusters, but then they will emerge.” (Powerpoint slide)
Be prepared to change clusters as ideas develop.
Encourage p’s to do the clustering themselves. Can leave a “dump” cluster for things that don’t fit; they’ll probably eventually fit.
Q: Do facilitators know where they are taking the group? A: Not deliberately pushing the client in a particular directions. Can do this with an organization or business the facilitator doesn’t know much about.
Structuring of a cluster
Broad at top; detailed at bottom.
Don’t draw links too early.
Encourage alternative views – links and statements - and get them put on the map.
Identify clusters with names.
Be as inclusive as possible.
Ended at 12:31 –
David announces where our lunch is.
If you have a laptop and want DE loaded, we can do that over lunch.
Wants to talk with people taking this for course credit. Ended at 12:33.
1:30 – Colin begins
There was quite some confusion getting the hardware running. It is still not clear that everyone is up and running
Colin mentioned that various of the facilitators do their work different ways. But the point is that we are all working toward the same end
Colin projected the GORA case with various types of statements color coded. He then demonstrated how this could be used to create a map.
Colin identified a viscious cycle around burnout that came from a direct coding of the document. Colin has extracted 45 statements from the analysis of just several paragraphs. This is one possible starting point. This model is on the student’s data file and it is called “GORA 1”
“If I were a consultant working for Alan Hirschwitz, the first thing I would do with a memo like this is to bang it into a decision explorer map to see how he is thinking”, sez Colin Eden.
Another source of such a map would be to type it in directly as it is put on the wall. This would be very quick. We have done this over lunch and the result is available on the data disk as “OMT 1”.
1:50 Fran is now leading the group on getting OMT1 up and running.
We have distributed to the whole group a xeroxed manual on Decision Explorer. Fran is working through this manual along with a slide that outlines what she wants to cover. The outline of what to cover is linked to specific pages in the hanout.