Make space for new ideas with TRIZ by stopping unproductive activities or rigid behaviors. Invite everybody to generate new ideas with 1-2-4-All. Ask all participants to identify what they can do immediately, what their 15% Solutions is, and then invite them to help their peers expand and enhance their own 15 percent in a Troika Consulting session.
With this facilitation technique you can immediately include everyone regardless of how large the group is. You can generate better ideas and more of them faster than ever before. You can tap the know-how and imagination that is distributed widely in places not known in advance.
Open, generative conversation unfolds. Ideas and solutions are sifted in rapid fashion. Most importantly, participants own the ideas, so follow-up and implementation is simplified. No buy-in strategies needed! Simple and elegant!
This structure reinforces LS Principle #1, Include and Unleash Everyone.
You can help a group move from either-or conflicts to both-and strategies and solutions. You can engage everyone in sharper strategic thinking, mutual understanding, and collaborative action by surfacing the advantage of being both more integrated and more autonomous. Attending to paradox will reveal opportunities for profound leaps in performance by addressing questions such as: What mix of integrative control and autonomous freedom will advance our purpose? Where do our needs for global fidelity and consistency meet the needs for local customization and creative adaptability? This makes it possible to avoid swings in strategy that are frequently experienced by many organizations. This structure enacts LS Principle #6, Amplify Freedom and Responsibility.
In Creative Destruction, groups imagine how to achieve the worst possible results. By asking “What must we stop doing to make progress on our deepest purpose?” participants can have fun, courageous conversations about letting go. Since laughter often erupts, issues that are otherwise taboo get a chance to be aired and confronted. With creative destruction come opportunities for renewal as local action and innovation rush in to fill the vacuum. Whoosh!
This structure embodies LS Principle #8, Invite Creative Destruction to Enable Innovation
DAD makes it easy for a group to discover better practices that only a few members are using to solve a common problem, called positive deviant behaviors.
We’re going to uncover the behaviors and practices some of us are already using to tackle our shared challenge. It’s like going on a treasure hunt to find the solutions hidden in our midst.”When held in a local setting close to where the problem manifests, it creates a safe space to invent new and more effective practices, sparking imagination and strengthening resolve to take action. It also builds relationships between people in diverse roles. This structure enacts LS Principle #2, Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions.
You can enable a large group of people to connect with a leader or an expert (the celebrity) as a person and grasp the nuances of how that person is approaching a challenge. With a well-designed interview, you can turn what would otherwise be a passive, often boring presentation into a personal narrative that is entertaining, imparts valuable knowledge, and reveals the full range of rational, emotional, and ethical/moral dynamics at play. You can often turn the interview into an invitation to action, drawing out all the elements needed to spark the participant group’s imagination and encourage cohesive action.
You can quickly and effectively share several innovations or useful programs that may lie hidden within a group, organization, or community. Shift & Share gets rid of long large-group presentations and replaces them with several concise descriptions made simultaneously to multiple small groups. A few individuals set up “stations” where they share in ten minutes the essence of their innovations that may be of value to others. As small groups move from one innovator’s station to another, their size makes it easy for people to connect with the innovator. They can quickly learn where and how new ideas are being used and how they might be adapted to their own situations. Innovators learn from the repetition, and groups can easily spot opportunities for creative mash-ups of ideas.
Create a shared visual map of what a group observes, discovers, and plans to act on together. Participants begin by capturing individual observations and patterns related to a question or challenge, then combine (“meld”) these into a collective map that makes insights and action ideas visible to everyone. By moving through stages of noticing what’s present, interpreting why it matters, and identifying next steps, MindMeld helps groups surface rich, shared understanding and align on concrete actions before moving forward.
You can enable participants to find novel approaches to challenges by immersing themselves in the activities of the people with local experience—often their colleagues on the front line or anyone who uses their product or service. You open the door to change and innovation by helping participants explore what people actually do and feel in creating, delivering, or using their offering. Their observations and experience can spur rapid performance improvements and expedite prototype development. The combined observations may make it easy to spot important patterns.
In Min Specs, participants generate a list of all potential dos and don’ts for achieving a purpose and then reduce it to the absolute minimum requirements.
By eliminating nonessential rules (max specs), Min Specs gives groups more freedom and promotes responsibility. It can also help a group scale up innovations with fidelity. Following the rules makes it possible for the group to go wild!
This structure gives life to LS Principle #6, Amplify Freedom and Responsibility.
