Liberating Structures

Perhaps others have already figured this one out. After all, any good idea you think you have, it is very likely someone else already thought of it!

I have been using 1-2-4-all in combination with brainstorming for process improvement work for the last couple of years. It works really well, especially if you are as bossy as I am!

First, you start with a question. For example, "what do we see as the purpose of our team?" or "as members of Kaiser Permanente, how do we want to receive communication about our routine health care items that are due, like labs?". you then use 1-2-4 with large post it notes and sharpies. Rules are: no talking during the "1", say what is on the post it with a small description and no more, no criticizing or discussing the merits/demerits of each idea. You also must strictly enforce the 1-2-4 all rules, and tell the participants when to switch or else they will not get through each person. After the 4, you have one person come up to the front of the room sequentially from each group, and call out the items on their post it notes. THese are arranged randomly on the wall by the facilitator. you then invite 3-4 individuals at a time to come up and silently (no talking in the room) organize the post it notes into thematic areas. Do this sequentially until all participants have had a chance to arrange. THen, as a large group, give titles to each of the clusters. Have a space for "out of scope" that you can place and post its that have ideas that do not pertain directly to the topic (in fact, I do an in scope / out of scope at the start of each session). you then have your main categories. Now you probably need to narrow them down. So you use a silent multivoting. Each participant gets stickers to vote with. They should get 1/2 the number of stickers as total topic headings. They can distribute them any way they like, including all on one topic. This must be done in silence. After this, you count the votes, and choose the top few. then you ask the group "does this seem like what we want" or something like that. Then all can discuss and get out any issues. This information can then be placed into an affinity diagram, driver diagram, or cause and effect diagram, depending on what you are looking for. And wala, you have inclusiveness, decisiveness, and a direction for the next steps. I have used this for strategy, purpose, and for drill down tactical issues. Every time I do it, the participants say "that was so fun!".