by Facilitation Expert | Oct 2, 2018 | Communication Skills, Leadership Skills, Meeting Support, Meeting Tools
The Business Model Canvas was created by Alexander Osterwalder, of Strategyzer®. The canvas provides a one-page primer and template for analysis. Questions and points of view are detailed below.[1] We offer it to support the MGRUSH Business Analyst community. Please modify each and all of the following to help your situation.
UPDATE: MGRUSH has released its Meeting Pathway (infographic guideline) and Workshop Canvas (37 open-ended preparatory questions). Consequently, the Meeting Pathway details a comprehensive meeting and workshop preparation approach that you can now download.
Business Model Canvas — Agenda Steps and Questions to be Addressed
-
Business Model Canvas: Partners
- Who are our significant partners?
- Who are our significant suppliers?
- What critical activities do our partners perform?
- What necessary resources are we acquiring from our suppliers?
- Value-add from partnerships
- Acquisition of specialized resources and activities
- Optimization and economy
- Reduction of risk and uncertainty
-
Business Model Canvas: Activities
- What significant activities do our value propositions require?
- Which activities are the primary drivers of customer relationships?
- Where does our distribution channel provide value-add?
- What are the revenue streams for each channel?
-
Business Model Canvas: Resources
- What significant resources do our value propositions require?
- Which significant resources do our distribution channels require?
- What significant resources do our customer relationships require?
- Which significant resources do our revenue streams require?
- Types of resources
- Financial
- Human
- Intellectual (patents, copyrights, data, etc.)
- Physical
-
Business Model Canvas: Value Propositions
- What value do we deliver to our customers?
- Which customer needs are we satisfying?
- Which customer problems are we helping to solve?
- What bundles of products and services are we offering to each customer segment?
- Characteristics
- Brand/ status
- Customization
- Design
- “Getting the Job Done”
- Newness
- Performance
-
Business Model Canvas: Customer Relationships
- What type of relationships do each of our primary customer segments expect us to build and maintain with them?
- Which ones have we established?
- How are they integrated with the rest of our business model?
- How costly are they?
- Examples
- Automated services
- Co-creation
- Communities
- Dedicated personal assistance
- Personal assistance
- Self-service
-
Business Model Canvas: Channels
- Through which channels do our primary customer segments want to be reached?
- How are we reaching them now?
- How are our channels integrated?
- Which channels work best?
- Which channels are most cost-efficient?
- How are we integrating them with customer routines?
- Channel phases
- Awareness
- How do we raise awareness about our company’s products and services?
- Evaluation
- How do we help customers evaluate our organization’s value propositions?
- Purchase
- How do we allow customers to purchase specific products and services?
- Delivery
- How do we deliver a value proposition to our primary customer segments?
- After-sales
- How do we provide post-purchase customer support?
-
Business Model Canvas: Customer Segments
- For whom are we creating value?
- Who are our most important customers?
- Diversified
- Mass market
- Multi-sided platform
- Niche market
- Segmented
-
Business Model Canvas: Cost Structure
- Which costs are most critical to our business structure?
- What primary resources are the most expensive?
- What primary activities are the most expensive?
- Is your business more…
- Cost-driven (leanest cost structure, low price value proposition, maximum automation, extensive outsourcing)
- Value-driven (focused on value creation, premium value proposition)
- Sample characteristics
- Economies of scale
- Economies of scope
- Fixed costs (salaries, rents, utilities)
- Variable costs
-
Business Model Canvas: Revenue Streams
- For what value are our customers willing to pay?
- For what value do they currently pay?
- How are they currently paying?
- What method would they prefer for paying?
- How much does each revenue stream contribute to overall revenues?
- Types
- Advertising
- Asset sale
- Brokerage fees
- Lending/ renting/ leasing
- Licensing
- Subscription fees
- Usage fee
- Fixed pricing
- Customer segment dependent
- List price
- Product feature dependent
- Volume dependent
- Dynamic pricing
- Negotiating (bargaining)
- Real-time market
- Yield management
For a more thorough discussion around business ideas and additional context around the Canvas, turn to “The Entrepreneur’s Foolproof 5-Step Guide to Finding and Validating Business Ideas”.
[1] The Business Model Canvas and Meeting Pathway and Meeting Canvas are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license and thus available for restricted distribution
RenDanHeYi Adoption Canvas
ALTERNATIVELY — CONSIDER THE QUANTUM MANAGEMENT APPROACH THAT FOLLOWS:
RenDanHeYi Adoption Canvas Intended to Support Zero-distance with Customers
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
_____
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
by Facilitation Expert | Sep 4, 2018 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Managing Conflict, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support
Structured meetings and workshops positively impact organizations and stakeholders–even permeating cultures. Here are a few straightforward benefits of facilitation training that support structured meetings.
Business wisdom demands the application of knowledge, stuff that is ‘in−formation’ (not static). Compound the dynamism of information with the challenge of organizing a group of people, where nobody is smarter than everybody. Groups of people fail (or operate at sub-optimal levels) either because they don’t care, don’t have the talent, or don’t know how. Meetings and workshops with structure (aka interactive design❖) have always been stressed by MGRUSH. Structured facilitation training instructs HOW TO get a group of people to focus on the right question (topicality) at the right time (sequencing).
Structured facilitation training largely teaches you how to think by affecting your greatest power, the power of choice. From choosing which foot to place on the floor first, after rising in the morning, to what to wear when retiring for the evening, each day presents itself with thousands of choices. Without structure, groups are not naturally capable of focusing on the same thing, at the same time. Their choices become confused, chaotic, and sometimes catastrophic. Structured facilitation training is the process of making it easier for people to be more effective in leading groups, teams, meetings, and workshops. It includes three primary components: leadership, facilitation, and methodology.
Structured Facilitation Training Explains the Holarchy of Decision-making
Three Aspects of Structured Facilitation Training
The structure provides a method for transforming the abstract (thoughts) into the concrete (products). In elementary school, we learned about the WHY, WHAT, and HOW. In professional group environments, they equate to:
- Leadership [Why we are doing something],
- Facilitation [What you can do to be more effective], and
- Meeting Design [How do you lead a group from the Introduction to the Wrap].
Differences Between Structured Facilitation and “Kum-bah-yah”
The differences between structured and unstructured facilitation training begin with different deliverables. The structured world seeks outputs such as product requirements or priorities resulting from root cause analysis. The unstructured world seeks outcomes such as community awareness or peace in the Middle East.
With structured facilitation, arguments can be resolved by appealing to the objectives within the structural holarchy. The unstructured world depends on building trust and increasing awareness but has no surefire method for driving consensus. The structured world reminds us that all arguments may be resolved by appealing to enterprise objectives. The unstructured world does not necessarily share any common purpose, scope, or objectives to resolve disagreements.
Structured Facilitation Training Includes
Meetings capture a huge investment of time. Unproductive meetings affect P & L, morale, and the potential growth of your biggest asset, your people. As frequent and important as we attend meetings, little (if any) structured training has been provided to help us become better meeting participants, and more importantly, effective meeting leaders. Creating highly effective meetings depends on improving three areas of your behavioral skills, namely:
WHY —
Leadership training ensures that we begin with the end in mind. WHY do we meet equates with what DONE looks like? The best facilitators in the world will fail miserably if they don’t know where they are going. The worst facilitators can still succeed when the deliverable is clear and has an impact on the quality of life of their meeting participants.
WHAT —
Once it has been made clear where we are going, facilitation skills make it easier to know WHAT to do to ensure a successful meeting. Unfortunately, we have developed poor muscle memory over the years. Some behaviors need to be ‘unlearned’ before new behaviors are embraced. The only way to change such behaviors is through practice and immersion. Talking heads (i.e., the instructor’s lips are moving) won’t do it. Only active participation and practice will work at instilling effective and facilitative behaviors.
HOW —
Even a great facilitator who knows where they are going (i.e., What DONE looks like) still needs help. They need to know HOW they are going to get there. How will they lead a group of people from the meeting Introduction to the Wrap? While the best methodology or approach (i.e., Agenda) has more than one right answer, there is one wrong answer — if the meeting leader does not know HOW they are going to do it.
Practical Benefits of Structured Facilitation Training
- Analysis of business requirements: policies (WHY), rules (WHAT), and procedures (HOW)
- Application environments such as AGILE, Design Sprint, DMAIC, JAD, Kaizen, Kanban, Lean, LeSS, RUP, SAFe, SAP, Scrum, SDLC (waterfall), SOA, and XP
- Business agility, architecture, holistic decision support, product development, process improvement, and program alignment
- Popular deliverables include gap analysis, planning of all sorts, prioritization with levels of increasing complexity, and team and project charters
- Project and portfolio management approaches that demand consensus-based prioritization
- Work products like Daily Stand-ups, Kick-offs, Innovation and Creativity Sessions, Logical Models, Look-backs, Product Backlogs, QFD, Retrospectives, Reviews, Root Cause Analysis, SIPOC, Stand-ups, Use-Cases, and User Stories
Help Yourself to Some Additional Revenue Too
Because innovation drives profit, most people have ignored structure to secure breakthrough ideas. Understand why listening to the voice of the customer makes economic sense.
The poor evaluation of ideas represents the number one cause of failure for newly introduced products. Frequently customers either don’t need the new product (i.e., technology push) or the product does not work as expected. Structured facilitation improves the quality of evaluation and decision-making, ensuring that the best concepts become commercialized.
Focus groups stress qualitative aspects and may not effectively represent the market at large. Offline research tends to be overly quantitative and sterile, frequently subject to close-ended questions/ answers when conditional knowledge may be more important to informed decisions. While one-on-one interviews afford deep probes, they confine the knowledge to what already exists; i.e., they stay “in the box”.
Surveys help track results but lack the ability to provide leading indications of unmet needs and unexplored issues. Web-based discussions drive further but do not support solid decision-making principles. Concept testing provides qualitative feedback but lacks the quantitative rigor needed to support decisions. Conjoint analysis, also known as “Com-Pair” (and other terms), supports decision-making but does not help generate new ideas or options.
Structured Workshops Integrate the Best of All Methods
Structured workshops generate breakthrough ideas, create strategies, and ensure alignment with more customers. Group dynamics stimulate, leading to higher quality ideas and decisions. However, without solid facilitation, dominant personalities may introduce bias. Starting with customer pain points and leveraging the input from other methods mentioned above, a collaborative approach will always generate higher quality decisions than those made in a vacuum or subjected to seen and unseen biases.
Facilitation training prepares you to challenge with reflexive questioning, the “pregnant pause”, and other tips to secure evidence and support. Nobody is smarter than everybody, especially in the hands of a professional facilitator.
[1]Wisdom To Inspire
[2]I’m Still Learning
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
by Facilitation Expert | Aug 7, 2018 | Decision Making, Meeting Structure, Meeting Tools, Scrum Events
What is a Design Sprint? Created at Google Ventures, a Design Sprint represents a methodology that helps teams complete a five-day workshop for building and testing some problem-solving product or solution (prototype). A prototype might include a product on a screen, on paper, a service, a physical space, or an object.
Created by Google Venture’s Jake Knapp, along with Braden Kowitz and John Zeratsky, a Design Sprint leads participants from an abstract idea to a workable prototype. The five-day deadline, intensive teamwork, and facilitative focus provide an effective way to generate ideas and evaluate them quickly. The title of their book published in 2016 is “Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days”. According to the creators, they used Design Sprints on everything from Google Search to Google X. Not surprisingly, the Design Sprint method relies heavily on methodology led through highly effective, professional facilitation.
Design Sprint Agenda
We recently collaborated with Jessica Olsen, CSPF from The Doolittle Institute to build a five-day agenda (the creators never mention the term ‘agenda’ and prefer using a checklist) based on the Design Sprint methodology. We have liberally modified some of their suggested tools to include MGRUSH tools provided in our Certified Structured Professional Facilitator training. Note in particular that we have a distaste for voting because it involves winners and losers. As consensus fighters, we provide decision-making options based on using criteria and structured analysis.
As described by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, “listen in if you have a big opportunity, challenge, or idea and need perspective, insights, and practical answers.”
Design Sprint Agenda — Day One, MAPPING
Agenda Step
|
Estimated Time
|
Notes and Tools
|
Introduction
|
15 to 45 minutes
|
Duration depends on the number of participants and the length of icebreakers. Follow the MGRUSH Introductory seven-step introductory sequence, stressing roles:
- Introduce yourself: stress neutrality, meeting roles, and workshop impact.
- State the workshop purpose and get an agreement.
- Confirm the workshop scope and get an agreement.
- Show the workshop deliverables and get an agreement.
- Cover the administrivia (e.g., safety moment).
- Explain the workshop Day Four agenda (preferably through metaphor or analogy).
- Share the ground rules.
a) (Optionally) Have the attendees introduce themselves
b) Have Decider[1] make some quick rah-rah comments
|
Long-term Goal
|
15 to 75 minutes
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Using Breakout Teams, treat much like a vision statement of the prototype being built. Consider using either the Purpose tool or the Temporal Shift tool.
|
Questions
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30 to 60 minutes
|
Using Breakout Teams, develop a list of Design Sprint Questions to be answered by the end of the fifth day. Consider using three of the Six Thinking Hat tools, and in this sequence, namely:
- White Hat (Neutral Objectivity) — Questions about data, facts, figures, information, examples, and other types of evidence
- Black Hat (Logical Negative) — Questions about risk, problems, obstacles, and likely causes of failure in reaching the vision
- Red Hat (Emotional View) — Questions about biased views, hunches, “gut”, and feelings
|
Mapping
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
Using Breakout Teams, build something akin to a process flow diagram. Consider using the Creativity tool to capture key customer benefits, applications, or other uses. In the words of the authors:
“List customers and key players on the left. Draw the ending, with your completed goal, on the right. Finally, make a flowchart in between showing how customers interact with your product. Keep it simple: five to fifteen steps.” (pg 66) [2]
|
Expert Views
|
60 to 120 minutes
|
Facilitate expert views from your Design Sprint team and guests from the outside. For about fifteen to thirty minutes each, capture their vision, research, how things work, and previous efforts or considerations. Other team members listen, observe, and write down notes. Consider strengthening your questions with the Perspectives tool.
|
How Might We (HMWs)
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
Team members convert their notes into opportunity statements (HMWs), akin to Scrum Stories. Use the Purpose tool format. Consider strengthening your questions with the Perspectives tool (pg 75).
|
Prioritizing
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
First, consolidate with the Categorizing tool or some equivalent approach. Consider various and appropriate prioritization tools ranging from Perceptual Mapping to the Decision Matrix tool. (NOTE: If using an MGRUSH tool, note that you will separately need to build criteria and apply the prioritized criteria against the HMWs.) For less formal cultures, consider a Scrum method of prioritization such as the Team Circle or even Planning Poker. The creators recommend voting (pg 80).
|
Updating
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
Given new input from the experts and the HMWs, consolidate into an updated Long-term Goal, updated Questions, and a consolidated map.
|
Selection and Testing
|
15 to 30 minutes
|
According to the creators, “Circle your most important customer and one target moment on the map. The team can weigh in, but the Decider makes the call.” Test back to Long-term Goal to ensure alignment.
|
Review, Preview, and Wrap
|
5 to 15 minutes
|
Use the standard MGRUSH four-activity approach, namely:
- Review and summarize what the group accomplished.
- Review any open items: Assign responsibility and detail how the group can expect to be updated.
- Guardian of change: determine what the group agrees to tell their superiors and other stakeholders.
- Improvement: Use a quick Plus/ Delta for any quick fixes needed over the next four days.
-
|
Day One Things We Like
- Remember to take breaks every sixty to ninety minutes
- ABC: Always be capturing
- Take care of humans
Day One Things We Would Change
- Ask for permission. Ask the group for permission to facilitate. NOTE: The facilitator does not need to ask to do their job. They will properly confirm roles and impact during the Introductory sequence.
- Keep asking, “How should I capture that?” NOTE: (With a marker silly.) Rhetorical precision demands that the question confirm WHAT we captured and provide an accurate reflection of the speaker’s intent.
- Decide and move on. Slow decisions sap energy and threaten the sprint timeline. If the group sinks into a long debate, ask the Decider to make a call. NOTE: Poor quality decisions sap precious resources. Long debates are not available when the method and discussion are structured, especially when the focus of decision-making ought to be on the criteria and not on the options.
Design Sprint Agenda — Day Two, SKETCHING
Agenda Step
|
Estimated Time
|
Notes and Tools
|
Introduction
|
5 to 10 minutes
|
Follow the MGRUSH Introductory seven-step introductory sequence, stressing roles:
- Reconfirm meeting roles and impact of deliverables.
- Review the workshop purpose and get agreement.
- Review the workshop scope and get an agreement.
- Reconfirm the workshop deliverables and get an agreement.
- Cover administrivia (e.g., safety moment).
- Explain the workshop Day Four agenda (preferably through metaphor or analogy).
- Reconfirm the ground rules.
|
Lightning Demos
|
2 to 3 hours
|
Take turns providing three-minute tours of favorite solutions from other products and domains within the same company. Capture all the ‘big ideas’ preferably using both narrative and sketching. Based on personal favorites, biases, or expertise, decide on afternoon assignments.
|
Notes
|
15 to 45 minutes
|
For each person, articulate, codify, and confirm (pg 110).
|
Ideas
|
15 to 45 minutes
|
Have each make some rough doodle sketches (pg 111).
|
Crazy 8
|
10 to 15 minutes
|
Have each follow the Crazy 8 sketching method (pg 112).
|
Sketches
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
For each, create a three-panel storyboard showing customers throughout the solution. Keep in mind the following rules:
- Make it self-explanatory
- Keep it anonymous
- Ugly is OK
- Words matter (rhetorical precision)
- Give it a catchy title
|
Review, Preview, and Wrap
|
5 to 15 minutes
|
Use the standard MGRUSH four-activity approach, namely:
- Review and summarize what the group accomplished.
- Review any open items: Assign responsibility and detail how the group can expect to be updated.
- Guardian of change: determine what the group agrees to tell their superiors and other stakeholders.
- Improvement: Use a quick Plus/ Delta for any quick fixes needed over the next three days.
|
Day Two Things We Like
- NOTE: Effective facilitation of discussion around the Demos becomes critical.
Day Two Things We Would Change
- Referring to a 1959 Yale study on brainstorming as ineffective. NOTE: We’re willing to bet that ideation rules were not imposed and that the analysis component was very weak. Listing is easy, it’s the analyzing that’s tough and it requires structure to break down issues into focal points for facilitated discussion and consensual understanding.
Design Sprint Agenda — Day Three, DECIDING
Agenda Step
|
Estimated Time
|
Notes and Tools
|
Introduction
|
5 to 10 minutes
|
Follow the MG RUSH Introductory seven-step introductory sequence, stressing roles:
- Reconfirm meeting roles and impact of deliverables.
- Review the workshop purpose and get agreement.
- Review the workshop scope and get an agreement.
- Reconfirm the workshop deliverables and get an agreement.
- Cover administrivia (e.g., safety moment).
- Explain the workshop Day Four agenda (preferably through metaphor or analogy).
- Reconfirm the ground rules.
|
Prototype Selection
|
2 to 4 hours
|
Consider the creators’ method described below or substitute a more rigorous decision-making tool such as a Perceptual Map a Decision Matrix or both.
|
Art Museum
|
Pre-work
|
Should be done the night before by affixing sketches on the wall, friendly for touring, like an art museum.
|
Heat Map
|
pg 133
|
In silence the creators recommend applying dot stickers to the most compelling parts or ideas, one sketch at a time.
|
Speed Critique
|
pg 136
|
Discuss the compelling parts of each sketch, one sketch at a time, for three minutes. The original sketcher then replies if they feel the group missed something. Capture stand-out ideas and review concerns and questions.
|
Straw Poll
|
pg 138
|
The creators recommend each team member place one vote on their favorite and support it with their rationale.
|
Decision
(Supervote)
|
pg 141
|
Creators prefer ‘Note and Vote’ with Decider making the final decision. The advantage of the creators’ method is the combining of elements from multiple sketches, as parts of each sketch, rather than the entire sketch, may be used to build the forthcoming prototype.
|
Rumble
|
(Optional)
|
Decide if the winning ideas can fit into one prototype, or if conflicting ideas require two or three competing prototypes (a Rumble). Note and Vote instructions on pg 146.
|
Storyboard
|
2 to 4 hours
|
Build a storyboard to frame the prototype. The creators’ method recommends drawing a large grid, selecting an opening scene, and a flow that might be expected from the customer’s point of view. Illustrations are preferred over narrative comments.
|
Review, Preview, and Wrap
|
5 to 15 minutes
|
Use the standard MGRUSH four-activity approach, namely:
- Review and summarize what the group accomplished.
- Review any open items: Assign responsibility and detail how the group can expect to be updated.
- Guardian of change: determine what the group agrees to tell their superiors and other stakeholders.
- Improvement: Use a quick Plus/ Delta for any quick fixes needed over the next two days.
|
Day Three Things We Like
- Illustrations are preferred over narrative comments. NOTE: A picture is worth a thousand words and a sketch (metaphor or analogy) is worth a thousand pictures.
Day Three Things We Would Change
- NOTE: With the proper method, consensus can be driven but you MUST consider criteria discretely from options.
Design Sprint Agenda — Day Four, PROTOTYPING
Agenda Step
|
Estimated Time
|
Notes and Tools
|
Introduction
|
5 to 10 minutes
|
Follow the MGRUSH Introductory seven-step introductory sequence, stressing roles:
- Reconfirm meeting roles and impact of deliverables.
- Review the workshop purpose and get agreement.
- Review the workshop scope and get an agreement.
- Reconfirm the workshop deliverables and get an agreement.
- Cover administrivia (eg, safety moment).
- Explain the workshop Day Four agenda (preferably through metaphor or analogy).
- Reconfirm the ground rules.
|
Prototyping
|
4 to 6 hours
|
Assign roles: Makers, Stitcher, Writer, Asset Collectors, and Interviewer. Consider breaking the storyboard into smaller scenes and assigning each scene to team members (pg 187).
|
| |
“
|
Making (two or more team members) |
| |
“
|
Stitching |
| |
“
|
Writing |
| |
“
|
Asset Collections (two or more team members) |
| |
“
|
Interviewing
|
Trial Run
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
Identify necessary corrections, ensuring that the Decider and Friday’s Interviewer attend.
|
Calibrations
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
Make changes, finish the prototype, and finalize the Interviewer guide for Friday.
|
Review, Preview, and Wrap
|
5 to 15 minutes
|
Use the standard MGRUSH four-activity approach, namely:
- Review and summarize what the group accomplished.
- Review any open items: Assign responsibility and detail how the group can expect to be updated.
- Guardian of change: determine what the group agrees to tell their superiors and other stakeholders.
- Improvement: Use a quick Plus/ Delta for any quick fixes needed over the final day.
|
Day Four Things We Like
- Divide and Conquer. NOTE: Assigning discrete roles for building the prototype(s).
- Suggestions in Kick-Off Slides:
- If your product is on a screen, try tools like Keynote, PowerPoint, InVision, or Marvel.
- If it’s on paper, design it with Keynote, PowerPoint, or Word.
- With a service, use your Sprint Team as an actor.
- If it’s a physical space, modify an existing space.
- If it’s an object, modify an existing object, 3D print a prototype, or prototype the marketing.
- Goldilocks quality. NOTE: Create a prototype with just enough quality to evoke honest reactions from customers (pg 170).
Day Four Things We Would Change
- NOTE: Day Four is a solid, collaborative, and productive day—well constructed.
Design Sprint Agenda — Day Five, TESTING
Agenda Step
|
Estimated Time
|
Notes and Tools
|
Introduction
|
1 to 2 hours
|
Create two rooms, one for interviews and one for observation. Position hardware and set up a video stream to the observers’ room (pg 202).
|
Five Interviews
|
4 to 6 hours
|
Following Interviewing protocols for prototyping
(pg 212). Team members capture notes, issues, successes, and problems.
|
Notes
|
Concurrent
|
Gather notes on a pre-built grid using a row for each prototype or section of a prototype and a column for each customer being interviewed (pg 219).
|
Patterns
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
Observe, discuss, and capture using the Notes above (pg 222).
|
Back to the Future
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
Review Sprint Questions from Day One. Decide which patterns are most important moving forward. Also, review Long-term Goals from Monday to fortify the next steps. Stress the opportunity from both the successes and the failures.
|
Next Steps
|
30 to 60 minutes
|
Agree on an action plan going forward and consider applying some type of Roles and Responsibilities Matrix such as a RASI chart using the MG RUSH method for budget, timing, and resource estimations. Allow for the possibility of additional Sprints (on the same topic), albeit likely briefer than five days (See Kick-off slide #45).
|
Review, Preview, and Wrap
|
5 to 15 minutes
|
Use the standard MGRUSH four-activity approach, namely:
- Review and summarize what the group accomplished.
- Review any open items: Assign responsibility and detail how the group can expect to be updated.
- Guardian of change: determine what the group agrees to tell their superiors and other stakeholders.
- Improvement: Use a more substantial Evaluation Form to obtain feedback on overall performance.
|
Day Five Things We Like
- Incredible capacity of structured, group activities.
Day Five Things We Would Change
- Voting: Need we say more?
[1] ‘Decider’ is one of three primary roles in a Design Sprint, the other primary roles include ‘Facilitator’, ‘Interviewer’, and ‘Sprint Team.
[2] Refers to the page number in the creators’ book, “Sprint – How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days”. Additionally, the MG RUSH style encourages using fewer periods (full stops) than in American English.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
by Facilitation Expert | Jun 5, 2018 | Meeting Agendas, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support, Scrum Events
A professional facilitator handles several types of assignments, from planning to design. However, most facilitators must also provide a method for securing the deliverable. Although a different role, the ‘methodologist’ responsibilities make up the most important part of preparing for many meetings.
How will you lead the group successfully with meeting design from the Introduction through the Wrap? You will find more than one right answer. Therefore, when weighing Agile vs. Waterfall benefits, consider how the Stacey Matrix arrays projects from the simple through the chaotic.
An Adapted Stacey Matrix: Agile vs Waterfall
Agile vs Waterfall — Stacey Matrix
Stacey’s original two dimensions included Agreement (among stakeholders) and Certainty (about cause and effect relationships within the project). Hence Agilists made Stacey’s matrix popular by substituting Requirements for Agreement and Technology for Certainty. Therefore, Requirements capture WHAT solution must be built and Technology unveils HOW to provide the solution. Consequently, the primary dimensions range from the clear or known, to the vague or unknown. The quantity of people involved gives a softer, yet third dimension that also directly increases the complexity. Therefore, the balance of this article discusses the five primary zones or areas delineated on the matrix. They include:
- The Simple
- Politically Complicated
- Technically Complicated
- Zone of Complexity
- The Chaotic
Five Zones Overview: Agile vs. Waterfall
The Waterfall mindset demands substantial, up-front planning. Agile frameworks launch quicker, with a much narrower scope during each increment (or Sprint when using Scrum). When the cause and effects are clear and mastered, Waterfall optimizes resources and returns on investment. However, as the customer’s scenario constantly changes, Agile permits adaptation and quick adjustment. Waterfall works especially well with large construction projects and broad-scoped hardware installations. Hence, Agile may be better suited for software products, where the market demands constant and frequent change. When tasks are clearly defined, the waterfall optimizes the sequencing and resource allocation. Therefore, results ought to be consistent, predictable, and repeatable. As tasks require frequent collaboration and adjustments, Agile lends a sense of quick response and flexibility not associated with Waterfall. The following table compares the attributes of the five zones. Most models apply identical content to the Complicated Zones. We split the zone into two because the challenges of each demand a different method. When the lack of clarity derives from stakeholders, plan carefully before proceeding (Waterfall). When uncertainty derives from the technology or software, consider the Agile approach, and prepare to change along the way. A brief discussion follows about each.
Zones Attributes
|
Simple
|
Politically Complicated
|
Technically Complicated
|
Complex
|
Chaotic
|
Positioning
|
Telling: Rational decision-making and control, orderly, traditional project management, and organizational development |
Selling: Political decision-making and control; compromise, negotiation, persuasion, coalition building, relationship building |
Consulting: Judgmental decision-making, ideological control, intuition, learning organizations, systems thinking |
Co-creation: Collaborative ideation, visioning, iterative improvement, knowledge management, creativity, innovation |
Disintegration or massive avoidance |
Focus or Control
|
Monitoring, Standards, Guidance. Evidence-based |
Negotiation |
Strategic or Adaptive Planning |
Learning, Creativity, Trial and Error, Empirical |
Disorder and chaos until novel patterns emerge. |
Planning Type
|
Operational or Predictive Planning |
Strategic or Adaptive Planning |
Strategic or Scenario Planning |
Adaptive or Scenario Planning |
Rapid action and improvising skills |
|
|
Relationships between cause and effect are evident. Apply best practices and use defined process controls. |
Cause and effect can be understood by analyzing or investigating the system and its mechanisms. Apply good practices. |
Cause and effect can be understood by analyzing or investigating the system and its mechanisms. Apply good practices. |
The relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance. Inspect and Adapt. |
No clear relationships between cause and effect even if inspected. The approach is to Act, Sense, and Respond and we can discover novel practices. |
Example
|
Drilling for oil in the Permian Basin. |
Improving air quality or building an oil pipeline through North America. |
Sending a payload to Mars or beyond the edge of our known solar system. |
Raising a child. Every child is unique resulting in unpredictable outcomes. |
“Running of the Bulls” (event held in Spain), or the turbulence in the tip vortex from an airplane wing |
Comments
|
A ‘right’ answer exists, best practices and detailed recipes, fact-based, traditional management |
Frequent disagreement about the value and purpose of the project |
More than one right answer possible, fact-based, coordination of expertise, reliance on techno-rationale |
Empirical methods focused on the identification, selection, and development of increments |
High turbulence, no patterns, tension, need to create stability, experience may hinder progress |
1. The Simple Zone: Agile vs. Waterfall
When the final result or “DONE” of a project resonates with everyone, especially large projects, Waterfall stays an obvious choice. Relying on fact-based and evidence-based decisions, projects will advance in an orderly fashion, generating few surprises. You have all worked with recipes in the kitchen before. Not only are the activities clear and sequenced, but the results are repeatable as well. Best practices serve as the benchmark for both guiding tasks and comparing results.
2. Politically Complicated Zone: Agile vs. Waterfall
As requirements become less clear, or even conflicting, waterfall may remain the best choice. How many project dollars have you seen wasted because people could not agree on the purpose or value of the project? Agile affords productivity while people are negotiating, but you risk working on the wrong stuff without the coalition building encouraged by Waterfall. Always remember – WHY before WHAT before HOW.
3. Technically Complicated Zone: Agile vs. Waterfall
As the value of adaptive thinking increases, such as embracing innovative technology for the first time, the Agile mindset may be favored. When cause and effect must be analyzed or investigated, the Agile mindset becomes preferred. Knowing that more than one right answer exists, a clear and frequent feedback loop with stakeholders helps optimize decisions. Consequently, as Development Teams advance and grow, they become learning organizations, capable of increasing productivity and innovation.
4. Zone of Complexity: Agile vs. Waterfall
The empirical process control method demands Agile as conditions become increasingly complex. As contrasted with a fully defined process control (Waterfall), empirical methods demand transparency, frequent inspection, and adaptation. Therefore, Agile frameworks promote all three aspects or “legs.” Scrum, in particular, requires inspections at the conclusion of each Sprint. Teams receive immediate and prompt feedback to help modify later Sprints, without much delay. Do not forget to look at Agile, a mindset, as “Being” while Scrum, a framework, represents “Doing”. Hence, an empirical process depends on experimentation and continuous improvement to optimize the performance of project teams.
5. The Chaotic Zone: Agile vs. Waterfall
Most recommend Kanban as an Agile approach to deal with chaos. With Kanban, there are no Sprints. Therefore teams, using WIP (Work in Progress), continually deliver and update their product backlog. Hence, as output increases, novel patterns may emerge to help projects migrate from the chaotic to the complex. In chaotic conditions, experience may be useless. However, experimentation may be invaluable. Therefore Act, Sense, and Respond – serve as one way out of chaotic conditions.
The Facilitator: Agile vs. Waterfall
In conclusion, what does it all mean to facilitators? Since most of us are called upon for the best method to conduct meetings, planning, negotiations, decision-making, etc., the methodological impact trumps the facilitator’s learnings. Hence, you begin to see where helping to manage the political uncertainty becomes paramount for many projects to succeed. You can also sense that ‘removing impediments’ becomes quite like ‘making it easy.’ In the Waterfall world when meetings evidence highly productive participants and output, our role shifts to that of scribe or documenter. However, with Agile, the role shifts to that of a referee, trying to clear a path so that Development Teams can do what they do best—build a new product. In both situations, when we have done our jobs well, it is time to get out of the way and be of service. Related Articles: http://www.designisdead.com/blog/making-sense-of-agile
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
by Facilitation Expert | May 10, 2018 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Managing Conflict, Meeting Support
Have you ever heard someone say in a meeting “I don’t know why we’re doing this project in the first place?” Odds are, the meeting is being held to advance the project, not re-validate it. The person asking the question has now imposed their agenda on the group. They have forced scope creep [1].
Whenever meeting participants ask questions, they have shifted from the role of subject matter expert to the role of meeting designer. They have forced scope creep. By diverting attention to ‘their’ question, the group follows ‘their’ agenda. Consequently, they risk not having enough time to complete the meeting deliverable.
Getting Groups to Focus Prevents Scope Creep
Prevent Scope Creep
The hardest task to accomplish when leading a group of people is to get them to focus. Participants’ minds drift, twist, and become partially selective. When the right group of people assembles, they can accomplish any task at hand if the leader gets them focused. Yet they continue to drift, discuss, and argue about issues that are not within the scope of the meeting. They impose their own scope creep.
Expert facilitation saves an incredible amount of time and money. For one, a well-prepared facilitator knows the scope of the meeting and puts it in writing. As a result, they do not allow someone to discuss topics that are not in scope. This includes re-justifying the project. When people argue about the validity or purpose of a project, the discussion is usually NOT within the meeting scope. Yet only a conscious facilitator can police scope creep carefully.
Remember these two secrets to prevent scope creep in meetings.
First, the session leader or facilitator needs to make the meeting scope clear when the meeting begins, as well as secure agreement from the participants about the meeting scope. Frequently, meeting scope limits include geography, duration, or situation—capturing only PART OF the project scope.
Secondly, the facilitator needs to know the precise question the group should be addressing. When the facilitator does not know the question, ANY answer is appropriate. Most meeting facilitators should focus on context before meetings rather than content, by knowing the right questions and the proper sequence to ask them. They cannot afford to ask a DUMB question (i.e., Dull, Ubiquitous, Myopic, and Broad).
Scope Creep in Meetings is Costly
While it’s a well-known fact that scope creep kills projects, scope creep also dramatically impacts the quality of meetings. Based on our research with a Fortune 100 company, more than 50 meetings are required to complete an ‘average’ project. The average is computed as greater than USD$250,000 in value but less than $1.0 million in total cost invested[2]. Much, if not most, of the budget is actually consumed by the labor value during meetings, and most budgets do not reflect the costs of the customer’s time. And that’s where scope creep begins.
Expert Facilitation Can Reduce the Amount of Total Meeting Time by Half
Most meetings stay partially focused and on topic. They do not spend an entire hour talking about Monday Night Football. Participants typically offer up some good content. The problem is, that the meeting ends when the time is over, not when the meeting deliverable is complete and robust. Therefore, the deliverable of many meetings becomes the most despicable deliverable of all — another meeting.
Meeting leaders cannot control the scope if they are not fully aware of the scope of the project, the meeting, the agenda steps, and the questions the group needs to answer. While each scope is related, they remain discrete, and differences must be clear in the mind of the leader. However, when the meeting leader cannot articulate the scope, participants can freely talk about whatever comes to mind. Sound familiar?
While some contend that all too often participants get too ‘deep in the weeds’, we discovered that conversation in the opposite direction wastes more time. People talking about projects, programs, business unit objectives, and enterprise performance — all topics typically ‘out of scope’ for their specific meeting deliverable.
Scope Creep is the Opposite of Detailed Answers and Requirements
Unprofessional facilitators permit such discussion when they do not refine their questions. They typically ask broad questions when, in fact, they need detailed answers. They ask for the deliverable rather than aggregating the components that add up to create the deliverable.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say your group’s deliverable is a marketing plan. An untrained facilitator might begin by asking “What does the marketing plan look like?” Imagine the number of ways this question could be answered. Such broad, open-ended questions leave meetings wide open to scope creep. Rather, a professional facilitator would know, or have done her research beforehand, and understand that a marketing plan is a function of segmentation, targeting, positioning, media, message, etc., and thus a better question would be “What is the primary target audience for the product you’re trying to market?” A question is specific enough to produce specific, measurable answers.
In addition, if the question were “What are our top three market segments?” (another good, precise question) a trained facilitator would not allow one or two people to divert the group into a discussion over social media outlets, as such content (while relevant at some other point in the process) would be out of the scope of the question at hand. (For more on how to handle open issues click HERE.)
In the aggregate . . .
By systematically addressing a series of questions, answers fold together to create the meeting deliverable.
As soon as participants start arguing over issues unrelated to the details required to support the specified deliverable (ie a specific marketing plan for a specific product) they are imposing scope creep, and putting the team at risk of failing to deliver in the amount of time allowable. The facilitator must stop the discussions unrelated directly to the deliverable.
Quite simply, to prevent scope creep in meetings, the facilitator needs to know the scope of the specific question being asked. If they don’t, people can talk about whatever they want.
Understanding Scope Creep and Precision of the Question During Your Meeting
The Consciousness of the Holarchy Helps Prevent Scope Creep
The holarchy chart illustrates the narrowing of the scope, from the enterprise through the question being discussed in a meeting. The facilitator must provide precise questions that support the completion of agenda steps and the completion of the meeting deliverable. When the facilitator does not know the right question to ask, all hell breaks loose, and rightfully so, scope creeps . . . Do not let it happen to you. Also, see our discussion specifically on the Holarchy for further explanation. And remember, consciousness comes before competence.
[1]The Project Management Institute’s PMBOK® Guide describes scope creep as “adding features and functionality (project scope) without addressing the effects on time, costs, and resources, or without customer approval” (PMI, 2008, p 440).
[2]Size definitions are never the same for all organizations, but nearly all define “moderate” as projects with a minimum threshold between $50,000 and $1,000,000 total investment.
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
