Part
III: Adding Capability to the Matrix
From within any position on the matrix just described, team members must
be supported by ready access to four capabilities, described below. Work
teams should not have to leave their floor or building, fight for scheduling,
or waste inordinate amounts of time as-sembling furniture and equipment
as they shift positions in the matrix. In particular, Rapid Insight events
should not be manacled by the physical environment as people move from
individual work to team work to large group assembly and back again in
either a synchronous or asynchronous manner. Today’s environments should
be requisite with today’s problem solving techniques.
Collaborative Visual Modeling
Equipment
Every individual, team or large group needs to have ready access to three
types of vertical surfaces: surfaces for sketching, displays for communication
and computation, and surfaces for posting of large documents or complex
images for reference. All of these surfaces can be electronic. Sketching
surfaces are commonly marker boards. They require only markers as tools,
can easily engage a group in design, and their erasability adds flexibility
during the idea formulation stages of a project. Communications and computation
displays should handle video conferencing (perhaps through the Internet)
and display of files. A marker board is great for brainstorming, but manipulation
of information (in spreadsheets, for example) requires a computer display.
These displays should also be connected to the company’s or work group’s
dashboards, intranets, and operational data so that no time is wasted
when a team is at work and needs information.
Surfaces for posting are useful when a quantity of information is required as an adjunct to work on either of the other surfaces or when some information is too large to be viewed comfortably on a computer screen. Even a very large monitor is inadequate to reveal the overall pattern of a complex Gantt chart or process flow diagram.
Furniture to Support the Stage
and Studio
Stages are places for teams and large groups to work in. They’re more
than assembly areas, however. They should provide the teams and individuals
with the ability to work together, to keep their computers connected to
one another and the various display surfaces, and to parallel process
on individual work while in large group mode. The U-shaped table configuration
is inadequate to the demands of a dynamic session and so are the traditional
theater-style and classroom set-ups.
Studios are places for individuals, pairs and trios to work. A group of forty individuals ought to be able to move from a stage setting to a studio setting of teams and individuals in a matter of minutes so that no intellectual or creative momentum need be lost. Both studios and stages ought to have access to visual modeling equipment. A variety of metaphors are available to aid in the design of studios and stages, beginning with these two titles. Studios are places where artists create things. All of their tools are available and the space is organized (in highly individualistic ways) to support all phases of the creative process. Stages are places where actors, directors, audiences and stage hands assemble to bring stories to life by creating simulated environments. For other lateral ways of thinking about collaborative work places, think about laboratories, work benches, workshops, and exchanges.
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| Organizations should be trained in and have access to a range of process-oriented tools. Sente Corporation’s model is based on its Strategic Modeling™ practice. It begins with helping individuals and teams assemble visual, verbal and quantitative models of the system in focus. These models explain how the system works, and how it’s configured. They also reveal insight into how the system can be improved, innovated, or recreated. Once the best model or model set emerges, the team can use it to discover and articulate a set of viable strategies. One or several of these are converted to plans and the plans are then managed as projects. The work team should choose to use some process for following the path from idea to action, and not leave the design process to an unconscious application of past experience—most of which were invented long before the digital economy and all of its trappings of speed and reliance on intellectual capital became a reality. |  |
Information Management System
Given the increasing presence of technology in corporations, the influence
of statistical quality control, the phenomenon of the networked economy
and the digitization of work and work processes, it’s surprising how little
operational information and research is available to work teams to assist
them in understanding, modeling and responding to complex challenges.
Beyond such operational and strategic information, teams need help in
managing the ideas, plans and project management information that they
generate in the course of problem resolution or system innovation. Group
decision support software falls into this category.
