Often, you will have a couple of ideas that tie, but having it diagramed out in a matrix makes it much easier to make a decision.
Delphi Decision Making
In Delphi decision groups, a series of questionnaires are sent to selected respondents (Delphi group). The group does not meet face-to-face. All communication is normally in writing (normally letters or email). Members of the groups are selected because the are experts or they have relevant information. Steps include:
- Members are asked to share their assessment and explanation of a problem or predict a future state of affairs
- Replies are gathered, summarized, and then fed back to all the group members.
- Members then make another decision based upon the new information.
- The process may be repeated until the the responses converge satisfactory.
The success of this process depends upon the member's expertise and communication skill. Also, each response requires adequate time for reflection and analysis. The major merits of the Delphi process is:
- Elimination of interpersonal problems.
- Efficient use of expert's time.
- Diversity of ideals.
- Accuracy of solutions and predictions.
Dialectic Decision Making
The dielectric decision method (DDM) traces its roots back to Socrates and Plato. It helps to overcome such problems as converging too quickly one one solution while overlooking others, participants dislike of meetings, incomplete evaluations, and the failure to confront tough issues. The steps of DDM are:
- Issue a clear statement of the problem to be solved.
- Two or more competing proposals are generated.
- Members identify the explicit or implicit assumptions that underlie each proposal.
- The team then breaks into advocacy sub, who examine and argue the relative merits of their positions.
- The group reassembles and makes a decision:
- embrace one of the alternatives
- forge a compromise
- generate a new proposal
The process looks like this:
This process helps the members to better understand the proposals along with their pros and cons. The main disadvantage is the tendency to forge a compromise in order to avoid choosing sides.
Two frequent posters on the TRDEV discussion list are Scott Simmerman at http://squarewheels.com/ and Robert Bacal at http://www.work911.com/. For those that have not visited their sites, I urge you to do so and compare their sites (they are both excellent sites so it is well worth the visit). Although they have several things in common, such as they both do training and own successful performance companies, notice how their sites are two complete different images. It is like the difference between day and night. If you have followed TRDEV, you will also notice that their postings are also quite different.
This is not to say that one is better than the other, it is simply an exercise in pointing out individual diversity. Note that both have similar professions (and are very good at what they do), yet the contrast between the two is striking. This brings up the first point in a three-step radical thinking approach:
- The first thing you must have to encourage radical thinking and effective brainstorming is truly diverse thinking styles on your team. Do you have a Scott Simmerman AND a Robert Bacal AND a few other styles on your team? Or they all the same or similar style as you? Imagine what such two radically different styles could bring to your group.
- Once your team or company grows by more than one individual, ensure the new individual is one who truly thinks differently than you. And when you get another member, ensure that person's thinking style is different than yours and the other team member. And so on down the line. This is the first step in remaining competitive. Do not full into the trap of hiring someone like you or your favorite employee - this leads to group-think.
Doug Hall, who specializes in new business development, training, and consulting had this to say about team diversity, "The more diverse you are, the more likely you are to have loud and sometimes obnoxious debates. This is good. It means that all the folks have passion and a pulse. Remember, real teams are more like the family on the television show 'Roseanne' than they are like the Cleavers in 'Leave It to Beaver.' Real teams fight to make their point, yet they still have respect for each other."
In the "Abilene Paradox," Dr. Harvey uses a parable to illustrate what he believes is a major symptom of organizational group-think: the management of agreement - as opposed to the management of disagreement or conflict. When we fail to engage in deep inquiry and in self-disclosure, we tend to agree with others, no matter if it is the best way to do so or not. Part of the reason this "management of agreement" comes about is that each individual's style is similar to other team members. When our interests our too similar, radical discourse fails to take place. For more information, see the section labled, "Abilene Paradox" at Creativity.
Real team members should not be afraid to disagree, but once a decision has been made, they all need to be on the same bandwagon. They ensure their ideals and opinions are heard, but once it is time to go forward, they concentrate on getting there, not going back.
Although discussion groups, such as TRDEV, can help teams by giving them the chance to seek out other's opinions and ideals, they are limited in that they are not real time and the number of postings are generally limited. It often takes face-to-face interactions to bring out the best in discussions and ideal generators.
One often used technique for generating new ideals in a brainstorming session is to pick up a dictionary and toss out a random word. However, there is a better way to provide a climate of creativity. There is a game called Cranium that does a good job of using the various parts of the mind. You sketch, sculpt, draw with you eyes, use your knowledge, unscramble words, spell, hum, whistle, impersonate, etc. in order to get your team member(s) to discover the secret word or phase. You do these activities by drawing a card and then performing the activity before the timer runs out. For example, one team member might draw the word "Measure." The card tells her what type of activity to perform, such as drawing clues on a paper (no talking, letters, or symbols) with her eyes closed.
To use this game in brainstorming, play the game normally, except that after each card drawing activity has been performed, have all the participants generate x number of ideals before moving on to the next activity (normally 10 to 20 ideals). Normal brainstorming rules also apply. This may sound like a slower process than the regular brainstorming sessions we are used to, but remember, radical ideals are important for you organization to survive! And radical ideals come from creative activities. You cannot expect people to be creative by sitting in a room staring at four blank walls. The ideal is to get their creative juices flowing.
The Cranium game also performs an important function for radical thinking -- reducing the fear factor by providing fun. Fear is a barricade for new ideals. By providing fun and laughter, you create a pathway for radical ideals to emerge.
"Thinking out of the box" is often used over and I hate it when I'm told to "get out of my box" (I'm on the shy side). However, as the steps to radical thinking and brainstorming show, you need radical thinking generators to reach a high creative level:
- Diverse thinking styles - e.g. Bacal and Simmerman. You need lively discussions, not "Leave It to Beaver" dinner talk.
- Stimulus to spark the mind - activities that will get the creative juices flowing, such as the Cranium game.
- Fear prevention - fun games, friendly environment, and firm gestures that creates the feeling that everything is OK!
This is truly "thinking out of the box" as it provides an environment that uses everyone's thinking styles, rather than telling them to change their thinking style. When you tell people "to come out of the box," you are basically saying that you want them to be the same box as you. Now why would we go to all that trouble of getting a diverse workforce and then cloning everyone into the same style? When you provide a creative environment, instead of trying to change a person, you get the real person! When you get real persons into open, trusting environments with creative activities, you get radical thinking. And when you get radical thinking, you get the next great ideal for your organization!
"Inventions reached their limit long ago, and I see no hope for further development," - Julius Frontinus in the first century A.D.
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." - Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." - Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." - A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." - Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." - Western Union internal memo, 1876.
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" - David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." - The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
"But what ... is it good for?" - Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." - 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.
"I assure you, Marlon Brando will not appear in this film, " said a Paramount Studio exec about the casting of The Godfather.
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." - Western Union internal memo, 1876.
After Fred Astair's first screen test in 1933, the MGM testing director wrote a meme saying, "Can't act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little. " Astaire got the memo and kept it over his fireplace.
An expert said of football coach Vince Lombardi, "He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation."
"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" - Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper," explained Gary Cooper on his refusal to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."
"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." - Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M's Post-It notes
