I recently completed a one day Strategic Planning session with a corporate
client, a large multinational consumer products manufacturer.
This was their first attempt at taking all of their plant staff (320) and
asking them to envision what the future of the industry may look like and
what new opportunities could result from it.
Management has recognized that lateral thinking has become a core
competence for everyone, not not just a luxury for some sr management
people.
After my brief introduction to lateral thinking, the audience broke up
into 4 groups of 80 and traveled to 4 workshop sessions lasting 55 minutes
each. Each group was 80 was composed of 10 working tables of 8. Each table
of 8 had a team leader trained beforehand in Lateral thinking and each
workshop had a trained facilitator.
Participants were introduced to the concepts of "escape" and the 4 ways of
creating provocations( reversal, exaggeration, distortion and wishful
thinking) which were then used as stepping stones to generate ideas.
Several weeks before the workshop, senior management and my class at
Conestoga College generated a list of "what do we take for granted" WDWTFG
for each one of the workshop sessions...Consumer of the Future, Workplace
of the Future, the Health Care industry of tomorrow and the Community of
the Future.
I took one of the WDWTFG and came up with the following example:
WDWTFG .... Provocation or Stepping stone......concept,idea,opportunity
"People do not
pay attention to
expiry dates on
medication"
Example of ESCAPE
PO "Bottle pays attention"
or
PO "Medicine Cabinet pays attention"
IDEA/CONCEPT
-label changes colour
-bottle changes colour
-question need for QC
-Smart Medicine Cabinet
Example of PO using reversal
PO "Expiry Date pays attention to
people"
IDEA/CONCEPT
-colour-coded expiry dates
-industry wide standards
Example of PO using Exaggeration
PO "Expiry date the size of City Hall
Clock"
..........noticeable
IDEA/CONCEPT
-Phone -alert reminder service
-new marketing vehicle
-bottle beeps
Example of PO using distortion
PO " people encouraged to pay
attention to or fanatic about
expiry dates"
IDEA/CONCEPT
-Contest
-Disposal service
drop off and win
Example of PO by wishful thinking
PO " Wouldn't it be nice if the medication
would pay attention to expiry dates"
IDEA/CONCEPT
-Medication changes
colour at 80 % potency
-Medication self-destructs
Each table was asked to do two tasks. After viewing a custom-made video
for each workshop ( headlines and newsclips from yesterday and today)
participants were asked to generate (brain-storm) a list of issues and
concerns off the top of their heads ( not using any specific lateral
thinking)
( average # of ideas per table from brain storming ~ 15 to 20) These
tended to be today's concerns projected in to the future. Not many
original, unique ideas though.
Next, each workshop facilitator reviewed the lateral thinking techniques
again giving specific examples of use. Participants were given 4 minutes
to think on their own using lateral thinking and focusing on the list of
WDWTFG's for each workshop
This part produced many more original issues, concerns, concepts and
opportunities. ( average # of ideas per table from lateral thinking ~ 25
to 35)
All in all, the day was very successful largely due to the organization
and supreme planning efforts of the HR department. Management now has the
daunting task of organizing all those ideas, scenarios and opportunities
into their internal corporate web page and integrating it into their
strategic planning issues/management process.
If anyone else has been involved in this type of large group exercise
using lateral thinking, Id' like to hear of your experiences.
Professor Walter Derzko
Founder Creativity Consortium
An international club/network for lateral thinkers
wd@itrc.on.ca
(416) 588-1122
http://itrc.on.ca/CreativityConsortium/
--Walter Derzko <wd@itrc.on.ca>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>