PLANNING AND ORGANIZING TASKS

VIS-IT Techniques stimulate and accelerate group planning and organizing tasks in the following ways:

• Focus thinking with explicit "Focus Questions" that get at What, When, Where, Who, How, and Why.
• Use highly visual tools, involving meaningful colors and shapes, to stimulate, energize, reinforce and organize ideas and organizational tasks.
• Capture and build a comprehensive group memory.
• Generate decisions and commitments.
• Facilitate communication and follow-up.

Planning by groups is performed in response to a need to take coordinated action, to solve a problem, to seize an opportunity, to launch an initiative, to produce something, to deliver a service, to develop a decision option, or for similar important reasons. Plans describe the cohesive responses the question: What should we do to achieve our purpose?

As such, successful planning requires the discovery of choices for what to do. The range of choices that can usefully be considered is often limited by constraints of cost, time or scope.

• Planning is usually an essential element of good decision making. For very important decisions, the choice is among more than one distinct, but highly comprehensive, plans.
  
  Organizing, in the sense used here, involves identifying the tasks that must be performed in order for the chosen plan to succeed.
  
  Plans often include some or all of these important elements:
  
• A background explanation regarding why the plan is necessary,
• A description of the desired outcomes, or the "vision," of the plan,
• A comprehensive presentation of the choices that are developed and considered for inclusion in the plan,
• A description of the decision-making process used to select the recommended plan,
• Explicit performance measures by which the progress of the plan is monitored,
• The work process functions which have shared accountability for implementing the plan
  
  A description of the tasks that are associated with each function, including
  Duration

• Sequence
• Dependencies
• Costs
• Risks
• People accountable for
• Performing the task
• Monitoring progress to plan
• And, a deliberate communication effort to create awareness and support for the plan.
  
  VIS-IT Tools used for planning and organizing tasks include:
  
• Large, colorful, Post-it‘ Hexagons to capture, create, arrange, and connect ideas in response to Focus Questions.
• Large Big Idea Pads to create matrices for evaluating ideas, proposals, solution options, or scenarios.

VIS-IT Techniques that support group planning and organizing tasks are similar to decision-making and include:

Causal Thinking – Drivers Diagram
Causal Thinking – Loop Diagram
Matrix Thinking – An Overview
Matrix Thinking – Factor Analysis
Matrix Thinking – Options Evaluation
Matrix Thinking – Scenario Thinking
Matrix Thinking – What if and if
Prioritization – Nominal Group Technique
Prioritization – Paired Comparison Leapfrog
Thinking with Hexagons – First Meeting
Thinking with Hexagons – H.A.T.S.
Thinking with Hexagons – Speed Thinking
Thinking with Hexagons – Six Steps

Some Suggested Focus Questions or Instructions useful in planning and organizing sessions are:

• What are the issues and opportunities that must be understood and addressed if we are to develop and implement a successful plan?
  
• When the plan has been successfully achieved, what changes in behavior will we see?
  
• What are the performance goals and measures associated with the plan?
  
• What are the actions, investments, organizational initiatives, or other "action steps" that will be necessary or useful in order to achieve the objectives of the plan?
  
• How can the array of suggested action steps be arranged into cohesive and plausible, but distinct, plans? Or, what are the action steps or tasks that could be arranged as component parts of distinct plans?
  
• What is the full range of plausible options (plans) to consider before making the decision on which plan to accept?
  
• What are the decision criteria and limits against which each plausible plan will be evaluated?
  
• Let’s seek, by consensus, to rank the decision-making criteria. [Use prioritization techniques with the group.]
  
• Using the Options Evaluation Matrix, let’s try to reach a consensus about how well each plan satisfies the decision limits and criteria. [For example, the matrix invites one of the following at each matrix intersection: Good, Fair, or Poor. Other terms can be used instead.] 

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ORGANIZING AND ARRANGING IDEAS

The outcomes of almost any thinking activity are improved if participants have the capability to arrange and re-arrange ideas in a variety of stimulative configurations.
This applies not only to people working in groups, but when an individual is working alone.

VIS-IT Techniques help groups to organize and arrange ideas in the following ways:

• Focus thinking with explicit "Focus Questions" that get at What, When, Where, Who, How, and Why.
• Use highly visual tools, which can be freely moved around, and which have distinctive colors and shapes to classify ideas by meaningful distinctions,
• Capture and build a comprehensive group memory.
• Generate decisions and commitments.
• Facilitate communication and follow-up.
  
  VIS-IT Techniques for organizing and arranging ideas include:
  
• Matrix Thinking – An Overview
• Matrix Thinking – Factor Analysis
• Matrix Thinking – Options Evaluation
• Matrix Thinking – Scenario Thinking
• Matrix Thinking – What if and if
• Prioritization – Nominal Group Technique
• Thinking with Hexagons – An Overview
• Thinking with Hexagons – First Meeting
• Thinking with Hexagons – Speed Thinking
• Thinking with Hexagons – Six Steps

The most commonly used VIS-IT‘ Technique for organizing and arranging ideas is Thinking with Hexagons. However, the aim of all VIS-IT techniques is, in one way or another, to organize and arrange ideas in ways that lead to more productive thinking in groups. Thus, consider the other applications to find one that most closely describes the purpose for organizing and arranging the group’s ideas.

VIS-IT Tools for groups to organize and arrange ideas include:

• Large, colorful, Post-it‘ Hexagons to capture, create, arrange, and connect ideas in response to Focus Questions. 
• Post-it‘ FlowShapes‘ to capture, arrange, and reengineer elements of work processes.
• Large Big Idea Pads to create matrices for evaluating ideas, proposals, solution options, or scenarios.

Some Suggested Focus Questions or Instructions useful in sessions to organize and arrange ideas are:

• Given all the ideas arrayed before us, please identify the ideas that "belong together" and arrange them into clusters. Select a word or phrase that to serve as a label for each cluster.
• Given the pre-determined categories we’ve agreed upon, which ideas belong in each category?
• Given the row and column heading of the matrix, what ideas belong in each 

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CREATIVE THINKING

Creative thinking in groups involves generating new ideas by asking the minds of the participants to integrate two or more already existing, but previously unconnected concepts or ideas. For example, the "snowboard" was a new idea that might have been formed from the concepts "skiing" and "snow."

VIS-IT Techniques stimulate and accelerate creative thinking in the following ways:

• Focus thinking with explicit "Focus Questions" that keep the activity on point.
• Use highly visual tools, involving meaningful colors and shapes, to energize, reinforce and organize ideas.
• Capture and build a comprehensive group memory.
• Facilitate communication and follow-up.

To launch a creative thinking activity, begin with one idea, and then position another stimulative idea next to it. Ask the group’s members to consider both simultaneously, and force their minds to synthesize the two into one, using "what if" questions. Capture the responses associated with each stimulative idea. For example, new product designers might begin with their current model of something, and then position a human sensory or intellectual capability next to it, asking: What if our product could see? What if our product could hear? What if our product could taste? What if our product could touch? What if our product could smell? What if our product could count? What if our product could read? What if our product could write? What if our product could talk? In each case, answers might yield new product ideas that would offer high value to current or new customers.

VIS-IT Techniques stimulate creative thinking by physically positioning two written or visual ideas next to each other is such close proximity that the mind tries to create a resolving idea, which synthesizes the two. These techniques include:

• Creative Thinking – Attribute Attachment
• Creative Thinking – Synthesis Thinking
• Creative Thinking – The 8-Fold Generator

Another related VIS-IT Technique for generating new ideas is Matrix Thinking, in which stimulative ideas are arranged in rows and columns, and then the group is asked to create new ideas at the intersections that synthesize the two heading ideas.

VIS-IT Tools for creative thinking include:

• Large, colorful Post-it‘ Hexagons, which capture and represent the base ideas, the stimulative ideas, and the resulting synthesis ideas. The hexagon shape of the adjoining ideas creates a natural, comfortable setting for a new idea.
  
• Big Idea Pads, which are arranged into matrices, where the row and column heading ideas force the mind to create an intersection ideas that resolve the two heading ideas.

Some Suggested Focus Questions for creative thinking include:

• What emerges if the core idea is combined with each of its adjoining stimulative ideas?
  
• Given these two ideas, what new idea emerges that combines the two into one? 

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CRITICAL THINKING

Critical Thinking is convergent or "judgmental" thinking, where the mind discovers a common attribute, expressed as a word or phrase, which is shared by more than one idea or concept in the population of ideas being considered. These emerging attributes describe the "glue" that connects the associated ideas. Put another way, the associated ideas are "judged" to belong to a particular class or category, described by a new idea representing a shared attribute.

VIS-IT Techniques support and direct critical thinking in the following ways:

• Focus thinking with explicit "Focus Questions" that keep the activity on point.
• Use highly visual tools, involving meaningful colors and shapes, to energize, reinforce and organize ideas.
• Capture and build a comprehensive group memory.
• Facilitate communication and follow-up.

VIS-IT Techniques stimulate critical thinking in groups by inviting the participants to consider a population of two or more ideas and, then, to reach a consensus on the words that represent a significant attribute that is shared by more than one of the ideas. A good example of these techniques is the "Clustering" step of the Thinking with Hexagons technique. Critical Thinking activities must begin with a set of ideas that are to be evaluated. The idea generation step of the Thinking with Hexagons techniques, which involves divergent thinking – as in brainstorming – can be used to produce the original population of ideas. The range of VIS-

• Standard "Six-inch" Hexagons, on which the original set of divergent ideas are captured and displayed. 
• Jumbo hexagons, which are almost twice as large as the standard hexagons, for working with large groups where those in the back may otherwise find it difficult to see smaller hexagons. 
• Mini hexagons, which are only 1.375-inches wide, but which are useful for individual or with groups of two or three at a desktop.
• Large Big Idea Pads to create matrices for evaluating ideas, proposals, solution options, or scenarios.  

Some Suggested Focus Questions or Instructions that stimulate Critical Thinking are: 

• Arrange the whole population of ideas into several "clusters" where each cluster shares an important common attribute (or category) that binds them together. Attach a "label", in the form of a word or phrase, to each cluster that describes the conceptual "glue" that hold them together.
• What are the relatively few synthesis ideas that can effectively organize the whole population of ideas into useful and meaningful clusters of associated ideas?
• What ideas can be produced at each intersection of this matrix?

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CAUSAL THINKING

Causal thinking in groups requires the participants to explicitly agree on, and then describe and illustrate, the causal links between ideas that represent a cause variable and ideas that represent its effect variables.

VIS-IT Techniques enable and stimulate causal thinking in the following ways:

• Focus thinking with explicit "Focus Questions" that keep the activity on point.
• Use highly visual tools, involving meaningful colors and shapes, on which to capture the "variables" that are linked to each other
• Capture and build a comprehensive group memory.
• Facilitate communication and follow-up.

An effective and popular application of causal thinking is found in Systems Thinking, where a causal loop diagram explicitly illustrates the structural, causal relationship between system variables. When causal links are used in causal loop diagrams, they are represented by drawing arrows from the causes to their effects, and then by "signing" the arrow to indicate the direction of the causality. An "s" or "+" placed at the head of the causal link arrow indicates that the causality moves in the same direction, i.e., if the cause variable goes up, then the effect variable also goes up. Conversely, an "o" placed at the head of the arrow indicates that the causality moves in the opposite direction, i.e., if the cause variable goes up, then the effect variable goes down.

Another useful application of causal thinking is known as a causal drivers diagram, or as a relations diagram. Using the Thinking with Hexagons technique to general ideas and cluster labels, or other means, the group selects a number of factors to be considered as either causes or effects within a system of interest. A facilitator asks the group to examine the relationship of each possible pair of factors being displayed, and then answer these questions: (a) Does a causal relationship exist between these two factors? (b) If yes, then, which is the cause and which is the effect. Then, the facilitator draws a causal link arrow from the cause to the effect (the link is not signed as described above). This questioning continues until all pairs have been considered and arrows drawn. Finally, the group counts the number of arrows going into and out from each factor. The factors that have more arrows going out are known as drivers because they have a greater causal impact than the others. The factors with more arrows coming in that going out are known as drivens or indicators.

VIS-IT Techniques to stimulate and support causal thinking require that key variables relative to the issue at hand are written on hexagons or Big Idea sheets, and then causal link arrows are drawn to connect effects to their causes. Among these techniques are:

• Causal Thinking – Drivers Diagram
• Causal Thinking – Loop Diagram

The primary VIS-IT Tools for causal thinking are the

• Large, six-inch Post-it‘ Hexagons used to capture and represent the key variables that are causally connected to each other, and the
• Even Larger Jumbo Hexagons, for use with very large groups.
• Large Big Idea Pad sheets on which to capture and represent the key variables that are causally connected to each other. 

Some Suggested Focus Questions or Instructions for causal thinking include:

• What are the key variables in the system that is producing the behaviors we are observing?
• Create a causal loop diagram to illustrate the explicit causal links between the key variables and, thereby, also illustrate the structure of the system involved.
• What feedback loops exist in the system?

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LARGE GROUP COLLABORATION

To "collaborate" is to "work together in a joint intellectual effort." In other words, collaboration is about generating and sharing ideas. Therefore, almost all VIS-IT‘ Tools and Techniques are about stimulating and processing ideas that emerge through collaboration. How can these tools and techniques be used with very large groups?

Imagine a large group of from 200 to 1000 people gathered together in a very large room, and seated at round tables of from 8 to 12 persons per table. Now imagine the challenge for the meeting leader is to get everyone to collaborate on a topic of common interest.

In the example above, each table of participants becomes a team or small group capable of idea processing on its own. Large Group Collaboration exercises involve giving every team the same Focus Question, using a team leader or facilitator to capture their responses, and then finding a way to effectively share the ideas with the other teams or tables.

The Thinking with Hexagons technique provides a proven way of stimulating, capturing, and arranging ideas, in a round-robin brainstorming method, from a team. The tools for recording the idea can be either standard or Jumbo hexagons, or Big Idea Pads.

Below is a step-by-step way of stimulating large group collaboration.

Step 1: In advance of the collaboration session, do the following preparation:

• Train each table’ facilitator in the basic Thinking with Hexagons technique.
• Equip each table with either a flip chart pad on an easel, or with several flip chart sheets (or equivalent) taped to a wall near the table.
• Preprint the Focus Questions (on Great Big Idea pad sheets) for each collaborative exercise, and have them available at each table.
• Equip the facilitator at each table with at least one pad of standard or Jumbo hexagons on which to capture ideas from the participants.
• Equip each participant with a writing pad on which to list their ideas.

Step 2: As the collaboration exercise begins, the meeting leader will inform the whole group of the following:

• The purpose of the exercise is to collaborate on a specific topic of interest to all.
• Each table will become a team responsible for generating and sharing ideas among themselves, and then for sharing their Top Three ideas with the rest of the whole group.
• A facilitator, who will guide the collaboration, will support each table.
• The exercise will employ the Thinking with Hexagons technique, which is fun, easy to facilitate, and insures that everyone can contribute equally.
• The Focus Question for all to consider is: [for example] "As a society, what must we do during the next year to reach our growth objectives?"
• The answers to the question are important because….

Step 3: At each table, the facilitator will ask each person to take about 3-5 minutes to list, on the writing paper, their answers to the Focus Question, and to do so without talking to anyone else.

Step 4: The facilitator will begin, in a round-robin fashion, to capture each new idea on a hexagon, sequentially number the hexagons, and post them on a flip chart sheet. This step will continue until all non-duplicate ideas have been recorded. Invite each respondent to explain, in 30 seconds or less, why his or her idea is important.

Step 5: After all ideas have been offered and posted, invite the group to move the hexagons into clusters of ideas that belong together, and then to label each cluster with a word or phrase that describes the "glue" holding the ideas together.

Step 6: The facilitator will invite each table member to review all the clusters, and then to select what each considers the Top Three ideas that should be shared with the whole group. Each person is asked to write downs the numbers of the top three ideas

Step 7: The facilitator will create a matrix on a flip chart sheet on which he or she will record an idea number offered by anyone at the table, and then ask; "How many others have included this idea in their top three?" and then record the total times the idea appears in the group’s top three. This process will continue until every person’s top three have been offered, and the totals determined for each idea offered. The ideas with the highest three scores will become the tables Top Three Ideas.

Step 8: After the above steps, the Top Three Ideas from each table can be brought to the meeting leader for sharing with the entire group, if time allows. Otherwise, the ideas can be documented, with duplicates excluded, and shared later by writing among the group. The important thing is that the results of the collaboration are shared with all participants.

VIS-IT Techniques that support large group collaboration include:

• Matrix Thinking – An Overview
• Matrix Thinking – Factor Analysis 
• Matrix Thinking – Options Evaluation
• Matrix Thinking – Scenario Thinking
• Matrix Thinking – What if and if
• Prioritization – Nominal Group Technique
• Prioritization – Paired Comparison Leapfrog
• Thinking with Hexagons – An Overview
• Thinking with Hexagons – First Meeting
• Thinking with Hexagons – Six Steps

VIS-IT Tools for large group collaboration include:

• Large, colorful, Post-it‘ Hexagons to capture, create, arrange, and connect ideas in response to Focus Questions.
• Large Big Idea Pads to create matrices for evaluating ideas, proposals, solution options, or scenarios.

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VISUAL PRESENTATIONS

VIS-IT Techniques support effective visual presentations in the following ways:

• Use highly visual tools, involving meaningful colors and shapes, to organize and present ideas.
• Build and reinforce a comprehensive group memory.
  Generate interest, and
• Stimulate interactivity.

Visual presentations, as used here, means the low-tech processing and display of ideas, which do not require laptops or overhead projectors.

In its simplest form, the VIS-IT Visual Presentation technique involves these steps:

1. Pre-printing ideas that are to be presented to others on VIS-IT Tools like hexagons or Big Idea Pad sticky note sheets,
2. Selecting and organizing the ideas on the sticky sheets in the sequence they are to be presented – putting the first on top of the stack.
3. Positioning each sheet (idea) on a presentation space (a whiteboard, easel pad, door, window, etc.) in a predetermined sequence and arrangement as the idea is explained or elaborated upon – not all in advance. This is similar to sequencing and presenting Powerpoint‘ slides one at a time.

All VIS-IT™ Tools, except perhaps for the Mini hexagons, can be effectively used for visual presentations.

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