intro to liberating structures - making meetings suck less

Liberating Structures

DRS Immersion Workshop

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Drawing Together

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Circle: CompletenessTriangle: Goal Rectangle: Support or structure Spiral: Change or chaos Star Person: People or relationships

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Use the 5 symbols to !

draw the story of your !

personal Lean journey.

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Circle: CompletenessTriangle: Goal Rectangle: Support or structure Spiral: Change or chaos Star Person: People or relationships

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1. Invite them to interpret your drawing

2. Tell the actual story

3. Switch roles

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Find another person you do not know well

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AGENDA

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Developed by Keith McCandless + Henri Lipmanowicz

Liberating Structures

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Inspired by the science of complex adaptive systems

Liberating Structures

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Made available through Creative Commons License = free to use,

remix, change

Liberating Structures

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Liberating Structures

This is NOT a certification course. There are no colored belts to be earned!

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What Are LS?• Tiny shifts in our interaction patterns • Embarrassingly small • Results focused

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Principles of LS

• Minimum constraints are necessary • Rapid cycles and many iterations over long, slow

methods • Parallel processing adds agility and enhances

effectiveness • Not all ideas are equal • Distribute control while staying in charge • Loose connections are at the root of innovation • Invite unusual suspects!

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Always Present Microstructures

Invitation

Space

TimeParticipation

Groups

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Advanced LS Practice

Like DNA, Liberating Structures can be strung together to achieve a specific purpose

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Additional LS Resources

The Surprising Power of Liberating Structuresby Keith McCandless + Henri Lipmanowicz www.LiberatingStructures.com

Pre-Agile Design by Zac Cohn + Fisher Qua (www.wonful.co/book)

Wonful’s “Innovation at Work” newsletter (www.wonful.co/newsletter)

Liberating Structures User Group

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Minimum Specifications

The fewest rules necessary to achieve a purpose

Defining MUST DO, MUST NOT DO

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Minimum Specifications

What must you do to maintain healthy communication across your

organization/unit/team?

What must you avoid at all costs?

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1-2-4-All

Fundamental pattern common to most LS

Enables parallel processing and best ideasto emerge

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TRIZ

Designing a perfectly adverse system

Identify specific behaviors preventing you from moving forward productively

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TRIZ

What could you do to reliably guarantee that no one in your organization communicated

with anybody else and no one was ever on the same page as one another?

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Appreciative Interviews +

9 Why’s

Get at the root cause or fundamental justification for something

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Appreciative Interviews +

9 Why’s

Share a story of a time when you successfully implemented or navigated

a change that stuck and proved durable, or a time when that didn’t happen.

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25/10

Generate bold new ideas for moving forward

Quickly prioritize contributions

Brainstorm in a structured way

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25/10

Imagine you are 10x bolder, what would you recommend to Gov. Inslee…

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Purpose-to-Practice

Rigorously define the 5 elements of any initiative.

Clarify how you will move forward together.

Include more people in shaping projects.

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Purpose-to-Practice

PURPOSE

PRINCIPLES

PARTICIPANTSSTRUCTURE

PRACTICES

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Purpose-to-Practice

Purpose: The fundamental justificationfor the existence of some thing to the

outside world !

Why is this important to you, DRS and your clients?

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Purpose-to-Practice

Principles: The minimum rules you must obey in pursuit of your purpose.

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What MUST you do? What MUST you NOT do?

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Purpose-to-Practice

Participants: Who must be included? What unusual suspects should you invite?

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What types of people or specific individuals would be necessary

to execute this idea?

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Purpose-to-PracticeStructure: How will you organize yourself and

your resources to achieve your purpose? !

5 microstructures Frequency + Cadence of meetings Roles Visual management tools

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Purpose-to-Practice

Practices: What are you delivering to your end users? What is the deliverable?

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What are you actually building or designing?

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Critical Uncertainties

Develop adaptive strategies for plausible future realities

Define the uncertainties that are critical to your survival

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Mad Tea Party

Rapidly build momentum on a challenge

Make sense of strategy as it is implemented

Retrospectively integrate learning

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Mad Tea Party

My favorite part of today was…

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Mad Tea Party

Today I noticed everyone…

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Mad Tea Party

One practice or structure I planon using in the next week is…

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Mad Tea Party

What surprises me about LS is…

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Mad Tea Party

I like Mad Tea because…

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wonful consulting.Zachary Cohn Fisher Qua

@ZacharyCohn @SFQua

!Want to learn more? www.wonful.co Preorder Our Book:

www.wonful.co/book Join “Innovation At Work”

www.wonful.co/newsletter