Tag: thinking

Name Your Perspective

Discussion, Leadership, Learning, ThinkingPublished on1 Comment on Name Your Perspective

If you have spent any time with me in small group development sessions you will likely have heard me talking deliberately about perspective. I am always keen to make explicit what can often be an implied understanding or concept. Trying to name up front and from the outset assumptions we might be making is a handy habit to get into. The same is true about the perspective we might be taking towards a discussion or dialogue.

I think one of the challenges we face is in our ability to zoom in and out in terms of our thinking and when in collaboration or discussion with others.

When I say “zoom in” I mean taking heed of the “Micro” perspective, the daily grind the specific, concrete things that might be happening in the classroom. Paying attention to the “Individual” would also be common with a “Micro” perspective. With this lens we are paying less attention to the larger more abstract goals at play and focusing on the concrete decisions and actions in the classroom. When we zoom in we might be asking “How” or “What” questions.

“Zoom out” to a wide angle lens and we bring into view the “Organisation” level goals and aspirations. They might be much less concrete to allow many people to get on-board, so our perspective is more abstract. We are thinking less about ourselves and the concrete stuff that might get in the way of whole school progress. When we zoom out we ask “Why” questions to get to the drivers of our actions and decisions. We have to be more comfortable dealing in a more abstract currency.

I typically signal the perspective I am taking to help set the expectations about a particular part of a discussion. I think it helps me make explicit my choice of perspective and also allows a group to quickly appreciate the expectations that come with that perspective. Micro = details, Macro = drivers.

“Let’s zoom out for a second and consider the reason why this programme needs to change in this way.”

“If we think about a wider lens for a moment we can see that this decision fits with what we are choosing to do across the school.”

“OK now let’s zoom back into what this means in terms of the day to day. How could we explore this everyday?”

“What about the learners experience of this? Let’s jump back into the classroom for a second and consider how this concept would be evidenced in the classroom.”

In most discussions we might move fluidly between the concrete and the abstract. So perhaps start with why but keep returning to it. By doing so we continue to rationalise our actions or ideas and ensure they are connected to a bigger picture.

Perhaps the challenge is not just zooming out to think in an abstract way or zooming in to consider the concrete actions, but more precisely how effectively, fluidly and quickly we can move between those perspectives. Another layer to this is of course how synchronised our perspective is with others we are with.

By explicitly naming a perspective in dialogue we are forming good mental cues to ourselves and external cues for others to gain a better understanding. I think we can all benefit from solid thinking habits that tether our concrete ideas to the drivers and the broader rationale.

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Challenge the borders of your thinking

Creativity, LearningPublished onUpdated on1 Comment on Challenge the borders of your thinking

I know that a network map of the brain is a thing. I wonder if there is a way you could map your conceptual understanding beyond a simple mind map.

Stick with me as I explore this idea of a “map of our thinking” out loud, it has been something I have long pondered and used in discussions with others. I would primarily refer to it when talking about how provocation changes our thinking.

  • Say we could create a spatial representation of what we know about a topic.
  • It might take up a certain area and have borders.
  • It might be something we can draw.
  • Perhaps there are neighbouring relevant topics.
  • Let’s say the size is relative to our understanding, the bigger the area the more we understand about that topic.
  • We might also be able to quantify the amount of knowledge there is for any given topic, leading to a point of reference of what potential understanding there still is to discover.
  • This map is not necessarily about the connections like a mind map, but more about the aggregate “space” the discovered or known concepts take up.
  • There would be an edge. A thinking border.
  • There would be unknown territory still to be discovered.

So what happens when the borders change.

I have always wondered about the power of using provocation to challenge our thinking. To challenge the borders of what we know. I imagine a provocation being something like a newly discovered perspective on an issue or a series of facts previously not seen. All manner of things can serve as a provocation. They would break that thinking border and create a new space on the map, forcing us to draw a new edge of our thinking. That newly identified space and albeit uncharted thinking would then need some exploring, some thinking and processing. But it would soon be subsumed within the wider map of what we know about that topic.

De Bono refers to how provocations can create movement in our thinking if they are used to challenge a set of ideas. Perhaps the borders of our conceptual understanding become equally fluid when we are faced with different provocations. Perhaps those borders shift and expand, contract and become redrawn as we continue to learn.

3 Activities to Help Your Team: Generate, Develop and Judge Ideas

Design ThinkingPublished onUpdated on33 Comments on 3 Activities to Help Your Team: Generate, Develop and Judge Ideas

There are hundreds of different activities you can use for generating and developing ideas. I thought I would share a trio that works well together. They each require a specific type of thinking or mindset to be successful. The three activities are good representative examples of Divergent, Emergent and Convergent thinking.[1]

I have picked these three because they flow well together, and although they work well on their own, they complement each other well.

1. Crazy 8s

Time: 5mins / Skills: Idea generation / Mindset: Divergent or Open thinking / Resources: 8 Post-it notes per person, felt tip pens / Group: Ideal for small-medium sized groups, you will need a timekeeper. Independent work.

Generate eight different ideas in 5 minutes.[2]

Sounds easy enough, but this is a challenging little task. For each round, participants have 40 seconds to draw an idea on a post-it note. When the first round is done, the timer is immediately reset, and the second round begins for eight rounds in total, 5 minutes.

The most challenging part for most participants is that you can only draw the idea – stick to the no words rule. It means they have to generate an idea and then communicate that. It is worth spending some time being clear about the mindset of divergence and openness. All too often, we are our own worst filters, and people find this hard to shake.

2. Idea Pairs

Time: 15–20mins / Skills: Idea development / Mindset: Emergent or Exploratory thinking / Resources: Post-it notes, felt tip pens / Group: Ideal for small-medium sized groups that are comfortable working in pairs.

Combine ideas and discuss in a pair how they could work together.

I like the simplicity of this next step, and it flows seamlessly from the intensity of Crazy 8s[3]. Once you have finished the first step task (Crazy 8s), each participant will have many ideas; hopefully, they will have eight post-it notes in front of them, so long as they didn’t bail halfway through.

Ask the group to get themselves into pairs to discuss some idea combinations. Each person in the team picks one of their ideas at random and combines it with the arbitrary choice of their partner. Placing the two post-it notes side by side. Through discussion, the combination is explored, and new ideas are noted; this should increase the pool of ideas around the table.

I find this simple step is a great way to collide ideas that might have remained in isolation. It also helps participants talk through their thoughts, developing them further. An Exploratory or Emergent mindset is needed here, which emphasises the need for developing, pushing and prodding ideas in new directions.

3. Impact Vs Effort Matrix

Time: 20–30mins / Skills: Idea filtering / Mindset: Convergent or Closed thinking / Resources: Post-it notes, felt tip pens, whiteboard or large flip chart paper (tabletop also works fine) / Group: Small to medium group size for discussion.

Judge each idea created against a High/Low measure for Effort to implement and the impact it could have.

I always enjoy using this little matrix[4] to judge a smaller handful of ideas. You might have anything from 30–50 ideas from the group, depending on the group size. You might ask the whole team to pick 2–4 of their ideas to bring into this round; perhaps the pairs from the previous activity will discuss what to keep and what to cut. Once you have done that first filter, you can decide what High/Low for Effort and Impact is.

Draw up a four-quadrant matrix on a whiteboard or use some masking tape to do the same on those furry display boards! Label the axes accordingly:

  • HIGH EFFORT
  • LOW EFFORT
  • HIGH IMPACT
  • LOW IMPACT

Now, all you have to do as a team is discuss each idea and place it, measuring/judging the effort needed and its potential impact. This process is always a great way to converge into a small pocket of ideas that fit your requirements. You should pin up the post notes and shuffle them around as you chat about their potential.

From doing this many times, I would say that it is useful, as more ideas are added to the matrix, to compare ideas directly: “Will this be harder to implement than this one?” etc. Another tip would be to consider the trajectory of the ideas over time. Efforts to implement and impact may reduce or increase – mark up the future course and discuss what this means.

This is an effective task to help the group understand what is practical under the constraints you have as a team. It pushes you to make comparisons between ideas and prioritise and rank them in interesting ways. When you are in this state, you narrow your options and are thinking in a more Convergent manner.

Well, I hope those three little tasks prove helpful to you and your teams/students in the future. They flow well together and require barely any unique resources. They also fit within an hour if someone is cracking the whip and facilitating well – typical of the ideation phase. The critical thing for each step is to explicitly flag the mindset or thinking state needed to be successful. They are great examples of the three different thinking states: Divergent, Emergent and Convergent.

Give them a try, and let me know how you get on. Remember that these three tools are three of many, and you should do everything you can to expand the choices you have in your toolset. When you have more options, you can make better combinations of activities such as this trifecta.

  1. It is through these different thinking states that we typically experience a creative process. They often fall in the order written above but just as frequently break that rhythm. You can read a little more about the ebb and flow between divergent and convergent thinking in my previous blog post.  ↩
  2. I first came across the Crazy 8s ideation strategy from Google Ventures and a Jake Knapp blog post which is worth a read – lots of other ideas there too.  ↩
  3. I’d recommend building in some time to debrief after Crazy 8s. It is quite an intense task requiring focus and individual effort. Spend some time asking how people felt and how they found the task – giving the participants some time to chat will help the overall flow.  ↩
  4. The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.  ↩

The ebb and flow between divergent and convergent thinking

Design Thinking, Featured, ThinkingPublished onUpdated on63 Comments on The ebb and flow between divergent and convergent thinking

I thought I would take the opportunity to return to an article I wrote a few days ago. My blog post outlined a few of the key issues for developing creative teams. The article that inspired it from HBR[1] gave a broad definition of innovation and creativity which resonated strongly with my own experience in schools.

According to the author, Roger Schwarz[2], researchers commonly make a distinction between the definition of creativity and innovation.

Innovation involves two stages—the generation of new ideas and the implementation of the ideas. Creativity is considered to be the first stage of innovation.

I would call implementing ideas Prototyping and this typically comes after a range of ideas have been sorted, filtered and judged in different ways during Ideation. I always see a change in the energy levels during Ideation as people begin to flex their creative muscles more intensely.

Later in the article Schwarz outlines a conflict in factors that affect innovation, explaining that a different type of thinking is needed.

Creativity and the second stage of innovation require different individual skills and team structures and processes. The idea generation stage is often referred to as divergent thinking or exploration. The implementation stage is often referred to as convergent thinking or exploitation. Unless you plan to have your team hand off its creative ideas, you will need to create a team that can operate in both modes, switching among them as appropriate.

This whole area is invariably complex and more research is needed. However even from my own experience the requirements on an individual are much more intricate. I agree that we need to be in a divergent thinking state when we generate ideas, but this changes when we have to decide on which ideas are worth investing further in. It changes to a convergent thinking state. In order to identify our choices we have to narrow our field, we have to purge the ideas that don’t make the cut. For us to successfully judge a set of ideas we have to be able to converge and begin to make choices. Thinking big (divergently) and generating ideas at this stage would certainly be counterintuitive.

The ebb and flow between divergent and convergent thinking at the ideation stage is quite important and much more frequent than is suggested in the article. Idea generation is but one part of Ideation. Of course we may identify Emergent thinking as well at this stage which is exploratory and helps when we want to develop our ideas further. I see Ideation being made up of the sequence below:

  1. Generate Ideas (Divergent or Open Thinking)
  2. Explore and develop ideas (Emergent or Exploratory Thinking)
  3. Judge and shortlist (Convergent or Closed Thinking)

It is extremely useful to have a language for the thinking state or mindset needed. I would highly recommend sharing the definitions and helping others understand them. Talking explicitly about the thinking that is needed to be most successful helps signpost people to such expectations, and has helped countless teams of adults and students I have worked with. Don’t let this be a wishy washy stage, identify a process, like the sequence above and stick to it. Trust in the process.[3]

Once ideas have been explored and narrowed down then a team would move on to implementation. Taking a concept into a working or minimal viable prototype phase. Again the type of thinking here is not simply convergent as Schwarz outlines, in my opinion it is equally fluid and perhaps also made up of the combination of divergent, emergent and convergent thinking states.

  1. Harvard Business Review  ↩
  2. Roger Schwarz is an organisational psychologist, find him on Twitter @LeadSmarter  ↩
  3. And the force.  ↩

Toolset, Skillset, Mindset

Design Thinking, FeaturedPublished onUpdated on8 Comments on Toolset, Skillset, Mindset

Over the last few years I have developed three different lenses through which to see any creative inquiry process. When we are facilitating or planning with clients, schools and teachers we explicitly talk about our Toolset, Skillset and our Mindset.

The design thinking process has distinct phases and although we may well be seeking to developing an overarching capacity it has always been helpful to be a little more specific about what this actually means. Sometimes it can seem a little fluffy around the edges. When we link Toolset, Skillset and Mindset to a particular phase of design thinking inquiry it becomes much clearer what is expected. This intentionality is wired into each of the different lenses helping to clarify to those involved what tools are involved, what skills are likely to be required and what mindset is needed.

Below is a good set of definitions which helped me better understand their relevance to my work with design thinking and creative inquiry:

Toolset (How you Get, Have, Use) – Means a set of widely accepted methods, techniques, models, approaches and frameworks that can create value in the chosen field.

Skillset (How you Do, Act, Behave) – Means a number of things like a person’s capabilities and abilities, knowledge and understanding, and motivation and ability to use these capabilities and knowledge. The level of expertise in a particular task determines the efficiency and effectiveness to perform that task.

Mindset (How you See, Perceive, View) – Means a set of beliefs, a way of thinking, a habitual mental attitude that determines somebody’s behaviour and outlook and how s/he will interpret and respond to situations. Without a change in mindset, the world cannot be viewed differently.

[In addition to these you may well consider a Knowledge set, something to activate and use or to continue to add to.]

For example during the Synthesis phase you might see the following explicitly shared with participants or students and dialogue to make the expectations clear:

Toolset: Patterns and grouping of physical artefacts, Hexagonal Thinking, P.O.I.N.T (Problems, Obstacles, Insights, Needs and Themes)

Skillset: Pattern recognition, categorisation, organisation, problem finding, prioritisation

Mindset: Convergent, combinatorial, relational

What we have found is that most people want to have a conversation about the Toolset. It is the most enduring memory of a workshop: the physical, tactile experience of the tools we used. All too often creative processes focus too heavily on simply the tools, moving from one thinking activity to another, from one framework or post-it note task to the next. Ideally we escalate the dialogue to the Skills we need to operate those creative thinking tools. The last step is to engage colleagues in a dialogue about what Mindset is needed or expected in order to be most successful.

You might consider having a conversation about these three elements before a lesson or period of learning with students: what are the tools we are going to use, the skills we will develop or need and the mindset we should take. This offers a much clearer way to talk about learning intentions or success criteria.

The Mindset at each stage of the design thinking process is much more constant and more persistent, whereas the Skillset and the Toolset can always change. We should be drawing from a range of tools to suit the part of the inquiry process – but regardless of the tools we use the Mindset remains relatively constant.

It would also be true to say that out of the three different lenses the Mindset is harder to observe, whereas the tactile Toolset is much more explicit. From Change to Constant, from Extrinsic to Intrinsic, from Toolset to Mindset.

Whereas it is easy to switch out and change a tool during a phase of the process, it is much harder to change a Mindset if it does not currently exist. An example we see most often is a convergent mindset – “I know what the problem is and I know what we should do” – when we are immersing ourselves in the area of development. This Immersion phase requires an open and divergent Mindset. You can change the activity to explore the topic but it is much harder to change the disposition.

Stick around for future posts exploring some of the design thinking inquiry Toolset and the activities we all enjoy. In addition we will explore the Skillset and the Mindset needed to make the most of them.