LEAD 303 Week 7 Discussion

LEAD 303 Teamwork in Organizations

Week 7 Team Decision Making, Divergent Thinking &

Generating Alternatives

Optimal Decision Making

▪ Think of the last decision you made with a team,

either at work or in a school setting.

▪ Think about what went well?

▪ Where did it go off the rails?

.

Decision Criteria

•Shapiro-Page 74 Japanese/Ringi Criteria -Best information -The Right People

-Balance data/intuition -The Right Question

-Multiple options -The Right Criteria

-Weigh pros and cons -The Right Weights

-Input from all impacted -The Right Options

-Support team goal’s -The Right Evaluation

-Improve future problem

Solving

Polzer-Introduction to Divergent & Convergent Thinking

Problem Solving Exercise

Zoom Fatigue—people are tired of sitting in front of their screens all

day in Zoom meetings and miss the casual, “water cooler talk” you

enjoyed when you worked in an office or other location.

Home Schooling-You have kids at home who need to be schooled,

you work, and you go to school. You are having trouble coping.

Coursework-You work and are going to school. As the semester

progresses, you are having challenges managing your time.

Pick your own

Intuition–N “Killer Phrases”

▪ What phrases have you heard that can kill

possibly good ideas? Examples?

▪ Consider the Impact

▪ How best to handle when generating

alternatives .

Tools to Generate Alternatives

Identifying Alternatives

Divergent Thinking/”Thinking Outside the Box”

Identifying Alternatives

IDEO Design Thinking

Identifying Alternatives—Tools to Boost your N, Divergent Thinking

▪ Brainstorming—open up thinking, generate out of the box solutions

▪ Metaphor and Analogies ▪ Affinity Technique—tactile way to identify creative

solutions, using post-it- notes ▪ Nominal Technique—to ensure everyone has input ▪ DeBono’s Six Hats– to look at generated solutions and

systematically align team thinking toward best solution.

Brainstorming Guidelines

▪ Go for quantity-Goal-Generate ideas

▪ Don’t judge or evaluate– every idea is a good

one while brainstorming

▪ Limit time

▪ Piggy back off each other’s ideas

▪ Capture ideas as they occur

▪ Use humor—the more laughter, the more

creative the process .

Brainstorming Possible Solutions

▪ Challenge-Brainstorm to solve your problem…

Metaphors and Analogies

▪ By learning about one world, you can make

connections to another:

Example: Business uses sports metaphors

-Baseball-He hit a home run

-Football-We need to score a touchdown

-Can you think of others?

▪ Analogies– how is one thing like another

-Green is to go as red is to stop

How is this jigsaw similar to the composition and operation of a high performing team?

Jigsaw Puzzle Connections to High Performing Team?

▪ There are boundaries (straight edges)

▪ Each piece plays a specific role in the solution

▪ Pieces are highly interconnected

▪ Each piece is unique

▪ Solution is fragile—easily broken

▪ Whole more than sum of parts, once put

together– see whole picture (vision)

▪ Some Pieces are central some peripheral

Metaphors & Analogies

▪ State the problem

▪ Pick another world

◦ Social, Political, communications, education, economics

games, history, music philosophy

◦ Physical, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, geometry,

meteorology, chemistry, dynamics, liquids, heat, electricity,

sound, airport, iphone, ipad

◦ Life-Biology, bacteria, botany, medicine, psychology

anthropology, mammals insects, fish, birds, archeology

◦ List what you know about the world

◦ How does the connection solve the real problem

Application

▪Problems (Zoom, Parenting, School or Other)

◦Apply these tools to your earlier problem

◦Pick a world

◦What do you know about the world

◦How does this connect to the problem

◦What insights does this provide to help solve the

problems

DeBono’s Thinking Hats?

▪Ensures that the whole

team follows the same

thought process at the

same time

▪Apply: Use the Six Hats to

evaluate your alternatives

from the previous exercise

Affinity Technique ▪ Step 1: Generating ideas

◦ State the problem or issue-Online classes are not as popular as in-person

classes

◦ Silently generate one idea per post-it-note

◦ Post ideas on the wall

◦ All stand up– cluster notes in categories with similar ideas—don’t discard any

ideas

◦ All sit down, one person reads out loud to ensure all understand all ideas,

clarify

▪ Step 2: Evaluating Ideas

◦ Everyone has a chance to weigh in and evaluate ideas, option to “pass”

▪ Step 3: Multi-Voting

◦ Everyone gets a minimum of two votes or 20% of number of items

Nominal Technique

▪State the problem or question: With your problem

how can you ensure high performance?

▪Everyone writes down their thoughts, silently

▪Each person reads their idea as it is written down

▪Discuss each idea in turn, without evaluation or

judgment

▪Use silent voting to make decision

Nominal Technique