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This past year, I facilitated a number of workshops on the Goals + Success Spectrum<\/a>, the tool I use to help groups get clear, specific, and aligned around objectives and metrics. It\u2019s essentially a guided brainstorming activity (using sticky notes or Google Docs) where you categorize your goals across a spectrum \u2014 from Minimum to Target to Epic.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been focusing on doing trainings for this tool rather than my others<\/a>, because it\u2019s a low-overhead, high-leverage way to get groups aligned and practicing<\/a>, which are critical steps toward achieving high performance. It\u2019s useful for individuals and for groups, and people generally recognize its utility immediately, even without the benefit of a workshop.<\/p>\n In my workshops, I focus on helping participants experience the mechanics of the tool. They practice<\/a> using it as individuals, then spend time reviewing each other\u2019s spectrums in pairs and giving each other feedback. I offer no other guidance about using it with groups other than to follow the exact same instructions.<\/p>\n In practice, of course, using the tool with groups is harder than with an individual. Multiple people mean more ideas, and you have to figure out how to consolidate them. That requires critical thinking, communication, conflict, and convergence \u2014 all things that make collaboration hard in the first place.<\/p>\n My stated reasons for not offering additional guidance for groups are:<\/p>\n While these are true, I also just find it hard to offer simple advice about how to facilitate this with groups. Any tactical advice I might have is deeply intertwingled<\/a> with my philosophy about collaboration, groups, and the design of my tools in general. I can\u2019t talk about one without the other.<\/p>\n All that said, many participants in my workshops have asked thoughtful questions about how to use the Goals + Success Spectrum with groups, so I\u2019m going to attempt to articulate the relevant aspects of my philosophy and answer their questions here.<\/p>\n I believe that:<\/p>\n At their core, all of my tools \u2014 including the Goals + Success Spectrum \u2014 are designed to do three things:<\/p>\n 1. Remind you to think about critical, foundational questions.<\/strong> These questions are easy to take for granted, but in our day-to-day grind, we often forget to think about them. In the case of the Goals + Success Spectrum, the questions are:<\/p>\n 2. Encourage you to write down your answers so that you and others can see them.<\/strong> Forcing you to make the implicit explicit and specific helps you get clear individually and is a critical step helping groups align.<\/p>\n 3. Make it easy to practice over and over again<\/a>.<\/strong> My tools were designed to help you practice and develop strong muscles and habits around group process. The tools themselves aren\u2019t as important as your group continuing to develop and use the right muscles.<\/p>\n My basic approach to using all of my tools with groups is to just use them. Get people in a room, run through the instructions, and see what happens. Groups often are more capable than they themselves believe. This is the best way to demonstrate that.<\/p>\n At best, the tool will encourage everyone to stretch their thinking, de-personalize the ideas, and help people feel heard, which will lead to safer, more constructive conversations. This, along with incorporating a greater diversity of perspectives, will improve the overall quality of and lead to greater collective ownership over the final outcome.<\/p>\n At worst, everybody will get to see what each other thinks, and you\u2019ll learn something from doing the exercise. Make some adjustments based on what you learn, and try it again. And again. People will learn how to set better targets and how to navigate difficult conversations with each other. It\u2019s like learning to speak a language or play an instrument. Failure is both inevitable and okay, as long as you continue to try and learn.<\/p>\n Given all this, here are some of the questions people in my workshop asked about how to use the Goals + Success Spectrum, along with my thoughts.<\/p>\n Everyone. Talking through goals and success should always be a group exercise, not an individual one. Deciding<\/em> on goals and metrics doesn\u2019t have to be a consensus activity (and you should be clear about how decisions will be made up front), but coming up with good ones benefits from everyone\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n That said, with larger groups, it may not be practical to bring everyone into the room for the whole process. In these cases, you should aim to have a representative cross-section of the group participate (which means it should not just be the leadership team), with entry points for everyone else to review and give feedback.<\/p>\n There are two constraints: space and time. Larger (simultaneous) groups require more physical space, both to be in a room together and to capture their thinking. It doesn\u2019t necessarily require significantly more time to capture and read everyone\u2019s ideas, because that\u2019s happening in parallel, but it definitely takes more time to work through hard questions and conflict and ultimately converge and align.<\/p>\n I generally find that groups do not allocate enough time for to thinking through goals and success (the \u201cwhat\u201d and the \u201cwhy\u201d), instead preferring to rush to the \u201chow.\u201d Alignment is hard, but the payoff is enormous. It doesn\u2019t help if everyone in a boat quickly starts to row if they\u2019re not all rowing in the same direction. Agreeing on where to go might take time, but it will make the subsequent rowing a lot easier.<\/p>\n Why does alignment take so long? Because people\u2019s perspectives are often rooted in deeply held beliefs, and understanding and reconciling those beliefs can take time. Again, groups don\u2019t have to decide on goals and success by consensus. However, alignment is much more likely if people understand the underlying reasons behind a decision and if they feel others understand the reasons for their objections.<\/p>\n You can accelerate alignment through the tool in two ways. First, explore different scenarios before getting into arguments. Second, continuously synthesize and edit the spectrum so that areas of alignment and misalignment are sharpened. I often joke that using these tools with groups is ultimately an exercise in sticky note management, but it\u2019s true. The more you can help keep it clean, the more the group will be able to focus on the important challenges.<\/p>\n While the tools are designed to support a healthy group conversation, they are not a panacea. Any time you\u2019re having a group discussion, group dynamics come into play. By giving everyone an opportunity to fill out and share their ideas on stickies, the tool encourages inclusion. However, once people start talking about the ideas, the tool can\u2019t prevent the voices of a few from drowning out everyone else\u2019s, for example. If this is a frequent problem, you may want to consider appointing a facilitator from either inside or outside of your group.<\/p>\n One of the reasons I love doing the Goals + Success workshop is that it\u2019s a great way to build community, because looking at a filled-out spectrum is a great way to get to know another person or group quickly and more deeply. Knowing that your group works on housing issues tells me a little bit. Knowing that your group is trying to create housing for 10,000 people in one year tells me a lot more.<\/p>\n Similarly, the Goals + Success Spectrum can be a powerful way to help de-silo an organization or network. I would have each sub-group do their own spectrums first, then bring all the groups together to gut check each other\u2019s spectrums. Celebrate where the different spectrums complement each other, discuss where they conflict and why, and make adjustments in the respective spectrums.<\/p>\n Most importantly, put the completed spectrums somewhere so that everyone can easily find and see each other\u2019s.<\/p>\n I start every debrief by asking everyone to review each column of the Goals + Success Spectrum and to mark the ones we achieved and the ones we missed. (I use this debrief template<\/a> to guide the process.) If there are differences in opinion as to whether or not we hit a mark, that\u2019s both an opportunity to make meaning of what happened and to come up with a more specific and objective metric for next time.<\/p>\n If the group has missed marks in the Minimum column, then the project is technically a failure. This is an opportunity to discuss whether or not you had the right minimum targets and to make adjustments for next time.<\/p>\n Aligning around success is a craft. If you do it repeatedly, you will get better at it over time. Use your spectrums to help you with your assessments, but also recognize that the assessments will help you create better spectrums next time.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This past year, I facilitated a number of workshops on the Goals + Success Spectrum, the tool I use to help groups get clear, specific, and aligned around objectives and metrics. It\u2019s essentially a guided brainstorming activity (using sticky notes or Google Docs) where you categorize your goals across a spectrum \u2014 from Minimum to… [Read more …]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[263,24,185,41,262,114,264,88,63],"coauthors":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/goals_success_spectrum-workshop-2017-09-16.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bvrk-I9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2737"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fasterthan20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
My Beliefs About Groups<\/h2>\n
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Facilitation Tactics for the Goals + Success Spectrum<\/h2>\n
Who in your group should use the Goals + Success spectrum?<\/h3>\n
How does having groups use the Goals + Success Spectrum work in practice?<\/h3>\n
How would you use the Goals + Success Spectrum across multiple groups within a larger organization or group (e.g. cross-functionally)?<\/h3>\n
How do you use the Goals + Success Spectrum to assess success or failure afterward?<\/h3>\n