Process question

[Don Ferretti]

Hello.

This is not necessarily a question for an Open Space meeting. It's just a
question to find out what other people are doing in facilitating the process of
prioritizing lists. I learned a quick and fun way to get a groups sense of their
priorities by asking them to put the issues (goals, problems, etc) in the form
of a metaphor such as a house for example. Like, what issue would be the
foundation? The walls? and so on. The metaphor helps in the prioritization in
that the issues that formed the foundation are usually important to tackle
first, etc.   Some fall backs to this could be the use of dots, /or developing
criterion and probably 100 other ways. Or, there may be an issue that just pops
up without any process.

But has anyone ever used a metaphor as a pathway to prioritizing. What images
did you use besides a house or building of some kind?

Thanks.

Don Ferretti

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>From  Wed Jan 20 18:46:58 1999
Message-Id: <WED.20.JAN.1999.184658.0500.>
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 18:46:58 -0500
Reply-To: rhodes at smsys.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Rhodes Hileman <rhodes at smsys.com>
Organization: Small Systems Co
Subject: Re: Process question
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Don Ferretti wrote:
>
> But has anyone ever used a metaphor as a pathway to prioritizing. What images
> did you use besides a house or building of some kind?

I have not used such a metaphor, but I have used a white board
as an x-y matrix (with post-its) to show the priority of tasks on
two scales: importance and immediacy. They are often distinct.

I let people put up tasks where they think they should go, and
I let them move tasks around (even "other people's" tasks) when
they think they are misplaced.  If a task keeps moving back and
forth between two positions, we copy it, note the fact, and place
it in both.

I also have some 6" hexagonal post-its which allow three axes.

--
:o)
Rhodes Hileman
3401 East Pike Street, suite 302
Madrona Park, Seattle, Washington 98122-3305 USA
mailto:rhodes at smsys.com    http://www.smsys.com/
land: 206-328-8364            cell: 206-595-9174