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Another approach may be to map the situation as best you can beforehand (if you have the luxury of doing so, i.e., are not under the same "extreme pressure" yourself). Show the group the map, whether on screen or printed out, and suggest that they move forward from that point by contributing to the mapping process rather than just starting again in the old way. I think you'll find that often people will buy right in in order to take advantage of the progress that has already been made.
Obviously this may not always work. Partly, success of this approach will depend on the extent to which the pre-mapping exercise connects with the thinking of the participants. Next month we (Austhink) will be using a version of this pre-mapping approach with a group of Air Force wing commanders considering the ongoing debate over Australian strategic security. In this case, the main countours of the debate have already been established; by starting off with a reasonably well-developed map, the officers will (we hope) be spontaneously drawn into the argument mapping process as a more effective way of grappling with the debate. While they're thinking about the debate, they're also learning how to think more critically by using mapping.
- Tim v.G.
At 11:22 PM 21/10/2003, you wrote:
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 18:46:46 +0100
From: Simon Buckingham Shum <S.Buckingham.Shum@...>
Subject: Re: Extreme pressure
At 15:40 16/10/2003 -0400, Jeff wrote:
Nice summary from Jeff on whether the tool leads the process, or vice-versa.
On his point:
>Lesson: Sometimes it works to capture with dark screen and then, just when
>things are getting really complex and scattered, light up the map.
...a variation of this would be that if it's not acceptable to map with the
projector on (or you don't feel ready to yet), you can still map privately
during or even after meetings from notes (or pen+paper maps). Then in the
reflective, less pressured (?) space *between* meetings you might spot
problems or issues that have gone undetected (e.g. inconsistent decisions
or use of arguments; contradictory interpretations of a problem). You could
then go back to colleagues and say that when mapping the project you
detected these (maybe give a glimpse of Compendium, but maybe not until
they're asking to see how you do it)
Simon
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