Engineering and Facilitation

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Engineering and Facilitation
Bob Briggs University of Alaska Delft University
of Technology University of Nebraska at Omaha
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http//groupsystems.dist-ed.uaf.eduLogins
UAF01 UAF10Passwords group!
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Which is BobsExciting Secret Identity?

• Bob Briggs
• Rowed alone across the Atlantic
• Sang with Elvis in Concert
• Invented the Internet

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Photographic Evidence
Elvis
Bob
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• Bob
• Rowing alone
• in England
• (Which is, in fact, across the Atlantic)

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Who Is This Bob, Anyway?

• Scholar?
• Adventurer?
• Snappy dresser?

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Bob?

• Ees just zis guy, you know?

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Engineers on FacilitationWho Cares?

• You chose a profession where you must work with
  groups
• Your first promotion will make you a group leader
• Your promotions will come faster with
  facilitation skills
• Collaboration can be engineered

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The Trouble with Teamwork
Waiting to speak
Wrong People
Domination
Groupthink
Fear of Speaking
Poor Grasp of Problem
Misunderstanding
Ignored Alternatives
Inattention
POOR
Lack of Consensus
Lack of Focus
TEAMWORK
Poor Planning
Inadequate Criteria
Hidden Agendas
Premature Decisions
Conflict
Missing Information
Inadequate Resources
Distractions
Poorly Defined Goals
Digressions
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A Solution

• Facilitation Skills
• Methods and tools for moving a group toward its
  goals
• Efficiently
• Effectively

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Engineers View of Facilitators
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Facilitiators View of Engineers
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What Makes A Group Productive?
Cognitive Effort Over Time
Commun- ication
Goal Congruence
Productivity
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Info Access
Deliberation
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What Does A Facilitator Really Do?
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The value of facilitation

• Reduce information overload
• Reduce communication overload
• Structure deliberation
• Minimize distraction
• Align Vested Interests

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The Role of the Facilitator

• To plan for, to monitor for, and to intervene to
  improve issues of
• Communication
• Deliberation
• Information Access
• Goal Congruence
• Distraction

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Most Valuable Facilitator Contribution

• Help the meeting owner define the goal
• What is the deliverable the group will produce?
• To whom will the deliverable be valuable?
• What value does it have?
• What will be done with it?

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Facilitator Tasks

• Establish the goal and deliverables
• Design a process for achieving the group goal
• Conduct the process on behalf of the group
• Keep the focus
• Mediate conflicts
• Distribute Deliverables

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What do groups really do?
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General Patterns of Collaboration

• Generate
• Move from fewer to more ideas
• Converge
• Move from more to fewer ideas
• Organize
• Move from less to more understanidng of
  relationships among ideas
• Evaluate
• Move from less to more understanding of value of
  ideas
• Build Consensus
• Move from fewer to more people willing to commit
  to a proposal

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ThinkLets

• Named, scripted facilitation activities that
  create known patterns of collaboration
• Building blocks for group process designs

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Requirements NegotiationA Challenging Domain
for Engineers
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Technical Perspective on Requirements

• Are requirements complete, consistent and
  correct?
• Do requirements communicate designers intent
  unambiguously?

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The Engineered Swing
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Boehms Law

• There is no complete and well-defined set of
  requirements waiting to be discovered

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What is a System Requirement?

• That which a stakeholder needs, wants, or desires?

• A formally specified agreement with respect to
  the project

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Understand Constraints

• Requirements depend on available resources and
  capabilities.

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Boehms MaximIn Engineering ProjectsWin-lose
Generally Becomes Lose-lose
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Win-Lose Generally Becomes Lose-Lose
Proposed Solution
Loser
Winner
Quick, Cheap, Sloppy Product
Developer Customer
User
Lots of bells and whistles
Developer User
Customer
Driving too hard a bargain
Customer User
Developer
Nobody wins in these situations
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WinWin Perspective

• Success-critical stakeholders negotiate and
  prioritize the requirements

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Who Are The Stakeholders?

• Customers
• Users
• Programmers
• Architects
• Domain Experts

• Analysts
• Marketing
• Sales
• Management
• ?

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• Requirements emerge from a process of
  co-operative learning.

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The Boehm Principle

• You dont know the requirements until the project
  is finished

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The Project Requirements Mess
PROJECT REQUIREMENTS
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An Engineered Requirements Process

• FreeBrainstorm
• What must happen for you to come out of this
  project a winner
• FastFocus
• What are the most important win conditions
• LeafHopper
• Issues
• Options
• HorseTrader
• Agreements

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People submit and share ideas about their win
conditions using electronic discussion sheets
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Team builds a clean list of win conditions and
organizes win conditions into pre-defined buckets
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Red cells indicate lack of consensus. Oral
discussion of cell graph reveals unshared
information, unnoticed assumptions, hidden
issues, constraints, etc.
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Low Hanging Fruits
Maybe later
Forget them
Important with hurdles
After voting,win conditions are displayed in
four categories
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Issues are captured as subheadings to win
conditions
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Elaborate Options
Options are captured as subheadings to issues
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Agreements are captured as subheadings to options
and win conditions
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Facilitation Resources
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Facilitation Resources

• Mining Group Gold
• Thomas Kayser
• Amazon price 2.50 (Used)

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Facilitation Resources
How to Make Meetings Workby Michael Doyle, David
Straus Amazon Price 0.01 (Used)
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Facilitation Resources

• The Skilled Facilitator
• By Roger Schwartz
• Amazon Price 32 (Used)

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Facilitation Resources

• International Association of Facilitators
• www.iaf-world.org