Strategy Kinetics, LLC

Renting Textbooks

It's no secret that the college textbook publishing business is in trouble. The declinging economy, student and faculty resistance to high prices of new text books, and the used textbook market are among the factors making life difficult for publishers. Now, according to a NYTimes article, publishers are having their base business attacked by textbook rentals. 

Chegg.com is a venture back startup that is building a growing business renting textbooks to college students.

With demand for good deals on textbooks running high, Chegg’s success comes in large part from being able to address those inefficiencies. While Chegg primarily rents books, it is also essentially acting as a kind of “market maker,” gathering books from sellers at the end of a semester and renting — or sometimes selling — them to other students at the start of a new one. That provides liquidity to the market, said Yannis Bakos, associate professor of management at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Bob Horn Podcast At The VizThink Blog

The VizThink blog has a great podcast with Bob Horn that addresses Wicked Problems and Visual Thinking. Fundamental themes include the integration of thinking and visualization. Maps and murals are displayed that depict various Wicked Problems, including mental health and nuclear waste. Horn also presents Argumentation Maps for Missile Defense.

Dennis McDonald Says About Social Networking Tools

Bob-

Thanks for mentioning my post!

It's important to remember what this map is really my own -- my preferences may be irrelevant to others. On the map I mention for example that my overall use of Facebook has decreased while my use of Linkedin has increased. There are several reasons for this; one is that I don't think Facebook is a very good discussion forum, and another is that I continue to enjoy Linkedin's business focus. Others may have a very different view.

The point is that, when it comes to developing a "personal networking strategy," one size does not fit all. You really do need a personal strategy. In my case, my web site is the central focus of my "online presence," and while I tend to comment frequently on other blogs and web sites, I reserve the most thought and attention to my own site. That's a personal preference.

If anyone is interested in things you should consider when trying to decide how to develop a "personal professional networking strategy," check out the links I've posted here:

www.ddmcd.com/basics.html

Best wishes,

Dennis McDonald
Alexandria, Virginia

Social Networking: Tools, Maps, and Saturation

Numerous individuals and groups are trying to make sense of social networking and there seems to be no clear conclusions as yet. For example, if you are not in sales or marketing (yes, we are all in sales and marketing), what are the benefits of social networking sites such as LinkedIn?  Are Facebook, Twitter, and the like useful business tools? What about social bookmarking tools such as delicious, digg, and technorati?

MassHighTech has published an article indicating that VCs are refusing to fund new web 2.0 startups (a much broader category than social networking sites):

However, there’s no question the pool of online social media users is growing. A Pew Research Center report released earlier this month on “adults and social networking services” pegged the share of adult Internet users who keep a profile on an online social network at 35 percent and growing. In a set of predictions released this week, Forrester Research analysts said 85 percent of U.S. online consumers will be using social web content by the end of the year.

But [General Catalyst Partners managing director Larry Bohn ] said the smart money now isn’t in drawing users, who are flocking to the established social-web giants. Now, good investments against the social web are business-to-business plays that allow companies to tap into new customer bases that the major online players have already aggregated, he said.

Against this backdrop of market saturation and evolving business models, how does one make personal sense of the all-too-many social networking tools out there? As a first step, perhaps, tech consultant Dennis McDonald has create a map of his tool space that is both informative and exemplary. A larger version is here. Some tools are listed as "account deleted," several facebook groups, for example. Dennis has not indicated why he finds some tools more useful than others. Dennis?

Don't Miss: The Story Of Stuff

Story of Stuff is a 20 minute video with Annie Leonard that was sponsored by the Tides Foundation and the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption. (Thanks to KH for pointing me to it.)

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Among other things, the video shows how the supply chain from natural resource extraction to production, distribution, consumption and then to disposal constitutes a nasty Wicked Problem. This is one of the few videos I've seen recently that doesn't talk down to the viewer. Instead, the Story of Stuff is highly informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking.

Site Redesign

In the next few days I'll be making changes to the design of this site; hence the appearance may differ from visit to visit.

Wicked Problem Quotes

My Google Alerts occasionally provide interesting and sometimes useful information regarding what others are thinking regarding Wicked Problems and other selected topics. Wicked Problems as involving enigmas seems to be in the collective consciousness these days.

In a blog posting on invasive species, Ioannis Petrus writes:

We push and pull at solutions and argue over definitions because invasive species are a type of wicked problem. When we try to solve the problem we find ourselves facing what should have been suspect unintended unforeseen consequences. Wicked problems have numerous intervention points, have consequences difficult to envision, and are surrounded by a dynamic uncertainty wrapped in a moving frontier of knowledge.

Perhaps this sentence echo's Winston Churchill's famous (in some quarters) quote about the Soviet Union:

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Regardless,  I couldn't agree more with Petrus'  characterization of  Wicked Problems.

A Map of The Future From CSIS

Using newspaper headlines and articles, the Global Strategy Institute at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has put together a web site with an explorable map called "Mapping the Future." The map links together what I'd call Events in various categories such as Science, Politics, Construction, and Sporting & Culture arrayed over a time line from 2008 to 2012. Clicking on various Events pops up the article or information underlying the headline.

What's interesting is that various "threads" meet at certain points. For example, in 2012 the Science, Forecasts, and Important Dates threads intersect with these headlines:

• Worldwide CO2 emissions reach 20.7 tons per person per year
• Expiration of the Kyoto Protocol
• Oil demand out paces production in non-OPEC countries

It's unclear what CSIS intends. Event sequences and confluences can be both informative and suggestive as may be the case with this map. At the same time, Event sequences don't constitute in and of themselves a scenario, which should, in my view, be a narrative with plot, actors, motives, Events, etc. leading to a particular integrated vision of a possible future outcome, or Endstate. More information on Endates, Events, and the Scenario Mapping(tm) methodology may be found in this presentation.

Information Commerce 1997 - Scenario Mapping Changes Beliefs

As noted, my former colleagues at NCRI created a form of scenario planning called Future Mapping that improved upon scenario processes pioneered in the business world by Royal Dutch Shell. I was the founder of a series of public workshops on the the Future of Information Commerce that were held in the early 1990s. After my departure for Silicon Valley, my former colleagues continued the workshop. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I've been reviewing selected results from a 1997 edition of the workshop. The full original report is here; a presentation (PDF) on the Scenario Mapping(tm) process is here.

Public workshop participants are asked to rank the Endstates in terms of Desirability and Attainability. Each person is assigned to a team which analyzes their assigned Endstate and then delivers a 15-20 minute presentation that explains how the world got to be that way. Following all the team presentations, participants are asked to re-rank the Endstates.

Jim Channon's 12 Breakthroughs Video - Thought Food

I first met Jim Channon several years ago at the Bamboo restaurant in Hawi, on the north side of the Big Island of Hawaii. Among other things, Jim is one of the 3 pillars of graphic meeting facilitation (with Bob Horn and David Sibbet), environmentalist and futurist, proposer of the Earth First Battalion, and a terrific raconteur.

[tip o' the hat to BH] I've been watching Jim's YouTube video, "12 Break-throughs of the Next Decade." In this thought-provoking 10 minute video, Jim suggests some additional / alternative activities that might be undertaken by large companies and institutions for the benefit of humankind. The list of organizations includes armies, banks, chemical and oil companies, navies, churches, governments, space agencies, and colleges. To hear the alternative projects Jim associates with each organization, check out the video.

Information Commerce 1997 - Common Events

To rewind just a bit, my former colleagues at NCRI created a form of scenario planning called Future Mapping that improved upon scenario processes pioneered in the business world by Royal Dutch Shell. After I had departed for Silicon Valley, they continued a series of public workshops on The Future of Information Commerce. The results are available here via Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. An overview of what I call (for trademark reasons) the Scenario Mapping process is provided in this presentation.

Working in teams, workshop participants decide which of 150 plausible Events provided by the facilitators Must or Must Not happen if the team's assigned outcome or Endstate is to be realized. Events that are Common to a majority of scenarios are called Common Events. These are worth added attention because, generally speaking, more industry stakeholders have an interest in these Events. In the 1997 workshop, 12 events appeared in a majority of scenarios. Here they are with my comments.

Another View OF Shell Scenario Planning: Global Climate Change

Earlier I noted Paddy Briggs' critique of Royal Dutch Shell's use of scenario planning. Writing in the Scotsman, George Kereven reports an interview with James Smith, the chief executive of Shell UK  that focused on Shell's thinking regarding what I call the Wicked Problem of Global Climate Destruction. According to Kereven, there are two paths the world could take that Shall calls  "Scramble" and "Blueprints".

Information Commerce 1997 - Conventional Wisdom

As noted, my former colleagues at NCRI ran a public scenario planning workshop on Mapping The Future of Information Commerce in 1997. The results are summarized here. The time horizon for the Endstates was 2002.

Near the outset of a Scenario Mapping (nee Future Mapping) workshop, teams are asked to vote a database of plausible Events either Highly Likely (>=80%+ probable), Highly Unlikely (<=20% probable), or Uncertain. Using the voting results, the facilitators then construct and present a Conventional Wisdom scenario. The Conventional Wisdom scenario reflects the thinking of the "room" at the outset. To paraphrase former Royal Dutch Shell scenario planner Arie P. de Geus (Planning as Learning, HBR, 1988): If you want to change people's thinking, you first have to show them how they think.

Here are the main themes of the Conventional Wisdom scenario from the 1997 workshop as summarized in the published report. I have added my commentary after each bullet.

• High bandwidth will be widely available, affordable, and in demand by large segments of the population fairly soon (2-3 years).

Actually, it took what some might think a long time in the US for substantial broadband penetration and even now, the US lags some of the developed world both in penetration and typical broadband speeds.

Information Commerce 1997 - Key Learnings

As noted, my former colleagues at NCRI ran a public scenario planning workshop on Mapping The Future of Information Commerce in 1997. The results are summarized here. The time horizon for the Endstates was 2002. As summarized in the report, the key learnings that emerged from this scenario planning workshop included the following bullets. I've added commentary below each.

• Major advances in Internet technology and function are virtually inevitable.

Sure. Greater bandwidth enables new applications.

• These improvements are likely to erode the passive entertainment consumption paradigm (and accompanying advertising-based business models) that characterize traditional consumer "TV culture" in the U.S.

Yes and no. Workshop participants didn't anticipate the rise of advertising based business models that have become pervasive on the Web. However, User Generated Content, multiplayer games, and similar applications / activities / contexts are a move away from passive viewing. And TV viewership seems to be declining.

What Does Shell Do With Its Scenarios?

Royal Dutch Shell has long been seen as one of the early business scenario planning pioneers. Scenario Mapping(TM) [nee Future Mapping] form of scenario plannning was created by Dave Mason, Jim Herman, and others at NCRI with awareness of Shell's methods.

Paddy Briggs, who retired from Shell after 37 years, isn't so upbeat on Shell's use of scenarios. Briggs' main point is that Shell uses scenarios for public relations and that their scenarios have little actual impact on corporate decision-making and shareholder value. After discussing several examples of how scenarios made no difference to Shell's decision-making regarding China and Russia, Briggs concludes:

The invitation to [Shell CEO] Jeroen van der Veer to speak to world leaders at Davos will no doubt give him a warm glow that he, and Shell, are legitimate movers in the refined air of the “World Economic Forum”. And there will no doubt be approval of the new scenarios as I am sure that they will be as intellectually solid and stimulating as ever. But if pressed (as he should be) to give one example of how these scenarios are actually to be used in Shell strategic decision-making he will struggle. Because there is no evidence at all that Scenario planning has made a hapeworth of difference to Shell’s actions or performance over the years. Like so much of the public face of Shell the rhetoric is a long way from the reality.

A constant theme in my strategy work and writings is that scenarios only have value if they are well-integrated into decision-making and subsequent action. It appears that Briggs would agree.

Information Commerce: What People Were Thinking About 10 Years Ago?

In 1990-1991, the Association of American Publishers co-sponsored a series of public workshops on Mapping the Future of Publishing that I conducted with my then colleagues at NCRI. Later on, I morphed these public workshops into Mapping the Future of Information Commerce. After I departed NCRI at the end of 1995 my former colleagues ran additional installments of the Information Commerce workshop in 1997. Thanks to the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, the report is available on the net here.

I thought that it might be a very interesting and possibly useful exercise to return to those days of yesteryear and see what knowledgeable industry participants thought about the future of the information industry and with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight compare their thinking to what actually happened and where we are now.

The Future of Information Commerce workshops used a highly interactive scenario planning process that in these pages is called Scenario Mapping. In addition to the discussion in the report itself, an overview of the Scenario Mapping methodology can be found in this presentation.

In brief, a Scenario Mapping workshop  combines "simulated hindsight" with a highly prepared meeting to leverage the collective intelligence of workshop participants. By simulated hindsight I mean that we assume the future is now and ask how the world got to be this way: what were the key milestones, actors, motives, drivers, etc. that led to this world rather than some other.

By highly prepared meeting, I mean that the facilitators in conjunction with workshop sponsors prepare several coherent descriptions of future outcomes or Endstates and a set of hypothetical Events. Each Event has a headline, date, and brief description.

In this series of blogicles, I'll provide snapshots of the Endstates used in the 1997 Information Commerce workshop, summaries of the deliberations, and report on how participants voted on the Endstates and Events. I'll also focus on the "compares and contrasts" with the present.

Sandia Research On Methods To Solve Wicked Problems

Sandia National Laboratories has conducted research to determine whether Web collaborations were more or less effective than individuals working alone in resolving Wicked Problems.

The research, conducted by [George S.] Davidson, Courtney Dornburg, Susan Stevens, Stacey Hendrickson, Travis Bauer and Chris Forsythe, had some surprising results.

“In this day and age of email and the internet, our expectations were that computer-mediated group brainstorming, i.e. across the web with no face-to face contact, was going to have the best results,” Davidson says. “What we found, however, was that people working as individuals were at least as effective and possibly more so than those brainstorming in a group over the web when trying to solve ‘wicked,’ tangled problems, both in terms of quality and quantity.”

As Bob Horn and I have noted, we believe that processes for resolving Wicked Problems that entail at least some face-to-face interactions leverage collective intelligence and lead to better solutions.

Global Climate Change: Doom and Gloom?

David Flint, a UK management consultant, recently tried his hand at devising scenarios for the future of Global Climate Change. A pessimist might see his three scenarios as Dark, Darker, and Positively Darkest. Or not. Nonetheless, Flint's ideas are provocative if nothing else. Snippets:

Scenario 1: Lifeboat

In this scenario the nations do collaborate soon enough to restrain CO2 emissions and the increase is kept below two degrees.... The key assumption for this scenario is that the nations collaborate but this collaboration will not be easy. As with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) there will be disputes and we will need a World Climate Authority (WCA), analogous to the World Trade Organisation, to deal with them.

Scenario 2: Police World

In scenario 2 the nations have begun to collaborate against climate change but not in time. By 2050 the temperature rise has already exceeded two degrees and major positive feedback effects are visible.... It’s clear that the Earth cannot support its current population and that existing human institutions cannot survive the huge population movements that these changes will provoke.

Scenario 3: New Dark Age

In this final scenario attempts to international collaboration have failed to prevent temperature rises and have broken down. As the value of those cold regions in which people will be able to survive becomes clear those nations with such regions will prepare their defences. The others will attempt to negotiate access to these regions. When this fails they will resort to war.

As Bob Horn and I point out in our White Paper on Wicked Problems, thinking about alternative futures (or Endstates) is just the beginning. The much more difficult questions concern what are the key Events or milestones leading to each possible outcome, what is the most desired outcome, and who will be responsible for taking action and at least trying to influence the course of future Events. Nonetheless, Flint deserves credit for trying to untangle the climate change Mess.

New Tools For Resolving Wicked Problems - Executive Summary and Full Paper

A one page Executive Summary of our paper, New Tools For Resolving Wicked Problems, can be downloaded from here. The complete paper with references can be downloaded from here .

12-Fold Way To Venture Capital Funding - version 3.4

(updated 10-25-07) I have created a brief presentation on raising money from Venture Capital firms and from Angel groups. The intended audience is technology- based product companies, both hardware and software, raising their first professional money. This version has several edits, improvements.

The 12 steps or issues elaborated in the presentation are these:

1. People and Board with the “Right Stuff”
2. The Elusive 10X Advantage
3. Service Providers On Board
4. Intellectual Property
5. Productization Roadmap
6. Market Entry Strategy
7. Market Validation
8. Business Plan
9. Funding Strategy
10. Research VCs [and Angels]
11. Investor Pitches - Plural
12. Prepared for Due Diligence

This presentation can be downloaded here [in Adobe Acrobat PDF format].

Re-solving, Re-evaluating, and Re-learning Wicked Problems - 19

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

Taken together, the Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Mapping™ processes described here should produce clarion calls to action.  They each provide antidotes to common workshop problems, for example, brainstorming meetings that feel good, but that lack rigor, and consequently fail to produce action and results.  Or even worse, BOPSAT: a Bunch Of People Sitting Around Talking.

Instead, Mess Map and Resolution Mapping workshops are powerful tools for stakeholders to identify the complex patterns that are an essential aspect of Social Messes.  Action, and not analysis per se, is the key to resolving Wicked Problems.

As Rittel and Webber noted in their defining 1973 article, Wicked Problems are never solved, but “re-solved” for a time (Figure 17).   Action plan implementation is an ongoing process.  In time, the state of the systems that comprise a given Social Mess will change, in part because of the actions taken by stakeholders and in part because everything changes.  Change is integral for interconnected complex systems that comprise Social Messes.  To paraphrase Heraclitus, it is impossible to step into the same Mess twice.

In addition to integral change and successes resolving Wicked Problems, stakeholders change.  Co-workers come and go.  Funding appears and disappears.  New products supplant the old.  Political, social, cultural, technological, and economic contexts all change as well, usually quite independently of actions to address a given Wicked Problem. 

Workshop outputs such Common and Unique Event lists may be used as the foundation of a war room or Event Dashboard for tracking the evolution of a given set of systems and problems against the desired Endstate. 

As a result of change, organizations concerned with a given Social Mess must re-learn, re-evaluate, and re-resolve the Wicked Problem at hand (Figure 17).  The systems that comprise a Wicked Problem have evolved; the stakeholders have evolved.

If the rate of change is modest or the time period short, the previous analyses, conclusions, and key action items may just need a tune-up, so to speak.  If change has been fast or there have been perceived inflection points or discontinuities, then stakeholders may benefit from a much more substantial re-analysis.  Regardless, stakeholders need to keep reminding themselves that individual and organizational learning requires a conscious and sustained effort.

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Benefits of Resolution Mapping For Resolving Wicked Problems - 18

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

Resolution Mapping does not entail predictions or forecasts.  This process also abandons the idea of a “most likely” future.  Instead, Resolution Mapping empowers participants with diverse points of view, knowledge, and experience to explore alternative futures, choose a desired outcome, and prioritize the Events necessary for resolving the Wicked Problem under consideration.

Resolution Mapping also:

• Incorporates knowledge, biases, and beliefs across diverse stakeholder groups;
• Depending on the particular Wicked Problem addressed, may take into account simultaneously international, national, state, local, or organizational issues;
• Incorporates rather than minimizes uncertainty;
• Does not seek simplistic solutions;
• Provides a basis for iterative strategic decision-making;
• Identifies key events and actions;
• Can be used to determine organizational and/or individual responsibilities;
• Can be used to set situational alarms to tell you when you’re wrong; and
• Increases the likelihood of success over the long term by being able to learn and act faster.

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Resolution Mapping Projects For Resolving Wicked Problems - 17

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

Resolution Mapping™ is an ideal process for assembling, evaluating, and structuring complex information regarding a Wicked Problem.  More importantly, the various outputs lead directly to decisions regarding action items and responsibilities for those actions.

When a Mess Mapping project precedes Resolution Mapping, the Mess Map process and diagram provide significant input for Resolution Mapping while creating efficiencies.  For example, much of the data collection, interviewing, and data structuring will have already occurred. 

However, if the Resolution Mapping process has not been preceded by a Mess Mapping project, then the first step is to conduct interviews with decision makers and influencers. We try to interview all those who are likely to attend the subsequent Resolution Mapping workshop.  We also may interview industry and government experts along with other constituency stakeholders.  Our interviews are usually augmented with market, scientific, and policy information. However, we do not conduct primary research.

The sponsoring organization(s) typically identifies an engagement manager who is the point of contact for the facilitators and who aggregates feedback from participating organizations.  The facilitators review and synthesize the interviews, integrate external data, and then create draft Endstates and Events. The facilitators and sponsor representatives review all the workshop materials and agenda.

After the workshop, sponsors may follow up the Resolution Mapping workshop with one or more optional post-meeting tasks.  For example, facilitators may create a presentation that can be shared with others documenting the process, participants, and meeting outcomes.  Other post-meeting steps include working with stakeholders to further prioritize and implement key action steps.

Some clients have created a “war room” using key Events related to the desired Endstate.  New Events may be created and posted on walls or other displays together with the Events from the Workshop.  The War Room provides a summary of the desired outcome and a dashboard for monitoring the internal and external contexts. 

The War Room presentation can be reviewed with key stakeholders inside and outside the organization as an efficient way to document the meeting outcomes, to reinforce the objectives, and to maintain focus on the key Events.

In some circumstances, it is beneficial to repeat the Workshop with essentially the same materials for different audiences.  This may be especially useful when different geographic regions are affected by the same Wicked Problem.  Getting the local view may be an important step in understanding regional similarities and differences in how the Social Mess is viewed, in desirable outcomes, and in constraints on actions.

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Resolution Scenario Mapping Workshop Process For Resolving Wicked Problems - 16

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

A typical workshop usually lasting 2 and sometimes 3 days is comprised of several tasks and outputs:

1. Conventional Wisdom Voting and Scenario: participants in teams categorize the Events into “highly likely,” “highly unlikely”, and “uncertain. Facilitators use event voting to create a Conventional Wisdom scenario that reflects the overall thinking of workshop participants at the outset of the workshop.

2. Endstate Defense: Each team analyzes and then defends their assigned Endstate in a presentation to the whole group. The main purpose of the team presentation is to present a narrative describing how the world evolved, including the key actors, drivers, motives, and significant milestones along the way.

3. Endstate Systems: Workshop participants develop a new model that synthesizes the Endstates into a set of relationships indicating how the Endstates might evolve and interact with one another.

4. Policies and Specific Actions: Participants identify and prioritize key policy initiatives and Events, including responsibilities for influence or implementation.

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Wicked Problems and Endstate Systems - 15

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

Endstates are useful tools for considering how to resolve a given Wicked Problem.  They do not represent forecasts or the facilitator’s opinions regarding the most likely or most desirable outcomes.

Workshop participants commonly say that the Endstate they think is really most desirable is a combination of elements from 2 or more Endstates.  Consequently, we ask participants to consider how Endstates may be related to each other, that is, to create an Endstate System. 

Each of the four diagrams in the graphic below are abstract portrayals of ideas that have emerged from this workshop exercise.  Each individual shape represents a different Endstate.

 

(A) Perhaps the Endstates might exist in parallel, but characterize different geographic regions, political alliances, markets, economic sectors, states, etc.

(B) Alternatively, workshop participants might conclude that either it will be one or another Endstate and that the others will not matter.

(C) Yet another possibility is that one of the Endstates is really key and it will dominate the others.

(D) Lastly, in this small set of examples, the relationships may change over time. Some Endstates will matter sooner while others will matter later. The bottom right example suggests that down the road there will be a major choice or fork in the road.

Endstate systems provide another, more holistic way to take into account the beliefs of workshop participants. In turn, this analysis can be the input to a set of workshop tasks concerning key events, actions, and responsibilities.

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Unique Events in Wicked Problem Scenarios - 14

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

Sometimes several Events are chosen by a team defending one Endstate that are ignored in other scenarios.  We call these Unique Events.  For example, in a US and Global Climate Change workshop, a Unique Event might be that Cold Fusion Water Heaters are Commercially Available in 2013.  In a U.S. Healthcare workshop, a Unique event might be that Total Healthcare Expenditures as a percentage of GDP are constant starting in 2010.

Since only one future depends on their occurrence, adopting a strategy based substantially on Unique events may entail higher overall risk since fewer actors care about these events.  This is not to say that adopting such a strategy is necessarily a bad idea.  In many business situations, for example, higher risk may bring with it higher rewards.

However, task forces, working groups, committees and others focused on resolving a given Wicked Problem may find that alternative strategies for resolving a given Social Mess are more attainable because they are based on a greater preponderance of Common Events rather than Unique Events.

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Common Events In Wicked Problem Scenarios - 13

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

Some Events are considered by Resolution Mapping workshop participants to be important to multiple scenarios.  These Common Events are noteworthy because multiple stakeholders have an interest in the outcome.

For example, in a project to address America and Global Climate Change, a Common event might be that the Congress mandates average 50 MPG for cars produced beginning 2030.  In scenarios addressing healthcare in America, a Common event might be that by 2011, 20 states mandate health insurance for all. 

Various actors may work toward making or influencing the Event to happen; others may work toward preventing its occurrence, as in the case of a Must Not Happen event.  Consequently, Common Events and the issues they represent will usually receive a lot more attention because more actors have a stake in the outcome.

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Narrative Scenarios For Resolving Wicked Problems - 12

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

After identifying those events that Must [or Must Not] happen, each team then creates a narrative: a story that describes how the world got to be “this way” rather than some other way.  They then defend their scenario in a short presentation to all the participants.

We can’t emphasize too strongly that a Scenario is not a recitation of key events: this happened, then that happened.  Rather, it’s the story that counts:

•     Who were the key actors?  
•     What were their motivations?  
•     What did they do?  
•     What didn’t they do?      
•     What was the timing of their actions?  
•     How did the actions of major actors interact with the actions of other actors?  
•     What were the key conflicts?  
•     Were they resolved or ignored?  
•     If conflicts were resolved, how?

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Must Happen Events For A Wicked Problem Scenario - 11

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

Each team of 4 to 7 people works backwards:  assuming that assigned their Endstate has already happened, they determine what it took to get there.

 

Events For Scenarios Resolving Wicked Problems -10

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By Robert E. Horn (Stanford University and MacroVU, Inc.) and Robert Weber (Strategy Kinetics, LLC) 

This is another in a series of "blogicles" on how Mess Mapping™ and Resolution Scenario Mapping processes can be used to represent, analyze, evaluate Wicked Problems and then to choose actions that ameliorate the Wicked Problem at hand.

Events are specific observable occurrences that could happen.  For each Event, some actor or actors, such as a nation, NGO, a company, or a foundation, must be able to influence the outcome, at least in principle.  Events are printed on cards with a headline, a date, and a brief description elaborating the headline. The + or – after each date in the Events indicates that the year is approximate (plus or minus 1 year in a majority of projects).