Productive Thinking Model

Productive thinking

The facilitator guides the participants through six stages. The cycle
can be repeated when it is necessary.



Step 1: "What's Going On?

During the first step, the facilitator guides the participants through
an exploration of the problems or opportunities being addressed. By
exploring the so called "itch" the group will reveal factors,
circumstances and entities that have an influence in the situation and
can get an idea of what a solution might look like.

The following questions can be addressed:

• "What's the Itch?" - the answers to this question can generate a
  substantial list of problems and opportunities. Restating similar
  problems in different ways can help in identifying patterns and
  clusters that can reveal the key problem that needs to be addressed.
• "What's the Impact?" - in order to dig deeper into the issue and
  place it in a wider context
• "What's the Information?" - detailed description of various
  aspects of the problem
• "Who's Involved?" - identifying other stakeholders in the issue
• "What's the Vision?"- a wishful thinking approach to resolving
  the problem (e.g., "If only my dog didn't run away when I let him
  outside.")

Step 2: "What's Success?"

The second step establishes a vision for a future in which the problem
was solved or the opportunity exploited. Active imagination is used to
explore and describe a possible future. The vision resulted will be
applied through a tool called DRIVE in order to achieve a clear view of
the future.

• Do - what do you want the solution to do?
• Restrictions - what must the solution NOT do?
• Investment - what resources can be invested?
• Values - what values must you live by?
• Essential outcomes - what are the essential outcomes?

Step 3: "What's the Question?"

The challenge is then framed into a question. Brainstorming techniques
can be used to generate as many questions as possible. The results are
clustered and combined in order to select the most stimulating question
or questions.



Step 4: "Generate Answers"

In step 4 a list of possible solution to the problem questions is
identified through brainstorming and other idea generating techniques.
At the end of the brainstorming process, one of the solutions (or a
combination of more) is selected for further development



Step 5: "Forge the Solution"

• The tool POWER is used to develop the selected solution. POWER
  stands for:
• Positives - what's good about the idea?
• Objections - what's bad about it?
• What else? - what does it remind you of?
• Enhancements - how can what's good about it be made better?
• Remedies - how can the things that are bad about it be corrected?

Step 6: "Align Resources"

In the final step the selected, developed solution is turned into an
action plan that can include among other things:

• to do lists
• timelines and milestones
• lists of people who need to get involved
• lists of issues that need further work