the Importance of Observers 35
This week I spent 2 days with my friend Luke Hohmann getting trained in the use of Innovation Games®. Innovation Games® are a class of so-called serious games that use metaphor and experiential learning situations with an end-result-goal of developing actionable information. (This is my current way of describing them anyway.)
During one of these games I played the role of a facilitator. There were 2 of us facilitating, three “customers” being interviewed and 4 observers.
In my typical consulting role, I am often playing the role of facilitator, but I also have set myself up as an observer at the same time. In the past, this has seemed to make sense given I was the only consultant in the room. This recent experience, however, has really changed how I think about those situations.
In the design of Innovation Games®, the facilitator will typically have a number (1/2 – 1/3) of the participants serve as observers. This has several advantages.- The facilitator can focus on one thing (think single responsibility principle).
- Different observers, different filters (we all have filters all of the time), resulting in more perspectives captured, giving better overall information.
- Given enough observers, you can have individual observers focus on specific things.
- Since the observers are typically from the team (not the consulting company), it reinforces the notion of ownership. The facilitator does not own the results, nor does s/he produce the results.
Why so many observers? Innovation Games® are designed to get access to the things you don’t know you don’t know.
Jerry Weinberg has a simple model of leadership. The MOIJ model.- M is for Motivation
- O is for Organization
- I is for Innovation
- J is for Jiggle
In any situation, take a read. Do you have too much Motivation or too little? Too much? People are frantic and running around like kids just after getting back from a successful night of trick-or-treating. Too little? Everybody is exhausted from yet another all nighter getting ready for a demo because too much focus was placed on adding stuff rather than adding stuff well.
The same idea applies to Organization and Innovation. It is possible to have to much or too little organization and too many or too few ideas.
What happens when none of those first three seem to fit? That’s the Jiggle. You introduce some random element to see if you can get access to something you don’t know you don’t know.
With many observers (e.g. 8-10 in a group of 20), you have the flexibility to have someone look at hand gestures, someone to look at eye contact, someone to listen to change in vocal pitch, etc. That is, you have “typical” observers listening for “important” information and “jiggiling” observers searching form something else. Since you don’t know what you don’t know, doing things with specific kinds of observations might jiggle out information that otherwise you would have missed. It may not, that’s part of the problem of trying to work in the space of you don’t know you don’t know.
In any case, to me this is now one of those “intuitive once you know it” things. In the past, I have worked within my self-perceived constraints of being a single person with 2 roles needing to be filled. Maybe on an intellectual level I understood the value of having observers separate from the facilitator but I did not really grok it.
Now I think I do.
Will I always separate those roles? I don’t believe in context-free best practices, so no. However, will I make this my default preference? I’ll certainly work on it.
More specifically, how am I going to use this new knowledge?
In 2 weeks, Michael Feathers and I are co-teaching an Agile/XP Immersion in Seattle. I’ve already planned to use a few of the Innovation Games® during the class. The big difference, however, is that I’m going to encourage a number of the students to play the role of an observer (listening, recording, saying nothing) to give the customer a chance to own what’s going on rather than being the recipient of a technique.
I’m sure it will take me some time to embody this new approach as my default rather than falling back on the (up until now) current way I’ve been doing things. I’m sure I’ll stumble along the way. But as long as I keep making new mistakes and not repeating the old ones over and over, I’ll be moving in a good direction.
Remember – Facilitators are just the worm. Observers are the hook that catch the fish. (At least, that was my aha! moment during the class)
It was great meeting you in person, and thanks for the great blog post!
- Cory
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i love your article.
important article.
I agree that it is possible to have to much or too little organization and too many or too few ideas. Motivation is a key factor in any and everything you do. Great post.
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so what>
Observers provide you with a different angle of what you have been looking at for a long time. Sometimes they find glitches you never in a million years notice.
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I agree that mistakes are ok as long as you do not keep doing the same thing. Observers just may help you prevent that from happening over and over.
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already planned to use a few of the Innovation Games® during the class. The big difference, however, is that I’m going to encourage a number of the students to pl
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I play the role of an observer before and i realized how important it is from the first day
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