Perspectives by the angles
If you’ve ever been in a position to exclaim to yourself, or out loud, “Why didn’t I think of that?, you will likely have had the experience of frustration or relief. Perhaps both.
You will have been frustrated if the solution you’ve just learned about appears to be blindingly simple, and you may also be beating yourself up because you couldn’t see it. You will have felt relief because you now had access to a solution which previously seemed elusive, even if it was someone else that thought of it. One of the tenets of the Emergn Way is that “we bring new perspectives to get better results”. It is both an aim and a motivator as there are few things as rewarding as hearing from either clients or colleagues that the perspective you have just given them is indeed new and helpful.
I was once running a workshop on prioritization. We were looking at complicated scoring matrices, evaluation criteria, intake processes, cost of delay, you name it. It was hard work and we seemed not to be making much progress. I then suggested that rather than trying to decide what should be done first, we started to consider what, given our goals, we could defer till later. We did just that and the truly urgent and important things soon bubbled up to the top. The impasse was broken and we had a way forward. Frowns turned to smiles and everyone saw how to bring the question of value to the forefront of discussions. We all knew this wasn’t a perfect solution but it was more than good enough to use. All it took was to use a slightly different angle.
Consider
Problem spaces are just that: spaces. Do you look at yours from different angles, or is your perspective fixed and familiar?
Additional Insights
The art of feedback
Don’t confuse tools with technologies
Approaching quality process with experience-based and exploratory testing
