How to use Design Thinking & Liberating Structures for High Stakes Decision Making

Because brainstorming & group thinking is notoriously ineffective

https://agile-od.com/lean-agile/strategy-session-facilitation-with-design-thinking-liberating-structures

Why brainstorming doesn’t work

That was fun, but… Why do we get that slight, lingering feeling of doubt and dissatisfaction after brainstorming sessions?

Here’s why:

Group dynamics: 80/20 rule applies.

• Domination: The vocal minority dominate the space, crowding out the voices of the rest.
• Judgment and hesitation: Our fear of being wrong and looking stupid makes us shut up.
• Ideas evaporate: We can’t really listen and think at the same time, so our nascent ideas quickly dissipate while waiting for our turn to speak.
• Social loafing: We become mentally lazy in groups — let others do the thinking!

Linear outcome: It’s so hard to do dissociated thinking (thinking of something separate — out of the box) during a group conversation.

• Anchoring bias, recency bias: The vocal minority, often the leader of the group, speaks up first, and unintentionally sets the tone of the discussion which will carry to the end. And as we place priority to the last piece of…