Strategic Creative Problem Solving - The N-Gage Process

What's been happening at Beaufortes?  Big changes!  We've been working through our backlog, and come up with something pretty special:  The N-Gage process - and we're looking for test problems to validate it.  It's a tool for strategic creative problem solving.  Did I say it was special?   This is what it is:

• A step-by-step process for innovating to solve problems that are resilient - problems that have been around for a while, and have resisted attempts to solve them.

• Each step in the process is straightforward - the power of the process comes from their diligent, progressive application.

• It can be applied by individuals, and it is particularly brilliant for use by teams, because it builds alignment and engagement.

• It is based on insights gained from the field of cognitive psychology - it help tackle the problems created by 'cognitive biases' - the intellectual short-cuts we all take because of the way our brains are structured.

It stems from the insight that there are four things that make problems 'hard':

1. Opacity - you can't see into the problem to understand it
2. Polytely - the solution to the problem must address multiple goals.
3. Complexity - there are many components to the problem that interact, possibly creating a system with 'emergent behaviours' - unexpected, unpredicatable outcomes.
4. Inertia - many people must change to implement the solution.

We've been testing the N-gage process on a diverse set of problems, and it is ready for wider exposure.

Right now, we're looking for real client problems to use as case studies.  The criteria for application are as follows:

• The problem must be persistent...that is, it's been around a while.
• The problem must have resisted attempts to solve it.
• The solution must be valuable enough to support the application of at least 3 days of work for the team to solve it.

If you have a suitable problem, or might like to introduce this approach to a client who has a problem, then please contact me - by phone or email - and I will be happy to share a video presentation with you about the process (it's about 1 hour long, so be prepared).

- Philip Greenwood