How to Manage Participation in Building Plans with the Fishbone/Swim Lanes Method

Following on from last week's article about the Fishbone/Swim Lanes format for participative team planning, here are some different ways to manage participation using that model, plus a practical case study.

There are different ways you could have people participate in building your plans, at the fishbone stage and when you're setting out the swim lanes.

• You could have the whole team consider each area in turn.
• You could have everyone working on everything simultaneously, adding tasks or concerns that occur to them in any area. This might work fine with a small team.
• A more structured way of working might be to have the people responsible for an area specifying tasks and concerns for that area, but with input from one or two others who interface with that area to make sure it works for people outside the area too. This also avoids the dangers of 'groupthink'.

Example of How it Works in Practice

An example at a slightly larger scale that I facilitated worked like this:

The client was an SME that specialised in training financial advisers in complying with the ever-updating regulations in that area. The company had about 35 staff, and they all gathered in one room to inquire into the topic?"How do we enhance our understanding of one another’s role and work closer together in the coming year?”

The SME was owned by another company that handled functions like IT, accounts, marketing and HR for them and a number of other subsidiary companies. So up from Head Office for the day were the operations director, plus a manager from each of those functions - collectively known as 'Central Services'.

Each department within the company had its own provocative proposition and developed its own plan, using the fishbone method. Representatives from each part of Central Services dropped in on each department, checked how the plan was going, added their own perspectives, then moved on to the next department.

By the time the plans were finished, each representative from Central Services had sat in on each department's plan twice - so you could be sure that the plans would work not just from the department's internal perspective, but also from the perspective of the areas like accounts and IT that they had to interface with.

At the end of the day's Appreciative Inquiry summit, I was told that the day had resulted in several actions that would start saving them money straight away, so another success for the Fishbone/Swim Lanes method!

If you want to get started using Appreciative Inquiry confidently with teams and small groups, book your place on the Practical Appreciative Inquiry course starting 5 June.

It's a small-group course (maximum 12 places) that you can access from anywhere in the world, so book here while there are still places available!

"It was a fantastic course. Andy facilitated our learning ensuring we came away with knowledge and tools that we could immediately use in our consultancy, leadership coaching client work." - Rita J Bailey, Coach,Facilitator,Mediator, MBTI Practitioner, UK