Continuous Improvement Tools

Consensagram

Here is another simple technique you can use to gain a lot of information fast. As the name implies, this technique can help you understand what the consensus of a group is around an issue.

First of all establish clearly what the issue is that you are discussing or deciding. As an example you may be, as a board or group of employees, discussing whether to expand your business or to purchase another company or a new computer system. Early in the discussion you might suggest that you do a consensagram. Because if everyone is already on board there is no use wasting time discussing it further.� Or if few are interested, you know you may be wasting your time discussing it further, or you know this will be a hard sell.

Once the issue is clear, ask a question like, "To what degree are you in support of this plan?" Give everyone a yellow sticky note and ask them to write a number between 0 and 100% in increments of 10. Gather the yellow stickies and put them in a bar graph format on the wall for all to see.

100

If this were an actual experience, you could readily learn in one minute that you have three people who are really not in favor of the plan. You have 5 who are ready to go. There are 11 who are leaning in favor and 3 who are not very supportive.

In a large group it isn't particularly important to know who holds which opinion. You just know where the group stands at the moment. In a small group it may be valuable to now talk to those who are not in favor to see what their objections are.

If the consensagram indicates the value of continued discussion, then the discussion should proceed.� At a later time it is appropriate to take a second census.� Put the second one along side the initial consensagram and see if opinions have changed.

As you can imagine, this tool can be used in a number of situations. How about at the end of a training session or a college class asking, "To what degree are you able to use the material we studied today?" Or for a company that is considering launching a continuous improvement initiative asking employees, "How committed are you to supporting this initiative?"

I am hearing from a number of you that lack of time is your main concern. This simple tool can save your organization hundreds of hours each year. It may feel awkward the first time you use it. But be audacious, and give it a try.

Thanks to Roger D. Sims, P.E. of Sims Professional Engineering, Inc. for the comments he emailed me about my last article about using the Force Field Analysis and for sharing some of the things he is doing in his company to improve quality and decision making.