A suggested improvement to the template: When examining the status quo, also ask “for what related problems does the status quo have a built-in solution?”.
You have spelled “stakeholders” as “steak-holders”, which is charming but may reduce credibility in some circumstances.
The template might benefit from a section asking what preconceptions or stereotypes surround the topic. When I think back to times I’ve tried to improve things, I recall some being stymied by a group of people having a social memory of a time that something related was tried and went horribly wrong, or a time that some other group tried a similar thing and it backfired, or other expectations of negative outcomes.
The other question to consider adding, possibly adjacent to “what has been tried already”, is along the lines of “why am I unwilling to tolerate this status quo when everyone else experiencing it does tolerate it?”. I don’t think this is the best phrasing, but comparing one’s experience with something intolerable to the experiences of those who find it tolerable can often reveal techniques for making the experience tolerable, which shifts the value proposition of eliminating the experience.
What resources might help in improving this template?
Science of decision-making may be interesting, as it tends to be predicated on the assumption that decisions need to pick or create the “best” option, aka an improvement.
You have spelled “stakeholders” as “steak-holders”, which is charming but may reduce credibility in some circumstances.
Heh. Funny mistake. Thanks.
A suggested improvement to the template: When examining the status quo, also ask “for what related problems does the status quo have a built-in solution?”.
I want to make sure I understand your point here. Is the idea that sometimes we see that a system isn’t solving some problem well enough, and so try to fix it. But we don’t take into account the fact that the system isn’t just trying to solve that problem, but other problems as well. And maybe our “fix” may be an improvement to the system in regards to the problem we’re interested in, but hurt the system in regards to the other problems the system is trying to solve? (god that was long winded)
If that’s the idea. I think I was trying to capture the same type of thing with “What are the strengths of the status quo (that we want to try and keep)?” But maybe I can improve the wording to make that more clear? Or do you still think you’re making a separate point?
The template might benefit from a section asking what preconceptions or stereotypes surround the topic.
I like this. Not sure where to include it. From your description it seems like it should be either a top level question, under “What are the possible difficulties in making improvements in this area?”, or under “What is the status quo?”.
Not OP, but I read their comment about related problems as something more like this:
The system in question likely already has feedback or correction mechanisms that respond to other potential problems—asking about those mechanisms might reveal strengths of the system that can be easily adapted for your purposes. I’m not sure how easy it will be to find these, though, as the best-functioning ones might be invisible if they actually eliminate the other problems completely.
That might not be their intent, but I think it’s also a useful consideration so even if my interpretation isn’t matched I hope this comment is still useful :)
Yikes, I see why—I worded the concept quite poorly. The example I was trying to describe is in software engineering, where you have an ancient crufty mess that you’re trying to rewrite in some snazzy new language. You think you can rewrite it and make it super simple, and so you write the new thing the simple way that “should work”, but when you run the old code’s tests against it (or when you put it to use in the real world...) you discover that the reason the old code was such a mess was partly that it had a bunch of logic to handle various edge cases that the application had hit in the past.
An alternative phrasing might be: “Where are the gaps between how I think the status quo ‘should’ work, and how it actually does?”. Often, established systems are silently compensating for all kinds of problems that happen infrequently enough for any one person to forget that the problem exists when trying to replace the system.
I added “Given these problems, why are people still tolerating the status quo (if they are)?” to the template. Does that capture your idea well enough?
I think that’s a good snapshot of the concept I’m trying to get at. It asks what benefits the status quo may silently be providing, which a competitor would have to match or exceed to gain acceptance.
A suggested improvement to the template: When examining the status quo, also ask “for what related problems does the status quo have a built-in solution?”.
You have spelled “stakeholders” as “steak-holders”, which is charming but may reduce credibility in some circumstances.
The template might benefit from a section asking what preconceptions or stereotypes surround the topic. When I think back to times I’ve tried to improve things, I recall some being stymied by a group of people having a social memory of a time that something related was tried and went horribly wrong, or a time that some other group tried a similar thing and it backfired, or other expectations of negative outcomes.
The other question to consider adding, possibly adjacent to “what has been tried already”, is along the lines of “why am I unwilling to tolerate this status quo when everyone else experiencing it does tolerate it?”. I don’t think this is the best phrasing, but comparing one’s experience with something intolerable to the experiences of those who find it tolerable can often reveal techniques for making the experience tolerable, which shifts the value proposition of eliminating the experience.
Science of decision-making may be interesting, as it tends to be predicated on the assumption that decisions need to pick or create the “best” option, aka an improvement.
Heh. Funny mistake. Thanks.
I want to make sure I understand your point here. Is the idea that sometimes we see that a system isn’t solving some problem well enough, and so try to fix it. But we don’t take into account the fact that the system isn’t just trying to solve that problem, but other problems as well. And maybe our “fix” may be an improvement to the system in regards to the problem we’re interested in, but hurt the system in regards to the other problems the system is trying to solve? (god that was long winded)
If that’s the idea. I think I was trying to capture the same type of thing with “What are the strengths of the status quo (that we want to try and keep)?” But maybe I can improve the wording to make that more clear? Or do you still think you’re making a separate point?
I like this. Not sure where to include it. From your description it seems like it should be either a top level question, under “What are the possible difficulties in making improvements in this area?”, or under “What is the status quo?”.
Not OP, but I read their comment about related problems as something more like this:
The system in question likely already has feedback or correction mechanisms that respond to other potential problems—asking about those mechanisms might reveal strengths of the system that can be easily adapted for your purposes. I’m not sure how easy it will be to find these, though, as the best-functioning ones might be invisible if they actually eliminate the other problems completely.
That might not be their intent, but I think it’s also a useful consideration so even if my interpretation isn’t matched I hope this comment is still useful :)
Yikes, I see why—I worded the concept quite poorly. The example I was trying to describe is in software engineering, where you have an ancient crufty mess that you’re trying to rewrite in some snazzy new language. You think you can rewrite it and make it super simple, and so you write the new thing the simple way that “should work”, but when you run the old code’s tests against it (or when you put it to use in the real world...) you discover that the reason the old code was such a mess was partly that it had a bunch of logic to handle various edge cases that the application had hit in the past.
An alternative phrasing might be: “Where are the gaps between how I think the status quo ‘should’ work, and how it actually does?”. Often, established systems are silently compensating for all kinds of problems that happen infrequently enough for any one person to forget that the problem exists when trying to replace the system.
I added “Given these problems, why are people still tolerating the status quo (if they are)?” to the template. Does that capture your idea well enough?
I think that’s a good snapshot of the concept I’m trying to get at. It asks what benefits the status quo may silently be providing, which a competitor would have to match or exceed to gain acceptance.