What is Lateral Thinking and Do I Need It?

Two of the services we frequently use with our Clients are Idea Generation and Problem Solving. We approach both challenges with very different, process oriented methods but there is one thing that remains constant – Our ability to think laterally and come up with novel concepts by looking at situations in new and different ways. Many of our Clients are so deeply involved in an issue such as their daily business that they find it hard to change perspective and see things from an alternative angle. This is where we come in… we tend to see things that are ‘outside the box’.

Vertical thinking, also known as logical thinking, takes an idea and carries it forward. Lateral thinking, on the other hand, provokes fresh ideas and essentially changes the frame of reference in almost any situation. Vertical thinking tries to overcome problems by dealing with them head-on, lateral thinking attempts to bypass obstacles using a variety of different approaches.

In essence, Lateral thinking is a tool that helps us change our way of thinking about something often by modifying our perceptions.

With logical thinking you start out with certain given components and boundaries wrapped in a process. This is similar to the situation in chesswhere you start out with specific pieces and are expected to play by the rules. The issue is that in most real life situations, we can not use the chess model or logical thinking to solve problems because you don’t know what the pieces are, what they represent or how many pieces actually exist… knowing the rules is almost irrelevant to solving a problem or generating new ideas.

Throughout our lives we are handed several different rulebooks (cultural, social, business oriented etc). When we get these rulebooks we just assume that the components that the rulebooks refer to, simply exist and we tend to accept that certain boundaries and limitations are present because they were mentioned in the rulebook. Lateral thinking throws out the rules and assumptions as well as the boundaries and limitations so that we are free of our social, cultural, geographic and demographic bonds.

Lateral thinking focuses on changing some element to enable a new and fresh perspective of a given situation. Lateral thinking deals primarily with perception. By using lateral thinking techniques we can organize the external world into the pieces that we can then process. Perhaps more importantly, by observing lateral thinking in others we can generate new ideas and better understand how they perceive the world around them.

The brain is a self-organizing information system that forms asymmetric patterns. In such systems there is a mathematical need for moving across patterns. The tools and processes of lateral thinking are designed to achieve such lateral movement to accomplish a given result.

A famous person once said that you can’t dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper. Think about that for a moment… If you were driving in a car on the highway but your intended destination is behind you, driving faster while keeping the car on the same heading will not get you to your intended destination.

If you were to continue thinking about a problem or a solution in a given way, this may not be as useful as changing tact and trying something completely different. Additional effort in the same direction will not necessarily help you get the results you were after but applying some proven tools designed to turn the car around, may offer you options that you never knew existed. It’s a format of thinking ‘out of the box’ and our Clients believe that we are very good at it. It may be because we do it frequently.

If you have a challenging problem or need some new ideas, please, fill out our form and allow us to get in touch with you today.

Is Problem Solving Worth It?

A growing number of people around the world claim to be ‘electro-sensitive’, in other words physically responsive to the electromagnetic fields that surround electronic devices such as mobile phones. In fact, Sweden has recently recognized such sensitivity as a disability, and will pay for the dwellings of sufferers to be screened from the world’s electronic smog.

This is a superb example of a knee jerk reaction rather than the result of an effective problem solving process. It is unfortunate that the kind and caring politicians who sponsored the subsidy in Sweden preferred to throw money at the unknown cause rather than actually investigate it and apply some form of process to identify the most probable cause for the sensitivity.

The issue is that, time and again, studies of those claiming to be electro-sensitive show their ability to determine whether they are being exposed to a real electric field or a fake one is no better than chance. So, unless these sensitive people are lying about their symptoms, the most probable cause for the symptoms must be sought elsewhere.

In Germany at the University of Regensburg, Michael Landgrebe and Ulrich Frick think that the ‘elsewhere’ in question is in the brain and in a paper presented recently to the Royal Society in London, they describe an experiment which, they think, proves their point.

Dr Landgrebe and Dr Frick used a body scanner called a functional magnetic-resonance imager to see how people’s brains react to two different kinds of stimulus. Thirty participants, half of whom described themselves as electro-sensitive, were put in the imager and told that they would undergo a series of trials in which they would be exposed either to an active mobile phone or to a heating device called a thermode, whose temperature would be varied between the trials. The thermode was real. The mobile phone, however, was not.

The type of stimulus, be it the authentic heat source or the fake electromagnetic radiation, was announced before each exposure and the volunteers were asked to rate its unpleasantness on a five-point scale. In the case of heat, the two groups’ descriptions of their experiences were comparable. So, too, was their brain activity. However, when it came to the fake phone exposure, only the electro-sensitives described sensations such as prickling and even pain. Moreover, they showed neural activity to support these perceived sensations. Some of the same bits of their brains lit up as when they were exposed to high temperatures.

This suggests that electro-sensitivity, rather than being a response to electromagnetic stimulus, is akin to well-known psychosomatic disorders such as some sorts of tinnitus and chronic pain. A psychosomatic disorder is one in which the symptoms are real, but are induced by cognitive functions such as attitudes, beliefs and expectations rather than by direct external stimuli.

The paradoxical upshot of Dr Landgrebe’s and Dr Frick’s experiment is that mobile phones do indeed inflict real suffering on some unfortunate individuals. It is just that the electromagnetic radiation they emit has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

If you have a situation where actual results deviate from your expectations and the cause is not known… please do us all a favor and either apply our Problem Solving Methodology directly or contact us to do it for you.

What Exactly is A PROBLEM?

People today, overuse and misuse the word ‘problem’ and it is becoming an issue for me because, here at BoxOnline, we use a tool to solve problems and this tool is very effective – but only when you actually have a real, genuine problem. So, when a Client says “I have a problem” we get all excited because we are trained and experienced problem solvers. The thing is most people say that they have a problem when what they mean is that they have an issue, a situation, a case where they believe that something has or will go wrong. So, what exactly is a problem?

A problem can be defined as a situation where you have all 3 of the following circumstances simultaneously:
1) You have a deviation from norm.
2) You do not know the cause of the deviation.
3) You must know the cause of the deviation in order to continue

Let’s clarify the above a bit better. When there is a deviation from norm, something unexpected occurred and when you do not know why this something occurred, it is likely that you do not know the most probable cause for the deviation. If your project is not able to continue after the unexpected something occurred then you need to repair the damage and the best way to repair something is to know what broke. Thus, if you do not know the cause for an unexpected deviation and you cannot move forward, you have a problem and we can start applying our honed problem solving techniques right away.

If, however one or two of the circumstances described above do not apply to your situation – YOU DO NOT HAVE AN ACTUAL PROBLEM. You have something else!

Analogy: You look at a board in the floor and spot a metal nail sticking out. You don’t want someone to trip over the nail or to cut their foot so you go get a tool to put the nail back where it belongs. Do you select a hammer or a screwdriver? That’s right, as soon as we have labeled a given situation “a problem”, we can reach for the appropriate tool to help identify what the most probable cause is or was. Then the cause can be dealt with and the process can move forward again. Any questions?

Mantra Mantra Mantra

I just asked the key managers employed by my latest Client to tell me what exactly it was that their company did – the response was so shockingly bland that I decided to escalate my curiosity on a more personal level. I asked the same folks to tell me what they do at the company – After an hour I was speechless. You see, a few months ago this company hired a consultant for $20,000 to help them bond as a team and then use the synergy of the moment to draft and approve a new mission statement that would help propel them forward, somehow… magically. The statements I listened to lacked purpose, focus and cohesiveness among other things. To put it bluntly, several managers were fighting with their counterparts in other divisions – Sales was determined to place some form of blame on Engineering and Engineering had it out of the folks in Finance. This is not healthy – nor is it productive so when the CEO asked for my help I wanted to be sure that I understood what I was getting into. I’d been tasked with making a positive change in the work environment so that the team could identify and then achieve common goals yet the issue seemed to stem from something much more basic and a lot less complex.

In many ways this situation reminds me of companies that hire a consultant to conduct a two day ‘broaden your horizons’ type of company event away from the office with team building exercises leading up to a brainstorming session designed to create a mission statement, a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) or something in between. The event usually goes like this:

Day 1: A day of exercises, games and puzzles designed to improve relationships within the company and encourage trust among colleagues. One such activity includes turning your back on the group, closing your eyes and then falling backwards hopefully into the arms of your co-workers. Another one involves sticks and ropes to encourage the team to work together to achieve a common goal.

Day 2: Usually the rain day plan (an indoor activity) where the entire group assembles to create a mission statement. The room is usually too small to contain the entire team and there are pens, paper, white boards and usually a facilitator who knows nothing about your business. Everyone in a managerial position and above in the company is present and encouraged to contribute. After several hours you typically get something like:

‘The mission of Moevenpick is to deliver superior quality products and services for our customers and communities through leadership, innovation, and partnerships.’

Don’t get me wrong. I love Moevenpick, but I’ve never thought I was participating in ‘leadership, innovation, and partnerships’ when I ordered an ice cream there. The basic reason for mission statementosis is that people contributing to a company’s direction usually worked for McMinsey or Boston Consulting Group, have a MBA or some combination of all three.

These days, it is probably more helpful to have a mantra than a mission statement. A mantra contains 6 words max (the fewer the better) and if your receptionist is able to retain it for more than a day, you probably have something interesting.
A few examples:

• Domino’s Pizza “You got 30 minutes”
• YouTube “Broadcast Yourself”
• UPS “What can brown do for you?”
• McDonald’s “i’m lovin’ it”
• PHILIPS “sense and simplicity”
• M&Ms “melts in your mouth, not in your hand”
• Red Bull “Gives you wings”
• INTEL “Leap Ahead”

So, although you may have wanted to hire that consultant for $20,000 to help build some team spirit and get everyone to pitch in and create a mission statement – think instead about taking a weekend off to relax – do something you really enjoy and then on Monday, dedicate time to creating a memorable mantra for your company. If you still want to outsource this to some creative types, get in touch, we may be able to help.

As for my Client, we were able to identify the issue within two days. Our team addressed the major concerns in a consultative session called Potential Problem Analysis and created viable solutions within one day. We were then hired to implement 2 of the 6 solutions and project manage the remaining 4. The solution that seemed to make the most difference at the end of the day was the mantra. I still can’t believe it – the mantra was missing and when it was selected and put in place, 20 very different managers walked back into their arenas to fight the competition instead of each other. This case was fun, rewarding and delivered with excellent results. Does your company have a mantra yet? Tell us about it.

Make Better Decisions Today

What have you got to lose?

A training course designed to help you make better decisions takes approximately 2 days. Can you afford taking two days to learn the skills needed to make better decisions for the rest of your life?

We deliver training to companies and individuals that want a methodical process for making and supporting decisions. Along these lines, our corporate Clients typically want three things.
a) They want to make better decisions using a process rather than ‘gut feel’
b) They want their teams to make better decisions
c) They want to present clear reasoning, proof that risks were evaluated and that the best possible alternative was chosen for each decision made based on the company’s objectives.

BoxOnline consultants have been providing the tools, training and guidance needed to help make better decisions for both groups and individuals since 1996.

In the case study below, the focus was on selecting the best possible alternative for an information technology purchase decision. This decision involved selecting a vendor, the appropriate software, hardware, infrastructure, staff support and an implementation partner. It was something of a complex decision to tackle and thus worthy of review here since so many of our Clients need to make exactly this sort of decision at least once every 5 years.

The decision analysis or ‘DA’ process can be used on simple decisions as well. You can adapt the DA process to meet EVERY decision making situation you are likely to encounter in both your personal and professional environments.

Knowing when to apply the DA process is important as well.

The method we teach is a tool you can apply when you need to make a selection from a set of alternatives to meet your specific objectives for a given project.
Personal examples include selecting a new place to live, rent or buy decisions, buying a car or even selecting a gift.
Work examples include leading the Board of Directors toward a mutually acceptable decision based on facts rather than emotions, selecting a distribution partner, hiring staff, choosing the best possible option for growth, selecting marketing events given time and budget constraints. There are literally millions of ways to use this powerful tool.

The plain fact is that the pressure is on to make decisions rapidly in today’s market, including choosing which software and services suppliers to partner with to deliver on strategic objectives. Responsible managers want to deliver on objectives in a timely way, yet protect themselves from career jeopardy. Can they achieve both?

One approach to making the best possible decision is to use a highly logical process. The DA (Decision Analysis) methodology used and taught for 40+ years by top business process consultants world-wide is something that we have adopted and applied for many of our Clients. Yes, it’s a time proven process that even NASA uses and it involves many well-orchestrated and synchronized steps. The BoxOnline DA process is designed to avoid some of the classic pitfalls typical of the way many people make decisions today.

Here are the key steps when evaluating alternatives for a decision:

• Clearly state the decision to be made.
• Set the strategic and operational objectives.
• Classify objectives based on Client’s musts and wants.
• Weight the “wants.”
• Generate alternatives.
• Screen alternatives through the “musts.”
• Compare alternatives against the “wants.”
• Identify adverse consequences.
• Make the best, most balanced choice.

IT decision making requires additional steps:

• Decide on technology standards into which the decision fits.
• Recognize the major pitfalls typical in each step of the IT purchase process.
• Use the “relationship manager” between IT and business organizations.
• Evaluate vendors against objectives.

Setting Strategic Objectives

The decision analysis method begins with the decision statement, which provides the focus for everything that follows and sets the choice’s parameters. The criteria to be developed will follow, detailing the decision requirements. Alternatives will be evaluated according to those requirements. The decision statement always indicates a choice and its intended result, and it often implies a prior decision has been made, such as to select a services vendor for a certain operation. The decision statement sets all activities in motion, so be sure to word it carefully.

Conducting a full decision analysis for every decision you make is not very time efficient. Sometimes, just agreeing on a decision statement and objectives will give you and your team the clarity needed to make a sound decision.

Decisions must meet objectives. Once the decision statement is drafted, objectives are established. Alternatives are discussed and identified possibly only after objectives are established. The opposite of decision analysis would be a process in which the course of action is identified first; then a case is built to support it. You would not believe how many engagement offers we received just last year to help support such pre-made decisions. In those cases, decision analysis is not a process that would help move our Client’s project forward; in those cases, we use a process called PPA to protect the plan.

Objectives related to technology strategy are important for selecting software and services providers. You need to know if the company is trying to build a platform for the future or keep existing systems cobbled together. Some strategic decisions will include certain vendors and technologies, and thereby eliminate others. In essence, the guts of the technology platform should be well understood, covering strategic areas such as security, data, development frameworks, communications standards, infrastructure and available people skills. This view enables the IT manager to attain a strategic perspective.

Some common mistakes in this phase include overemphasizing cost objectives and defining requirements without Customers in mind. There is a whole class of criteria for front office people or users of the system, that will have different weights for different Customer needs. Costs must be estimated, and viewed according to whether the project is strategic (an investment is justified) or tactical in which case low cost is an important criteria in the decision process.

Many times a manager is not exposed to the real project requirements and thus, looks at the estimated price tag and says, “We can’t do that – it’s too expensive.” You might find that you are unnaturally constrained by a budgetary concern that has nothing to do with the problem you are trying to solve.

Getting back on track again:
Decision analysis divides objectives into two categories: musts and wants. Musts are the minimum requirements, not necessarily the most important. When alternatives are later evaluated against objectives, any alternative that can’t fulfill a must objective is immediately dropped.

Objectives must be measurable to screen against alternatives. In IT decisions, measurable objectives may include response time, mean time between failures, service levels and access speed.

Must objectives need to be reasonable. For example, requiring .Net programmers to have five years of experience might be unrealistic, if the .Net framework was launched less than 5 years ago. To require e-business service firms to have such experience would knock out many options. To rate vendors, IT managers need to establish their minimum requirements. This is an absolute priority.

Once must objectives are clearly defined, all other objectives are called “wants”. Wants are used to provide a picture of how alternatives compare.

A common IT pitfall is to base objectives on ‘new’ or ‘compatible technology’ when actually, the Customer’s needs may be satisfied by older technology. IT guys should not purchase products simply because they are new. Newness has to be weighted against factors such as potentially longer testing cycles.

The second largest stumbling block to decision making success is when a group responsible for making the decision begins their process with what from our perspective is a comparison of the alternatives; Thus System A may be compared to System B, or Product X to Product Y, or Hardware C to Hardware D. This comparison of one to another so early on in the decision making process launches the team into a challenge / defense mode and is clearly not a productive way to reach the best possible decision outcome.

Creating a written record of the reasons why a specific decision was made is an additional benefit of the decision analysis process. In the real world, when people are making decisions, some things are more important than others. If you can get that on the table, it really helps move things forward. This also demonstrates to people both in the decision making quorum as well as those outside (perhaps sitting on the management team or board of directors) that logic, fairness and process were used to reach a mutually agreeable conclusion that also took into account potential risks and probability of occurrence among other factors.

Try using decision analysis to determine which projects to work on. Your objectives should include the anticipated results of the project, as well as resource and other restrictions you face.

When a group is choosing between a current and proposed course of action, both are considered alternatives. Both are evaluated against the objectives as if both had been proposed. In the absence of any alternative, the group can usually build an alternative from available components.

Never get tangled up in the alternatives before you define the objectives. IT people are typically analytical, so they go for a system involving weights and scores, but that is not an end in itself. The decision meeting is about making the decision not influencing your favorite alternative with a high score. In fact, the KT method has some brilliant built-in checks and balances to ensure that the best possible group decision gets made. Use the objectives to help the team keep an open mind while working toward a viable solution and be sure to keep score.

The final step in decision analysis is to consider adverse consequences for all feasible alternatives. Once a decision has been made and implemented, any negative effects can grow into real problems. The effect of the decision always outlives the process that led to it. Before making a final decision, the group must explore and evaluate adverse consequences. When the group identifies a risk, it can plan to avoid the risk or reduce its likely effect. A risk may not be fatal, provided someone recognizes it in time to do something about it. Omitting this step is an invitation for disaster.

It can all be overwhelming: strategic objectives, alternatives, weighting, scores and implementation plans. Many IT organizations now have defined the role of “relationship manager” to bridge the gap between the IT and the operational business worlds. The decision process outlined in this article helps you figure out how to start. Since we all know that IT people come from different planets and speak different languages than their business counterparts, the clearly defined process helps them understand exactly what needs to get done on the road to making a good decision. After a few minutes of bewilderment, most people physically relax as they learn this 40 year old time proven methodology for making the best possible decisions. There is an order and a logic that helps the IT people become more like internal consultants. They are not just throwing stuff over the cubicle wall, but rather listening to their Customers and applying their knowledge to come up with viable solutions.

Here is one more tip regarding your MUST criteria. When you evaluate your MUSTs consider if you would accept something slightly more or less than described in the objective? If the answer is yes, then the objective is a want, not a must.

If you’d like some help getting started with your own decision analysis just drop us a line – we love getting results for our Clients and the DA process delivers consistently great results. It is truly a tool that you can use for the rest of your life. Go ahead, make better decisions today!

Your knowledge is worth more than you think

A few years ago an engineer I know retired after 30 years of loyal service for his employer, a large industrial company in Switzerland. After weeks of attempting to solve a problem with one of their largest and most productive machines, the company decided to bring in this retired engineer to try to solve the problem. After all, he was the best problem solver the company ever had. The engineer accepted the challenge and spent a day analyzing the large piece of equipment before making an X with his black pen on one specific component of the machine’s electronics. ‘Replace the component with the X on it and your problems are over’ said the engineer. The part was replaced and sure enough, the machine roared to life and within hours was back up to full capacity. A few days later the company received a bill from the engineer for 50,000 CHF for his consulting services. The company demanded a detailed report to justify the high cost and the engineer replied immediately with the following:
A single identification marking with black pen: CHF 1.00
Knowing exactly which component to replace: CHF 49,999.00
The problem solving engineer received full payment for his services within the month and is still comfortably retired.

A more believable story comes to us from a lady in New Jersey who says that she got a plumbers bill for $1000.00 and can’t believe it since the plumber was in her cellar for less than 5 minutes. I know this lady, so I asked her to get the plumber to present a detailed invoice. Here is what he sent her the very next day:
Dear Mrs. Smith,
Despite the fact that it was past midnight when you called me to put a stop to the loud noises in your basement, I will not charge you for interrupting my beauty rest. Here is my detailed invoice for the services performed at your home two days ago.
1. Use of hammer $0.99
2. Knowing exactly which part of the boiler to hit $999.00
Total Cost for this service call $999.99

Thanks for your business.

There was no argument – the plumber knew what he was doing and this bill was paid that same week.

Let’s look at the above from a different perspective, If you need experience something that you did not expect to experience… perhaps something with a negative outcome… and you do not know the most probable cause… and you have to solve this problem… Then call a professional. At BoxOnline, we provide our Clients with professional problem solving process in addition to experienced professionals in a variety of industries. If you have a problem that needs a solution, contact us today.

Eternal Data Preservation – is it possible?

I was making my monthly backup recently when it occurred to me that long term data storage does not yet really exist. Can you believe it? There is currently no well known technological means of digitally storing data for a few hundred years. I decided to dive in and investigate and here is what I discovered.

First of all, sorting out personal needs from corporate and governmental requirements I found out that the term ‘long term data storage’ currently refers to a period of 20 to 30 years in a ‘controlled environment’. What is a ‘controlled environment’? Well, this phrase refers to the absence of ultra violet rays (basically sunlight) and heat – both of which decrease the lifespan of current data storage media. It is hard to believe that an industry has come to the conclusion that 30 years is ‘long term’ but setting that aside, let’s address personal data storage alternatives first. There are CD-R discs and CD-RW discs available as well as DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD+RW options in most electronics stores today. If you want to store your data for a few years, do not rely on RW discs – they are suitable for temporary storage or data transfer purposes only. Technically speaking, the coating is volatile and will not last more than a few years.

Next, let’s explore the coatings used on CDs and DVDs. As I put these words onto digital paper, the most durable of the CD-R coatings is Phthalocyanine. When combined with gold reflective layers and stored in a cool, dry, dark environment, experts tell us that the data ‘should last’ up to 100 years on these discs. Reality however, is that no one has been able to confirm the manufacturer’s claims given than CD and DVD technology has only been available to the masses for the past 20 years (one fifth of the claimed lifespan). The other issue is that CD and DVD readers / writers are constantly changing and also improving by increasing data storage capacity and improving read / write tasks keeping pace with Moore’s law. Thus, the conclusion is that although you may be able (under ideal conditions) to maintain integrity of some discs for up to 100 years, the chances are good that there will not be a reader available for those discs 50 years from now. Storage is apparently one thing and data retrieval an entirely different beast.

On the corporate and government fronts, DVDs and CDs are not only too expensive to archive data but also too difficult to handle given their current capacity limitations. Tape systems have worked in these environments for decades but, tape is a medium designed for 5 to 10 years at the most before the data is no longer retrievable. The other issue is quantity or volume of data that needs to be stored for more than 20 years. Imagine the vast libraries of books that are being converted into digital format, add to this collection another library of artwork and photos that are only available digitally and quintuple that amount of data with a library of films, movies and documentaries and you quickly become overwhelmed with the task faced by people with the responsibility of preserving history for future generations to appreciate.

The facts are fairly straight forward, hard drives are mechanical and will fail in under 5 years with a probability better than 70%, top quality compact discs can last 15-20 years before the coatings, dyes or composite materials will begin to break down and disintegrate.

What can we use to preserve our digital assets for eternity before it’s too late?

One possibility, Microfiche. If this is an option, it would be a case of back to the future IMHO. The basics are that data as we know it today would be printed on the microfiche using a color laser. The Microfiche could be stored for hundreds of years in a fraction of space required by other media and, when needed, the Microfiche could be scanned back into a PC using the then current scanners which would likely be much better than today’s resolution thus delivering a technology independent method of long term data archiving.

I wonder what companies would be the first to order if such a machine were to exist?