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AGILE METHODS FOR NEW WORK

Complex challenges are best solved with simple, modern and efficient methods such as Scrum, Effectuation or Design Thinking. They are becoming increasingly popular in the professional world. And rightly so – because they work: they get teams and employees moving and ideas moving forward. And they break down entrenched structures to make room for something new. For more success, more cohesion and more job satisfaction. All consumables that you use in workshops with New Work methods in our Seminaris Hotels are of course on us!

Design Thinking – New Work Method

Design Thinking is a process for promoting creative ideas. The method is often used to generate product, service and process innovations – in other words, novel ideas that do not yet exist on the market. The method is consistently oriented toward users. In contrast to the name, Design Thinking focuses on the function rather than the appearance of the product. First, the needs of the users are determined and ultimately a product is created that satisfies these very needs in the best possible way. The process consists of repetitive loops, so that one’s own findings can be continuously scrutinized and improved. An important aspect is working in interdisciplinary teams in order to incorporate different perspectives.

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Target group: teams, managers

Areas of application: Bringing forth product, service and process innovations, corporate think tanks, strategy development.

Participants: 5-6 people per group
Duration: in quick format as a design sprint about one week, a full process takes several months

Material: Prototyping material
Network: Trainer

Details:
• The Design Thinking process goes through 6 steps: understanding, observing, point-of-view, ideating, prototyping, and refining.
• At any time, you can return to a previous stage to directly adapt newly gained insights.
• The end result is a product that is fully aligned with customer needs.


Effectuation – New Work Method

With Effectuation, you go through six phases in which ideas are generated, but also discarded. This makes product development and idea generation much more dynamic and efficient. The traditional way to create new business models is to define goals, raise resources, create a business plan and implement it. With Effectuation, it’s different: First, resources and contacts are verified and from there business ideas are derived, then implemented and verified.

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Target audience: business consultants, teams, executives, HR managers, new work ambassadors, trainers and coaches.

Areas of application: Entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, focus on entrepreneurial thinking and action, transformation, innovation management, product launch.

Participants: 10 – 15 people
Duration: 30 minutes

Material: Effectuation process method
Network: Trainer

Details:
• In Effectuation, super entrepreneurs build a great venture in a dynamic process and with 4 action guiding principles (Means Orientation, Affordable Loss, Circumstances and Coincidences, Agreements and Partnerships) by focusing on the available means.
• As a result, new action steps are created, new partnerships are forged, and new means and goals are developed in joint agreements.


Lego© Serious Play© – New Work Method

With Lego© Serious Play© we rediscover our imagination and bring innovation to the professional world with the help of bricks. When we were kids, we put brick on brick to understand the world. Today we can rediscover the power of this game and use it to work in the company with Lego© Serious Play©, revitalizing, stimulating and strengthening our imagination and innovation. The method offers solutions, promotes communication and is a lot of fun.

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Target group: Teams, executives, human resource managers, trainers and coaches

Areas of application: Strategic workshops for presenting problems and solutions, strategy and vision development, company mergers, personnel and team problems, product development, innovation management

Participants: 15 – 20 people per group
Duration: 1 day

Material: Lego© Serious Play©
Network: Facilitator

Details:
• Lego© Serious Play© is based on psychological principles in which processes such as thoughts, experiences and structures are visualized in three-dimensional models by responding to a question with a construction made of building blocks.
• During the building process, the question is dealt with more intensively and the part of the brain responsible for abstract thinking and creativity is activated, whereby new approaches to solutions or even entire concepts are developed.
• The process is always the same and is called the “four step principle”: Ask a question, let it build, share stories, reflect on results.

Fishbowl – New Work Method

In discussions with more than 20 people, it is almost impossible to get a word in edgewise. The Fishbowl is like a goldfish bowl around which the participants sit in a circle and discuss. It is a great alternative to conventional panel discussions and can be made even more active if there is an exchange between the inner and outer circle afterwards. A defined group of observers gives final feedback on the behavior and the impact.

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Objectives: brainstorming, exchange of ideas, input, knowledge transfer

Participants: inner circle (fishbowl) 2 – 5 persons, in the outer circle up to several hundred participants
Duration: about 30 to 60 minutes per topic

Details:
• A central inner circle (fishbowl) and outer circles concentrated around it.
• A space remains free in the fishbowl for spontaneous participation.
• The format ensures a lively and, above all, free discussion; all debaters meet at eye level.
• Discussions that arise in smaller groups are conducted in an open circle of chairs.


Pecha Kucha – New Work Method

20 slides with 20 seconds of presentation per slide. This is exactly Pecha Kucha, also known as Ignite format. Here, the slides are precisely timed with a timer. Imparting knowledge in record time, focusing on the essentials and ensuring that speakers get complete attention.

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Objective: concentrated information transfer with focus on the essentials

Participants: one person at a time, no limit to the total number of participants
Duration: approx. 3 – 5 minutes speaking time

Material: Laptop with presentation software

Details:
• Pecha Kucha (also known as Ignite) is characterized by its content transfer reduced to the essentials in the form of a lecture in a strictly limited speaking time.
• Ideas and insights on a topic are presented, whereby the speaker is allowed to present to a maximum of 20 slides in 20 seconds each.
• The slides have a pre-set timer.


Debate as New Work Method

Working out different positions clearly, developing and exchanging arguments – arriving at one’s own opinion and accepting that of the other. A pro-and-con debate represents a controlled exchange of previously developed arguments.

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Objectives: To gain new perspectives, to loosen up deadlocked issues.

Participants: 6 – 16 people per group, min. 3 groups
Duration: 60 – 90 minutes

Material: min. 2 meeting rooms

Details:
• Debate is a pro-con debate that can be used as both a format and a method.
• Conflicting topics are re-examined from all sides. It is not the better arguments that count, but how multi-faceted the topic has been re-worked.
• There is one group for the pro-arguments and one for the con-arguments, both of which deal with the topics accordingly, as well as a jury or observer group.
• Participants of the pro- and contra-group inform themselves about the topic, work out arguments and distribute them among the members of the group. The jury draws up an observation sheet, which should include criteria such as facial expressions in addition to the persuasiveness of the arguments.
• In the first round, both sides now take turns to present one argument each; the opposing side takes notes, but is not yet allowed to react to the arguments of the other side.
• The groups confer about their argumentation with regard to the arguments of the opposing side.
• In the second round, direct opponents sit across from each other and respond to the opponents’ arguments, trying to refute them.
• The jury gives feedback based on the observation sheet.
• Finally, they discuss together which arguments were still missing and whether the arguments of the opposing side were addressed.


Elevator Pitch as New Work Method

Presentation of ideas with the length of an elevator ride – maximum three minutes. The Elevator Pitch is an entertaining intermediate format in the context of conferences and networking events. The effort is minimal and briefing the participants requires little time.

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Objective: information transfer

Participants: no limit to the total number of participants
Duration: one elevator pitch, 3 minutes max.

Details:
• The Elevator Pitch is characterized by how convincingly and quickly the speaker can win over the audience.
• The speaker can use classic W-questions (Who? What? For whom? How?) or the AIDA formula (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action).
• Sentences should be short and simple, no subjunctive should be used, and comparative examples must be easy to remember.
• Pitches are particularly popular at start-up conferences or networking events.


Lean Startup as New Work Method

Lean Startup is usually based on the Design Thinking method. With Lean Startup, you create the final product from your prototypes. The goal is not to plan a very long period of time for this, but rather to create a satisfactory beta version of the product that you can bring directly to market. The feedback of the customers is crucial, it flows into the further development of the final product.

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Target audience: business consultants, teams, executives, trainers and coaches.

Areas of application: Product development, development of a company’s business model

Participants: 4 – 7 people
Duration: 2 days

Material: Prototyping material, whiteboards, flipcharts, metaplan boards, pens and sticky notes
Network: Trainer

Details:
• Lean Startup is a quick and inexpensive way to find out if a new product will work in the market.
• This involves developing the business model in 3 steps: Agile Development (developing a product with very short development times and direct customer feedback), Customer Development (developing an understanding of the customer), Business Model Canvas (mapping out, analyzing and developing the business model).


Scrum as New Work Method

Scrum as a New Work method is used when it comes to the further development of an existing product and a business model. The teams involved are set up in such an interdisciplinary way that a final product is created within the shortest possible time. The teams are divided into Product Owner, Scrum Master and the development team. They all exchange ideas permanently, test, reject, test again – and decide on the further development steps.

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Target group: teams, managers, trainers and coaches.

Areas of application: Project management, development of software and hardware, networks of interacting functions and autonomous vehicles, organizational management.

Participants: 3 – 9 people
Duration: Several sprints (1 week to max. 1 month each), Scrum meetings 1 day

Material: Prototyping material, whiteboards, flipcharts, metaplan boards, pens and sticky notes
Network: Trainer

Details:
• The Scrum Team consists of a Product Owner, the Development Team and a Scrum Master who organize themselves and work in an interdisciplinary way to stay flexible, creative and productive.
• The Product Owner is responsible for adding value and product backlogs to the product from the development team.
• The development team creates a functional product in each sprint.
• The Scrum Master encourages and supports the team and acts as a mediator to force team building.


Blended Learning as New Work Method

Blended learning is a hybrid method in which different methods and media are mixed together. This is often done by combining classroom training and e-learning courses. At the beginning, there is often a face-to-face event in which a collaborative getting to know each other takes place and the goals as well as the approach are defined. Through web-based training outside of the classroom, participants can bring themselves up to a uniform level of knowledge and work in a much more disciplined and flexible manner. Blended learning is already used at many modern universities and in large companies.

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Target group: teams, managers, human resources managers, trainers and coaches

Areas of application: Leadership development programs, sales training, digitalization of training.

Participants: 10 – 25 people
Duration: depending on the training objective (face-to-face effect in front of the camera, trainer, train the trainer) 1 – 14 days

Material: blended learning, online method case
Network: Trainers

Details:
• In blended learning, a sustainable transfer of learning takes place, with learners being picked up at their individual knowledge level through appropriate methods, tools and building blocks.
• Through classroom sessions alternating with self-learning phases and an exchange, the learner is actively challenged in the long term.


OKR – Objectives and Key-Results as Method in a   New Work context

The OKR management method became very well known, especially through Google, because it is considered the Internet giant’s recipe for success. OKR helps companies to focus on the right things, provides better orientation and thus makes employees more satisfied. The abbreviation stands for “Objectives and Key Results”. Objectives are the goals and key results are the key results. The central idea behind OKR is that a company, individual departments or employees set themselves five goals for each quarter, each with four key results.

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Target audience: start-ups, scale-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises.

Areas of application: Target agreements, corporate goals

Participants: at least 2 people
Duration: varies, as it depends on the size of the teams

Material: OKR Template

Details:
• The basis for this is the corporate vision, from which different missions can then emerge in the teams.
• The Objectives represent concrete goals that are defined in the teams. The core results, Key Results, describe how the individual goals can be achieved.
• The advantage of this method is that the objectives can be quickly adapted to market conditions and they do not extend over an entire year. In addition, they offer a high level of transparency and focus on the important things in the company.


Theory U as New Work Method

Theory U, developed by C. Otto Scharmer, is a method for sustainable change in business and action. The main point is the realization that one’s own actions have the greatest influence on one’s inner attitude and view of the future. In order to bring about the view of companies and changes, the transformation process runs along the U-shape, the results of which are followed by corresponding action measures.

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Target group: executives, management, human resource managers, trainers, consultants.

Areas of application: Organizational development, reorientation, innovation, mindset and processes.

Participants: at least 1 person
Duration: at least 2 months

Material: Theory U Framework

Details:
• There are seven cognition spaces: downloading (patterns from the past), looking (letting go of a preconception), sensing (looking at a situation), becoming present (connecting with the inner place for the future, place of stillness), condensing (becoming aware of vision and intention, which emerge from the source place), testing the prototype, applying the new practically and embodying it with the organization.
• In order to reach the deeper spaces of cognition, thresholds have to be crossed. On the way down into the U things are let go, on the way up new thresholds appear. In this process, the turn in the U is the moment when one pauses in relation to habits and routines and when new attitudes emerge.
• According to Scharmer, three actions are essential to introduce the people and organizations involved into the U: Opening of thinking (intellectual and analytical skills), opening of feeling (emotional thinking and feeling), and opening of will (letting go of the old ego).

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