Dealing with Half-Backed Ideas

Plenty of situations where you, or others, might have an idea. The idea sounds okay or even great, but ...there is a but. The idea is not 'perfect'. The idea has some serious negatives as well. Result: some people try to chop the idea down, some are resisting the chopping.

Oded Cohen of the Goldratt Institute in the UK developed years ago a very practical approach to deal with these kind of situations. This approach is now known as the NBr or Negative Branch.
The NBr is part of what is known as the MSW (Management Skills Workshop). A subset of the Thinking Processes of the Theory of Constraints.

The NBr is a process in two phases that is simple, organic and very effective. The two phases are:

1. Construction of the NBr
2. Trimming the NBr

The best way is to use post-its.

A short video on how to read an NBr

The basic steps for phase 1, the construction of the NBr, are:

Note: Some of the items put aside will be used in a 'because'. Some of them will not be used for different reasons.

That's all and now you have a pretty good NBr on the idea that is not only verbalizing clearly why some oppose the idea, it is also easy to communicate.

The next phase is finding where the best place is to trim the NBr; the place to look for some additional ideas to prevent the negatives from coming into place.



The basic steps for phase 2, finding a pivot point in the NBr, are:

Why the NBr works so well
The NBr isn't a guarantee a solution will be found. What the NBr as a process does is to ensure a proper and shared understanding is created. Further more, it moved the focus of the discussion towards were the energy is needed. The point were a solution must be found for the idea to work without the negatives.

A very smart way of slowly but steadily changing the perception of both the idea generator and the one(s) who see negative ramifications on the idea. A very novel way to help people think out-of-the-box.