The Challenge
The blind men and the elephant
There is an ancient parable, the origins of which are unknown, but it has been around since at least 500 BC, where it appeared in Buddhist texts. There are numerous variations of the story but the essence is:
A group of blind men are inspecting an elephant.
They are all without any prior knowledge of the animal.
Each man inspects the elephant from where they stand.
For the man who felt the trunk, an elephant was like a thick snake.
For the man who felt the ear, it seemed like a kind of fan.
For the man who felt its leg, it was a pillar like a tree-trunk.
For the man who felt its side, it was like a wall.
For the man who felt the tail, it was like a rope.
For the man who felt the tusk, it was hard, smooth and like a spear.
Later, the men discuss their experience and each concludes that the others are either delusional, liars, or did not experience an elephant.
We are all blind and our world is an elephant
Even with all five senses intact and a good night’s sleep, we miss things and we draw illogical conclusions.
Our brains hide things from us - we can look directly at something and literally not see it. There’s a famous study where people genuinely did not see a man in a gorilla suit passing directly in front of them.
Our brains can be certain and wrong - We can listen to our favorite song over and over again, singing along at the top of our lungs, and have the words wrong.
Our brains are irrational - We will bid higher for an entire auction if the first item auctioned is very expensive. Waiting in a long line for 20 minutes doesn’t bother us, but waiting in a short line for 20 minutes is annoying. We’ll leave an office supply store to go elsewhere and purchase a pen for $2 less, but we will not leave a suit store to go elsewhere to buy a suit for $2 less.
Our brains are jumpy - We’ll respond to stimuli before we even know for sure what it is. We go into fight/flight/freeze the moment the bushes rustle, because it could be a tiger. We are on the defensive as soon as our boss opens their mouth, because it could be a criticism.
We are all engaged in battle
Most of the situations we face in business and software product creation are not as simple as recognizing an elephant. But like the parable, we each have a unique perspective made up of what we are able to observe, what we believe to be true, conclusions we’ve drawn, and decisions we’ve made. We’re all right to some degree. And we’re all wrong to some degree.
In a typical discussion, each participant shares what they see from their perspective. For some, the primary goal is to get others to understand - to get them to see the “truth” according to our filtered, misinformed, irrational, and jumpy reasoning. For some, the primary goal is to listen to the perspectives of others in order to understand. For some, the primary goal is to have rich debate, regardless of outcome. But the primary structure we use for dialogue is designed like a battle - attack, defend, counterattack, defend, etc.
There are usually a lot of points and counterpoints. The entire process is easily influenced by things such as hierarchy, tenacity, conviction, rhetoric, and eloquence. None of these things make a perspective more or less true, but they definitely influence whether or not a perspective is given more or less credence.
Parallel Thinking
Parallel Thinking seeks to reduce the influence of things such as hierarchy and rhetoric. Parallel Thinking encourages everyone to see the subject from the same perspective at the same time - building a shared view over contrasting different views.
Perspectives
With Parallel Thinking we look at any given topic from five different perspectives:
Feelings and Intuition
Facts and Data
Benefits and Opportunities
Detriments and Risks
Creativity
Feelings and Intuition
Here participants can share how they feel about a given situation. The idea is to be able to express your feelings. This often helps folks get past an emotional block and participate more fully.
I ask that folks give one word answers. No justifications. No explanations. We want to capture the mood of the group, but we want to avoid building a case for our feelings. We’ll have opportunities to share why we feel how we do when we get into the other perspectives.
Facts and Data
Here we are gathering neutral and objective information. Facts and figures.
Participants are encouraged to share what they know as well as what they would like to know. Again, staying focused on facts and data.
We want to know if we have the data necessary to make a good decision. Facts and data should be free from judgment. They are neither good nor bad. They just are.
A statement like, “Our NPS has dropped from 50 to -10 in the last quarter”, is fine. These are the facts; what measurement has moved from what value to what value over what time period.
Statements like, “Our NPS is plummeting”, or, “Our NPS has dropped from 50 to -10 in the last quarter and we are in big trouble” are not fine. They include more than facts - they include judgment.
Benefits and Opportunities
Here we are gathering input on how this benefits us or how it might benefit us. What is good about this or could be good about it?
Refrain from building a case. Keep answers short and succinct. We are not trying to convince anyone. We are sharing our perspective.
Detriments and Risks
Here we are gathering input on how this harms us or how it might harm us. What is detrimental about this or could be detrimental about it?
Refrain from building a case. Keep answers short and succinct. We are not trying to convince anyone. We are sharing our perspective.
Creativity
This is the generative portion of the session where we collectively try to imagine better options. All suggestions are welcome.
People are encouraged to identify the benefit or detriment their suggestion addresses. Keep answers relatively short and succinct. We are not selling our solutions, we are brainstorming and gathering ideas.
Mechanics
The Facilitator
Parallel thinking sessions are usually facilitated by an independent third party. For small items, such as where we should go for lunch, a simple impromptu session could be facilitated by a member of the dining party. For larger items, such as what is our product focus for the next few months, an independent facilitator will help to ensure a fair and balanced process.
Opening the Session
Start the session with a brief overview of the decision the group is trying to make. Remember that the objective is to get to a decision or at least a set of next steps.
Cover the basic mechanics:
The group will be moving from perspective to perspective
The perspectives are
Feelings
Facts
Opportunities
Risks
Creativity
Stay focused on the current perspective
Keep answers short, succinct, and relevant to the perspective
Refrain from formulating arguments
We are not here to make a point or to win an argument
The goal is to first create a shared perspective and then generate possibilities
Gathering Perspectives
I usually use one of two sequences.
For an emotionally charged topic
Emotions => Facts => Opportunities => Risks => Ad-Hoc => Creativity
For a non-emotionally charged topic
Facts => Opportunities => Risks => Emotions => Ad-Hoc => Creativity
I find with an emotionally charged topic, it helps to allow people to express their feelings right away. This can serve as something of a pressure release and allow them to focus on the exercise at hand.
For topics that are less emotionally charged, I tend to dive right into fact gathering and do an emotional check-in before we enter the ad-hoc phase.
The sequence of “Facts => Opportunities => Risks” is intentional.
Facts
I open with facts for two reasons - it gives people practice with short and succinct statements and it allows us to figure out early on if we lack the data necessary to make a decision. If the team identifies they are missing critical data, it might be a good time to end the session and reconvene when the data is available.
Opportunities
I follow facts with opportunities because I’ve found that if risks come before opportunities, then we end up with a rich set of risks and few opportunities. Humans (in general) are fundamentally conditioned for risk avoidance. We are better at critique than praise. And when faced with a large list of risks, it is a lot more difficult for us to generate a list of opportunities. Continue to enforce short and succinct without justification.
Risks
Risks is usually the easiest to gather. It is also the perspective where people are most tempted to make their case. Continue to enforce short and succinct without justification.
Ad-Hoc
In the Ad-Hoc phase, the facilitator revisits the perspectives to see what else might have come up for people. You may have noticed someone holding back at some point. You may have had to cut someone off when they tried to counterpoint something someone else said. You might ask them if there is a perspective they’d like to revisit. You may visit each perspective again in sequence and ask questions like, “What is missing?” or “What would [stakeholder|customer] add here?”
The goal of this phase is to make sure the participants feel the perspectives are sufficiently complete to move on to creativity.
Creativity
I run creativity in three stages - Reduce, Vote, and Brainstorm.
Reduce
In the reduce phase, I focus on Opportunities and Risks. For each perspective, I ask the team to work together to eliminate duplicates. I ask them to look for items that they agree are the same thing. It is okay if there aren’t any. I do not want items affinity mapped or grouped into buckets. Simply find duplicates and consolidate them.
Vote
Now that we have unique Opportunities and Risks, I ask the team to dot vote each. I usually give them three votes for Opportunities and three votes for Risks. Use your own discretion. The objective is to get a list of key Opportunities and Risks - the ones we are going to focus on.
Brainstorm
We now have facts along with our key opportunities and risks.
I prompt the group with, “Given the facts as we know them, what might we do to amplify the key benefits while reducing the key risks?”
Have the group generate suggestions. Suggestions should be short and succinct. Suggestions should be relevant to the meeting topic. A meeting focused on our product strategy for the quarter isn’t the forum for suggestions on hybrid work arrangements or the brand of office coffee.
Once the ideas are gathered, see if there are any that make sense to combine into a single suggestion.
Making the decision
There are a number of ways a decision can be made once the ideas are generated. I cannot cover them all here, but there are some things to consider.
If you’ve run a collaboration contract, it is a good idea to have only the decision maker(s) select from the ideas.
If it is a group decision, consider voting before opening the floor to discussion. Vote first helps to avoid anchoring around the first opinion expressed or the highest ranking opinion holder.
On occasion, you may want to run another lightweight parallel thinking exercise on the selected idea. It can be helpful for the group to think through facts, risks, and benefits with this new idea as a stress test.
Related Materials
Reading on Parallel Thinking - https://www.debonogroup.com/services/core-programs/lateral-thinking/parallel-thinking/ - From Edward DeBono himself
Six Thinking Hats - https://www.debonogroup.com/services/core-programs/six-thinking-hats/ - Resources from The DeBono Group
Six Thinking Hats - https://www.amazon.com/Six-Thinking-Hats-Edward-Bono/dp/0316178314 - Book
Parallel Thinking - https://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/03/26/six-thinking-hats/ - Atomic Object