●Dramatically reduce meeting times and project development

Each Storyboard session is as unique as the problem it is meant to solve. Please contact me for more information or to see if Storyboarding is right for you.

solutions

SolutionsMap™ is a visual, interactive core thinking technology which draws out each participant's best thinking and energy within established boundaries of fair play. It does that by:

• Increasing the potential and level of creativity
• Accelerating problem-solving and planning activities
• Ensuring all players have meaningful, equal participation
• Enabling groups to create, then own, their decisions and outcomes
• Ending with a plan for follow-up to drive outcomes into action
• Sharpening thinking, listening and participation skills of all members
• Being adaptable to virtually any setting, issue or organization

"Once you realize, become aware, that the way you are doing business today won't get you where you need to be tomorrow, then you are open to doing business in an entirely new way,"

-Dr. Frederick M. Jervis, founder,
The Center for Constructive Change®

back

Twenty-five years ago Dr. Jervis, with his wife Janis, created a new, and at the time, shocking way of looking at business. Based on his experience as a psychologist, Dr. Jervis created a planning model that requires those who use it to radically change the frameworks within which they operate.

Over the past 25 years he has worked with visionary leaders who were willing to make that change, and the results have been impressive, to say the least. Dr. Jervis and Ms. Williams have worked with a distinguished list of companies and organizations and also have conducted training workshops for leaders who wish to drive change within their organizations.

Rich Heiland, who had been designing, facilitating and training with organizations around storyboards as a visual planning tool, attended one of Dr. Jervis's workshops and felt that a piece of the Center's approach could be adapted for storyboarding.

What has emerged is a step in the SolutionsMap™ model that incorporates "BackPlanning." It is most useful in projects which have a longer-than-normal duration, though the concept applies to any project.

BackPlanning requires a group or team to "begin with the end in mind," to seek to define its outcomes, then work back from them to create a project plan. The storyboarding model allows the group to arrive at its ultimate purpose, while the BackPlanning step gives it a way to carefully configure its work over a period of time.

The SolutionsMap™ "Key Next Steps" phase then allows a group to look at immediate tasks to move into the longer-range plan.

conflict

Conflict Resolution Through Storyboards (CRTS)™

Q    What is conflict resolution through storyboards?

A     Conflict Resolution Through Storyboards (CRTS) is a process developed by RHScott Associates, LLC to help groups work through conflict. It is based on a merging of two-party dispute resolution/mediation techniques and organizational conflict resolution.

Q     Why do groups need a process for resolving issues?

A   "The damage done to people and teams because of unresolved conflict is incalculable, and often avoidable. We want to help groups function in a healthy fashion!"

Q     Where are its roots?

A     Our group process traces its roots directly to mediation techniques developed by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Society of Friends (Quaker). The Quakers, as pacifists, developed mediation techniques during the 1800s that have been built on and are in use today. Some of the most effective mediation training in the world is offered by Quakers. Other organizations have adopted many of the Quaker principles, including Woodbury College in Montpelier, Vermont, which offers a one-year accredited program in mediation in addition to 3- and 4-day workshops in mediation and conflict resolution. Rich Heiland, a principal in RHScott Associates, is a Quaker and was raised in the Quaker environment of consensus and mediation. He is a trained storyboard designer, facilitator and trainer and has undergone mediation/conflict resolution training at Woodbury College.

Q     How does CRTS work?

A     Storyboards are a visual tool, 4X4 boards on which information is collected. Ideas, positions, solutions are captured on cardstock and pinned to the boards. Participants in storyboard sessions can generate ideas quickly and always have them in view, unlike flipcharting or table-topping. And, unlike other processes, the cards can be moved and merged, or taken down.

While many times it is wise to have an outside, neutral facilitator, a group member can guide this process if he/she has strong talents around neutral behavior and has the respect of all group members

Note: Training in CRTS does not make one a fully trained mediator or conflict resolution specialist. It does allow you to process conflict that comes up normally in the course of work where intense, personal disputes are not at issue. For those areas we suggest further training or hiring a trained specialist.

Today in business the focus is on teams. We are constantly moving people in and out of group settings, often under high pressure, either from the critical nature of their work or deadlines. Or, in most cases, both. Unfortunately, we rarely equip those teams or work groups to deal with what is inevitable - disagreement and conflict. Disagreement and conflict are a part of a culture of change; they are a part of moving ahead; they are a part of work. They become negative only when team members as individuals, and collectively, do not understand them and have a process in place to deal with them by de-personalizing them.   - Rich Heiland, RHScott Associates, LLC.

power

"A project is a problem scheduled for solution" -J.M. Juran

Each year we work with more and more organizations around planning, problem identification and other issues. Yet, we are finding more and more that after our initial planning work is done, they report back that projects stall, are overcome by "brush fires" or higher priorities and, in general, don't survive to the planned, agreed outcomes.

We realize now that when we work with an organization through our storyboard process to create projects, we actually do them a disservice when we do not help ensure they reach agreed-upon outcomes! So, we have created a simple, team-oriented Project Management component we can design and facilitate for your organization on an ongoing basis.

PowerProjects™ is not a complex project management system filled with formula and driven by software. But, it adds to their power as a logical extension of the Solutions Map™, used initially to define outcomes, work through to the solutions and do basic planning. You can use an extension of that very visual, storyboard-based process for day-to-day project management. Your team can define control gates, key checkpoints, identify-respond to unanticipated problems, adjust work, stay on deadline and task with more speed and clarity than you ever imagined. It is our strong belief that teams that use this process will move from planning to successful implementation