How to prioritize your group’s ideas and move toward action.

The process Business Navigators uses for issue prioritization is “Prioritization by Horse Race”

We work with storyboards. Participants print their issues on 3”X5” cards. All of the issues are pinned to the bottom of a 4’X4’ storyboard. Every issue is open to discussion. The person who created the issue card can choose to lobby the group about why he or she thinks the issue is important. After the discussion is completed, we begin the ’Horse Race’. Each member votes for the issue they think is the most important. Often we way “Vote for the issue you believe, if we worked on it, would have the most positive benefit to our company.

A card is advanced 3 inches up the board each time someone votes for a card. It’s like looking down at a racetrack for directly above and the cards are horses racing to the top of the board

We select the three issues that receive the most votes for further activity. We table the remaining issues until the next meeting.

A team member volunteers to own a card and become the captain of a team. The team meets, contributing ideas for solutions, submitting their suggestions to management and reporting on the current status of the card at the next monthly meetings’

The status information is recorded on a task card, which included start date card owner, group, issues descd5iption and next review date. Review of reverse-flow cards, including status and action, occurs monthly in between meetings, task cards are posted on the ‘Course Corrections Board’ where all employees can read and review them. If they have any questions or input they can talk to the”Owner of the card”.

There are four elements to offering suggestions for improvement. When these elements are included in each submission, it allows the decision-maker to do his or her job make a decision!

Next: The four critical elements.

The last Three of Six principles for successful Reverse-Flow meetings

4. The meeting should have a format and a facilitator

A simple format gently followed can have a positive effect on the productivity of any meeting. The key is to select a person with everyone’s agreement, to facilitate the meeting.

The facilitator is the leader in helping the group stay on task. While holding to the agenda is critical, the real give a facilitator can make is in insuring the contribution of members follows the discussion direction. Meetings become quickly unproductive when participants begin to take side trips to their favorite topic, when in fact that topic is not up for discussion.

5. Individual team members should own improvement points.

Accountability is more than a buzzword. It is a major key to success. An improvement meeting should result in clear decisions or objectives. The question “Just what did we accomplish at the meeting? “should be easily and clearly answerable.

After the prioritization of issues, participants should have to own the issue.  With ownership employees accept the responsibility for ensuring that everyone follows the process.

At subsequent meetings, these “owners” can report on what was accomplished and when they would like to an updated status report.

6. Accountability should be clearly understood and publicly noted.

The rules of the game must be clearly understood and followed, regardless of how you structure your improvement program. Business Navigators recommends the use of a Course Correction Communication Board to accomplish this goal.

Pinned to this 4’ x 5’ board are task cards. On each task card is the name of the issue owner with an indication of the current status of the issue. Indicate whether something changed for the better or someone is still working on it. Also, post the rules of the improvement program along with meeting times and locations.

Those in the company who are interested in what is happening have only to go the public board.

Next: How to Prioritize your employees’ ideas