As a refresher, here is the completed Goal Tree.
Using the Goal Tree as an
Assessment Tool
Bright and early the next morning, the executive team began
filing into their conference room, full of anticipation on just what they would
do with their completed Goal Tree. The
CEO hadn’t given them any instructions on how to prepare for today’s work, so
they were all eager to have the events of the day unfold. When everyone was seated, the CEO welcomed
them and offered his congratulations again on the great job they had done the
day before. “Good morning everyone,” he
said as everyone responded with a “good morning” back to him. As he scanned the room, he noticed that there
was one person missing, the Junior Accountant.
When he asked the CFO where she was, he explained that she was working
on the monthly report and wouldn’t be joining them today. The CEO looked the CFO square in his eyes and
told him that nothing was more important than what they were going to do
today. “Go get her!” he stated
emphatically. The CFO left and returned
minutes later with the Junior Accountant and the CEO welcomed her. He then said, “We created this as a complete
team and we’re going to finish it as a complete team.”
The CEO explained, “When the Goal Tree was originally
created by [2] Bill Dettmer, it was to be used as a precursor to the creation
of a Current Reality Tree (CRT). That
is, he used it as the first logic tree in TOC’s Thinking Processes to help
create the CRT.” He continued, “And
although I fully support this approach, I have found a way to use it to
accelerate the development of an improvement plan.” The CEO passed out copies of the completed
Goal Tree and began.
“I
want everyone to study our logic tree, focusing on the lower level NC’s first,”
he explained. “As we look at these NC’s,
I want everyone to think about how we are doing with each of these,” he
continued. “By that I mean, is what we
said needed to satisfy a CSF or upper level NC, in place and functioning as it
should be.” “We’re going to use a
color-code scheme to actually evaluate where we stand on each one,” he
said. “If you believe that what we have
in place is good and that it doesn’t need to be improved, I want you to color
it green. Likewise, if we have something
in place, but it needs to be improved, color it yellow. And finally, if each NC is either not in
place or is not “working” in its current configuration, color it red,” he
explained. “Does everyone understand?”
he asked, and everyone nodded in agreement.
“It’s important that we do this honestly so be truthful or this exercise
will all be for not."
The CFO raised his hand and asked, “How will we use our
color-coded tree?” “Good question,” said
the CEO. Once we have reviewed our Goal,
CSF’s and NC’s we will start with the red entities first and develop plans to
turn them into either yellows or greens.
Likewise, we’ll then look at the yellows and develop plans to turn them
into green ones,” he explained. As he
was explaining his method the CEO could see heads nodding in the affirmative
meaning that everyone understood his instructions. With that, the CEO passed out green, yellow
and red pencils. “I want everyone to do
this individually first and then we’ll discuss each one openly until we arrive
at a consensus,” he explained. “While
you’re considering the state of each entity, I also want everyone to also think
about a way we can measure the status of many of these in the future,” he
said. “I’ll be back in a couple of
hours, so please feel free to discuss your color selections as a group,” he
added. With the instructions complete, the team began reviewing their Goal Tree
and applying the appropriate colors to each entity.
Right
on schedule, the CEO returned and asked how the session was coming. The Plant Manager spoke first, “I was amazed
at how much disagreement we had initially, but after we discussed each item, we
eventually came to an agreement on how we believe we’re doing.” The CFO jumped into the conversation and
added, “I was amazed at how we came together as a team just by creating our
Goal Tree.” “I have to admit that when
you told me to go get our Junior Accountant, I was a bit taken back. But at the end of the day, she was a very
important addition to this team,” he added.
And with that, the Junior Accountant was somewhat embarrassed, but
thanked the CFO for recognizing her contribution to the effort.
“So,
where is it?” asked the CEO. “Where is your finished product….your Goal Tree?”
The CFO went to the flip chart and there it was. The CEO then asked, “Did you
also discuss what kind of metrics we might use to measure how we’re doing?” “Yes, we did,” said the CFO. “And?” the CEO asked. “We need to do more work on that,” he
answered. “So, what’s next?” asked the
CFO. After studying the finished
product, the CEO thanked everyone for their effort and then said, “Let’s take a
break and come back later and I’ll explain how we can use this tree to develop
our final improvement plan,” said the CEO.
The
team reassembled later that day to discuss their next steps. Everyone seemed enthusiastic about what they
would be doing going forward. When
everyone was seated, the CEO turned to the group and asked, “So how does
everyone feel about this process so far?”
The Plant Manager was the first to respond, “I can’t speak for anyone
else, but the development of the Goal Tree was a real eye-opener for me. I never imagined that we could have analyzed
our organization so thoroughly in such a short amount of time. I mean think about it, when you add up the
total amount of time we’ve spent so far, it’s not even been a full day’s
work!” As he spoke, everyone was nodding
their heads in agreement.
The
CFO was next to speak and said, “I can absolutely see the benefit from using
this tool and one of the things that impressed me the most is that everyone
contributed. But what really captivated me is that for the first time since I
started working here, we actually are looking at the system rather than
isolated parts of it. One of the things
that I will take away from this is that the total sum of the localized
improvements does not necessarily result in an improvement to the system. The Goal Tree forces us to look at and
analyze all of the components of our organization as one entity.” The figure below is their Goal Tree after
completing their assessment on how each entity was functioning.
In my next post we will complete our discussion on how to use the completed Goal Tree to create an improvement plan.
Bob Sproull
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