I gave an introductory seminar on thinking, an introduction to de Bono's CoRT methodology. The object of doing so is usually to get people to start using the techniques in their daily lives - preferably after the seminar. However, one bright spark immediately came up with a suggestion that I felt was worthy of stealing - using an OPV in a project kick-off meeting.
"What is an OPV?" I hear you ask, because you know nothing about de Bono's work. Simply put, it's applying a focus of Other People's Views to the problem at hand. That is, think of things from the viewpoint of someone else, rather than limiting your thinking to your own perspective. In the kick-off meeting, with all of the project team gathered for the first time, everyone has to work out, collectively, each person's priorities & expectations.
This is not just an interesting intellectual exercise, this is a fantastic approach to getting the project off on the right foot. If the client or their liaison doesn't hear that the project team understands them, then they will assume that they are already understood, & blithely go away until the delivery, when they get upset at just how wrong everyone's interpretation was. Similarly, if the technical solution & functional priorities aren't understood (correctly), then the project will very quickly go off the rails (& this may not be noticed early enough).
Here's the approach. The client (or representative) sits back & listens while everyone tries to see the project from their perspective - outcomes, priorities, deliverables, cost, etc. The client then gets the chance to clarify - not correct - the possible misunderstandings. It has to be done right there in front of everyone, & it has to be documented, as each point of difference is effectively a point of interpretation in the project scope that was not obvious. That is, it depended on someone's perspective.
This process then goes on through the other key perspectives - project manager, analyst, solution architect, developer, deployer, tester, documenter. As a final check, you can simply each take a role & feed back to the group that person's perspective as understood after clarification. This is now an approach with its own level of quality, review, etc, that starts the project off with as much accuracy as is conceivable. What happens after everything gets underway is another problem.
This can also be done in post-mortem - each person's perspective on the success of the project needs to be understood & communicated. It makes sense for everyone to get that understanding through putting themselves in other people's shoes.
Through time, the habit of using OPV will cover the whole project, & every decision made will automatically make reference to a broader perspective than simply one person's - even without needing to refer to everyone. This is more efficient, & more effective from a management perspective, & more efficacious from a project perspective, leading to a higher likelihood of project success & fewer surprises.
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