Wonful ran a workshop for the State of Washington's Department of Retirement Services on using Liberating Structures to brainstorm, work as groups, and make meetings suck less!

1. Liberating Structures
DRS Immersion Workshop
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2. Drawing Together
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3. Circle: Completeness
Triangle: Goal
Rectangle: Support or structure
Spiral: Change or chaos
Star Person: People or relationships
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Use the 5 symbols to
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draw the story of your
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personal Lean journey.

5. Circle: Completeness
Triangle: Goal
Rectangle: Support or structure
Spiral: Change or chaos
Star Person: People or relationships
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6. Find another person you do not
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know well
1. Invite them to interpret your
drawing
2. Tell the actual story
3. Switch roles

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AGENDA

8. Liberating Structures
Developed by Keith McCandless +
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Henri Lipmanowicz

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Liberating Structures
Inspired by the science of
complex adaptive systems

10. Liberating Structures
Made available through Creative
Commons License = free to use,
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remix, change

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Liberating Structures
This is NOT a certification course.
There are no colored belts to be earned!

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What Are LS?
• Tiny shifts in our interaction patterns
• Embarrassingly small
• Results focused

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Principles of LS
• Minimum constraints are necessary
• Rapid cycles and many iterations over long, slow
methods
• Parallel processing adds agility and enhances
effectiveness
• Not all ideas are equal
• Distribute control while staying in charge
• Loose connections are at the root of innovation
• Invite unusual suspects!

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Always Present Microstructures
Invitation
Space
Groups
Participation Time

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Advanced LS Practice
Like DNA, Liberating Structures can be strung
together to achieve a specific purpose

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Additional LS Resources
The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures
by Keith McCandless + Henri Lipmanowicz
www.LiberatingStructures.com
Pre-Agile Design by Zac Cohn + Fisher Qua
(www.wonful.co/book)
Wonful’s “Innovation at Work” newsletter
(www.wonful.co/newsletter)
Liberating Structures User Group

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Minimum Specifications
The fewest rules necessary to achieve a
purpose
Defining MUST DO, MUST NOT DO

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Minimum Specifications
What must you do to maintain healthy
communication across your
organization/unit/team?
What must you avoid at all costs?

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1-2-4-All
Fundamental pattern common to most LS
Enables parallel processing and best ideas
to emerge

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TRIZ
Designing a perfectly adverse system
Identify specific behaviors preventing
you from moving forward productively

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TRIZ
What could you do to reliably guarantee that
no one in your organization communicated
with anybody else and no one was ever
on the same page as one another?

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Appreciative Interviews
+
9 Why’s
Get at the root cause or fundamental
justification for something

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Appreciative Interviews
+
9 Why’s
Share a story of a time when you
successfully implemented or navigated
a change that stuck and proved durable,
or a time when that didn’t happen.

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25/10
Generate bold new ideas for moving forward
Quickly prioritize contributions
Brainstorm in a structured way

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25/10
Imagine you are 10x bolder, what would
you recommend to Gov. Inslee…

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Purpose-to-Practice
Rigorously define the 5 elements of any initiative.
Clarify how you will move forward together.
Include more people in shaping projects.

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Purpose-to-Practice
PURPOSE
PRINCIPLES
PRACTICES
STRUCTURE PARTICIPANTS

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Purpose-to-Practice
Purpose: The fundamental justification
for the existence of some thing to the
outside world
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Why is this important to you,
DRS and your clients?

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Purpose-to-Practice
Principles: The minimum rules you must
obey in pursuit of your purpose.
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What MUST you do?
What MUST you NOT do?

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Purpose-to-Practice
Participants: Who must be included? What
unusual suspects should you invite?
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What types of people or specific
individuals would be necessary
to execute this idea?

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Purpose-to-Practice
Structure: How will you organize yourself and
your resources to achieve your purpose?
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5 microstructures
Frequency + Cadence of meetings
Roles
Visual management tools

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Purpose-to-Practice
Practices: What are you delivering to your end
users? What is the deliverable?
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What are you actually building or
designing?

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Critical Uncertainties
Develop adaptive strategies for plausible
future realities
Define the uncertainties that are critical to
your survival

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Mad Tea Party
Rapidly build momentum on a challenge
Make sense of strategy as it is implemented
Retrospectively integrate learning

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Mad Tea Party
My favorite part of today was…

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Mad Tea Party
Today I noticed everyone…

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Mad Tea Party
One practice or structure I plan
on using in the next week is…

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Mad Tea Party
What surprises me about LS is…

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Mad Tea Party
I like Mad Tea because…

40. wonful consulting.
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Zachary Cohn
Fisher Qua
@ZacharyCohn
@SFQua
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