Garry Shirts: Alternatives to outside person as customer
By R. Garry Shirts
One of the features I like about Pumping the Colors is asking a person who has no connection to the training to come in at the end and operate the system that the team has built. Even though the person is some one who has no connection with the group, the very fact that a stranger is going to use their system intensifies their desire to succeed. However, there are situations in which getting an outside person is difficult or it creates other problems. Here are some solutions to that problem.
When there are multiple teams and the time to test every system would be prohibitive.
Mitch and I ran Pumping The Colors for six teams here in San Diego a while ago. The training was held outside. We knew that if we had six people come from the outside to test every system, it would have taken way too much time. So we selected three of the teams to be in a Green group and three to be in a Red group. We told each team that they needed to prove to Zegra that they could pass all of the electives they had chosen such as the double whack test, the no leaking test etc. They also needed to demonstrate that they could train a person from the outside to operate their system if asked to do so. But, we explained, we would randomly choose only one system in the Red group and one system from the Green group to actually be operated by the outside person.
This meant that every team had to prepare as though their system was going to be tested by an outside person, but only one system would actually be tested. It worked very well. There was actually an unexpected benefit. This system created within group cooperation of the teams. Just before we selected the team to represent the groups, the other teams within the group began looking at the other systems in their group and offering suggestions for improving those systems. They wanted to make sure that their group did not fail the test. It gave us an opportunity to talk about competition versus cooperation between groups in an organization.
Sue Burish's solution
When I told Sue Burish about this solution she said that she tells the teams that I am going to ask one of you to operate the system when it is completed so you all need to know how it works. She then adds "and don't be surprised if Zegra chooses a team member who has not had a task that ensures that he or she understands the system."
She reported that this approach has the same effect as using an outside person.
One of the features I like about Pumping the Colors is asking a person who has no connection to the training to come in at the end and operate the system that the team has built. Even though the person is some one who has no connection with the group, the very fact that a stranger is going to use their system intensifies their desire to succeed. However, there are situations in which getting an outside person is difficult or it creates other problems. Here are some solutions to that problem.
When there are multiple teams and the time to test every system would be prohibitive.
Mitch and I ran Pumping The Colors for six teams here in San Diego a while ago. The training was held outside. We knew that if we had six people come from the outside to test every system, it would have taken way too much time. So we selected three of the teams to be in a Green group and three to be in a Red group. We told each team that they needed to prove to Zegra that they could pass all of the electives they had chosen such as the double whack test, the no leaking test etc. They also needed to demonstrate that they could train a person from the outside to operate their system if asked to do so. But, we explained, we would randomly choose only one system in the Red group and one system from the Green group to actually be operated by the outside person.
This meant that every team had to prepare as though their system was going to be tested by an outside person, but only one system would actually be tested. It worked very well. There was actually an unexpected benefit. This system created within group cooperation of the teams. Just before we selected the team to represent the groups, the other teams within the group began looking at the other systems in their group and offering suggestions for improving those systems. They wanted to make sure that their group did not fail the test. It gave us an opportunity to talk about competition versus cooperation between groups in an organization.
Sue Burish's solution
When I told Sue Burish about this solution she said that she tells the teams that I am going to ask one of you to operate the system when it is completed so you all need to know how it works. She then adds "and don't be surprised if Zegra chooses a team member who has not had a task that ensures that he or she understands the system."
She reported that this approach has the same effect as using an outside person.
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11:15 AM
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