Reflection & retrospects

Group reflection is a powerful way to surface insights, assumptions and issues. Knowledge practices that support & encourage reflection, evaluation, validation and critique can be very powerful.

As a knowledge facilitator, setting a finite date and switching the group conversation from divergence to convergence is one of the few areas where knowledge dynamics can be 'managed'. Doug Engelbart suggested this technique is key for intelligence augmentation and talked about idea cycles, bringing closure and building shared meaning / understanding before embarking on the next phase of information seeking, brainstorming and divergence.

'Forcing' a periodic review, building on the previous generation of ideas, where you have persistent conversations, is indeed a great practice to leverage learning and help newbies. This practice is also highly valuable to occasional visitors, as they can quickly catch-up and then drill-down to aspects of the conversation that catch their fancy.

Explicit idea generations is a key on-line and corporate memory ritual that runs like this:

* (birth) suggest a topic and create an attractor ==>

* (growth & development) brainstorm / divergence & dialog ==>

* (maturity) summary, reflection, & critique of suggested directions ==>

* (validation and learning) testing, creative abrasion & new alignment ==>

* next cycle i.e. continue the dialog using past synthesis as the departure platform.

Convergence / divergence is well known from the creative problem solving and decision making literature, and is widely practiced in design shops and creative thinking workshops. The cycles may be long e.g. start and end of a significant project (BPs retrospects), US Army AARs or faster paced e.g. a day or two (OODA loops). The power lies in the summary, evaluation and the critique, then the new start.

The key then seems to be finding ways to turn over ideas faster, cycling through generations of divergence / convergence, while putting sufficient energy into reflection, synthesis, critique and learning before embarking on new exploration, orientation and meme mixing.

Would be interested to hear what participants have experienced, how they scheduled or directed changes in thinking and conversational dynamics and if they see this as an important knowledge related activity.

Comments

[David Locke]

This "US Army AARs or faster paced e.g. a day or two (OODA loops)" isn't the way it works. AARs provide the context for subsequent OODA loops. That are interchangeable.