Yellow Stickies

Yellow Sticky Conversations

At the start of every improvement discussion, there are hurdles to overcome. The tallest hurdle is just to get a conversation started. Think about this. To improve a process, you need to identify problems in front of your colleagues. They might take offense. That’s why I find solace in teaching Dr. Deming’s concept of not blaming individuals, but systems. That doesn’t get the conversation started, but yellow stickies do.

Whenever I ask a question, I am met by silence. Instead of questioning, the people involved in my improvement events get a pad of yellow stickies and asked to name as many problems as possible with the process we are working on in 10 – 15 minutes. Some start writing immediately, others more slowly. I watch for writing to slow and when it looks like there is not much more progress, I stop the writing. I refer to this as the “Divergent” conversation. We do it anonymously to accommodate divergent views. One fascinating outcome is that the same problem can be listed multiple times.

The “Convergent” conversation starts when we reveal the stickies and start grouping them into categories that are defined on a Fishbone Diagram, a tool often used for identifying root causes of problems. When the problems are on the table and attribution is traced to multiple sources, discussions about the problem and possible causation are easier to have. It is somehow comforting to group members to see that their colleagues have the same concerns they have while identifying problems. A benefit of the Yellow Sticky Conversation is the incredible abundance of thoughts accumulated in a short time. And I no longer have to pull comments from the group, they offer them willingly.