Implemento can provide individuals and teams with the benefit of hindsight prior to taking action; it enables us to see into the future and gain clarity around what will happen should a specific action be taken. This allows us to redesign our intended actions with likely outcomes in mind. The tool combines rigorous situation analysis with an opportunity for innovation and 'making it up'. These two activities generally reveal a surprising perspective and clarity in the matter giving us insights into what we know that we did not know we knew. It is this aspect of it that helps us push back our learning edge.

As a result of using Implemento, individuals and teams benefit from:

• Insight into the consequences of actions
• Improved preparation before the action is implemented
• The emergence of knowledge that we didn't know we had
• Appropriate measures for the actions
• A new set of actions enabling successful redesign

Implemento is an invaluable tool that is best used:

• To improve, refine or learn about actions we are about to take
• When we don't know what to do - the way to get started is to ask yourself what someone you know would do and start from there
• When we want to compare two or more possible actions we might take
• To break a dilemma which has you stopped
• To develop a venture or discipline resulting from a TransforMAP conversation

If the world was a linear, certain system of cause and effect we would have no use for Implemento. Fortunately the world is a much more interesting, unpredictable, complex ocean of forces and there is always a measurable uncertainty which we can never know enough to entirely erase. Using Implemento we set out to determine the best step we can make now, by brainstorming all that might occur further down the line. We do that by creating scenarios or cases from action, to results and further actions on the map.

Developing the stories takes us into a world of exceptionally good and exceptionally bad results. These are not spaces most of us encounter every day and we don’t really expect either one. But working with these possibilities is essential to our growth and very useful. It’s not important whether you start with the best or worst, simply invent the outcomes as reality and take time for our imagination to create a vivid depiction of the results we are experiencing, before choosing our next actions. Don’t look back. Every case is its own story. When you have completed one, then head back to ‘Go!’ and complete the other story, results and actions.

Implemento offers the curious possibility of beginning with a molehill of directions and plans, giving that molehill to Implemento’s structures and your imagination for an hour or so, and discovering a mountain of purposes, insights and steps to get on with the right stuff.

GO!

This is the action you are planning to take, or thinking about taking. This is typically a statement describing the step or set of steps you are considering taking. This should contain a well-defined action or set of actions. This should be an action that the group is considering in the near future; one that needs some thought put into it to ensure that it is the right action.

For example, “implement a new performance management system” or “recruit five new HR executives” are actions that could be run using Implemento.

WORST OUTCOMES

These are the worst possible outcomes that could result from the intended action. This should end up as a list of outcomes that are not desired by the individual or group. This is a gloomy picture of how bad the world could look if everything went wrong following the action being considered.

Describe the worst outcomes that could result from your actions.

Consider:

• The larger system

  • What quantitative factors have changed?

  • What qualitative factors have changed?

  • What is increasing? Decreasing?

• The stakeholders

  • What are they talking about? Questioning?

  • What are they doing? Acting on?

  • What is their mood or attitude?

• Yourself

  • What am I feeling? My mood? Attitude?

  • What am I thinking about?

  • What do I feel I should do? Need to do?

ACT TO RECOVER

Act To Recover pushes worst outcomes in more desirable directions before things get badly out of hand. This is the space for listing those actions that would need to be taken to recover if the worst outcomes stated became reality.

Fast forward and imagine that the worst outcomes have become reality. Tell that story. What actions need to be taken in order to get things moving back in the right direction? What can we do to recover the situation?

Consider:

• Communications

  • Linking up with others to inform, enrol, persuade, cajole and gain their opinions and ideas

• Knowledge building

  • On your own or with others, gathering data and information, doing research and design

• Using resources

  • Investing or expending your time, money, attention, energy, experience

  • Commitments

  • Making decisions and choices

BEST OUTCOMES

These are the best possible outcomes that could result from the intended action. It is a list of the most positive outcomes of the steps described in the Go! box. This might include best outcomes for us as individuals, the team, the company or the outside world. This is a rosy picture of how things could look after the action has been taken.

Describe the best outcomes that could result from your actions.

Consider:

• The larger system

  • What quantitative factors have changed?

  • What qualitative factors have changed?

  • What is increasing? Decreasing?

• The stakeholders

  • What are they talking about? Questioning?

  • What are they doing? Acting on?

  • What is their mood or attitude?

• Yourself

  • What am I feeling? My mood? Attitude?

  • What am I thinking about?

  • What do I feel I should do? Need to do?

ACT TO ENHANCE

These are actions that could be taken to enhance the best outcomes that have been identified. Often when we get positive outcomes as a result of an action taken there is a tendency to become complacent. However, there is a need to keep moving and Act To Enhance is the space for thinking through what could be done to make things even better. What further actions might be taken?

Fast forward and imagine that the best outcomes have become reality. Tell that story. What actions could be taken to turn those Best Outcomes into even better outcomes?

Consider:

• Communications

  • Linking up with others to inform, enrol, persuade, cajole and gain their opinions and ideas

• Knowledge building

  • On your own or with others, gathering data and information, doing research and design

• Using resources

  • Investing or expending your time, money, attention, energy, experience

  • Commitments

  • Making decisions and choices

With our cases completed, we have the material we need to mine our lists of best outcomes, worst outcomes, enhancement actions and recovery actions. Our goal is a set of objectives and actions which optimize the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of what we want to achieve. We begin with the ‘why’ we are going to take action. We will state each objective in the form of a measure to give us both directional information and to evaluate how far we have come in the direction we seek. With a set of measures established we can go to the action material and synthesise a set of actions which are likely to improve where we stand on each of our measures. ‘How’ we will achieve the measures.

SHOOTING FOR

This is the highest-level objective statement, derived from the list of best outcomes identified. This might include figures and statistics around margin, productivity, profit, revenue and turnover. Alternatively, it often includes less tangible topics, such as employee happiness, stress management, processes and communications.

Look at the Best Outcomes you described. Taken together, they overlap and interact to define what you are Shooting For – what you want to achieve through the action you started this session with.

Use these Best Outcomes to identify themes, which will allow you to state three to five Shooting For goals. State these outcomes as if they have already occurred. Stating it in the present, as if already accomplished, causes us to feel the result more strongly.

MINIMUM

This is the minimum outcome which the action has to achieve. This can often be derived from the worst outcomes stated – it is often the reverse of some of these statements. These are statements which specify what the action would absolutely have to achieve for it to be deemed successful. In other words, if it didn’t achieve these things, it would be deemed a failure.

Look at the Worst Outcomes you described. These describe what you absolutely don’t want to occur. Your task is to transform each worst outcome scenario from what you don’t want to happen, into an equivalent positive outcome, which you insist on achieving. You define the minimum results that the starting action was intended to ensure. You can use the details of your worst fears, such as who might be involved and what would result in your relationship, to state a fundamental standard of quality, which will be ensured by your actions. Once committed to these minimum outcomes, your actions will raise the probability that a baseline success occurs.

MUST DO

These are the actions that must be taken in order for the action to achieve the minimum outcomes. These are derived from the Act To Recover box and incorporated in the main action being analysed in the Implemento. If the Must Do actions are ignored the result will be almost certain failure.

The Must Do box is informed by the actions stated in the Act To Recover section. Reading through the actions stated in Act To Recover should enable you to state those things you must do in order to meet the minimum outcomes required. You should also get an idea of Must Do actions by reading through the minimum measures.

CONSIDER

Consider is the place to list additional actions, which might make a positive difference to the outcomes. These are derived from those actions listed in the Act To Enhance box. They are typically actions that still require some more thought and a decision to be made as to whether they should really be taken. Often this decision is based on cost, time and whether or not there is adequate resource to carry them out.

These might eventually be added to or used to modify the initial action stated.

Actions to consider often include the preparatory steps for our future plans – building the foundations for our long-term goals. This can include relationship building, negotiation of terms and conditions, or conducting learning experiments or ventures.

Use the online tool

Download a copy of the map

Download an Implemento case study

Try to be quantitative when describing Best Outcomes and Worst Outcomes.

Stand in the future, as if the outcomes have already been realised, to generate Acts To Enhance and Acts To Recover. Tell the story of what that future looks and feels like, and then explore the next actions that you would take if you were there.

Don't generate acts to mitigate, if the Worst Outcomes have happened we can't turn back time to prevent them from coming true – all we can do is recover.

Don't simply state the Best Outcomes as the opposite of the Worst Outcomes, or vice versa.

Recognise the 3 Voices – Worst Outcomes are projections from Voice 1, Best Outcomes engage Voice 2, and redesigning our Go! step with the benefit of hindsight brings Voice 3 into play – use questions from TransforMAP to awaken these voices.

Explore the Best and Worst Outcomes from different perspectives – what would it look like for the individual implementing the change, for the stakeholders, and for the larger system?

Key learning points:

• Imagining the situation we could face in the future, and thinking what we would do next, gives us access to a richer set of actions than we would otherwise take
• Acts To Recover from a Worst Outcome are usually things we should do, regardless of whether we are in this situation or not
• Acts To Enhance on a Best Outcome often require a lot of preparation, but often seem like "nice to have" rather than essential, so don't get done
  • Doing this preparation in parallel to our initial action plan sets us up for success, and also means we can capitalise on that success
  • If we want to get the most out of our investments, we need to be ready to build on them – these actions are not just things we would do in an ideal world, they are fundamental to our chances of long-term success
• Giving equal attention to Best Outcomes and Worst Outcomes means our planning is holistic, wide-ranging and increases the possibility of us getting a great result, rather than being focused on risk mitigation and avoiding getting a terrible result

The Business Problem

A UK-based manufacturing company was poised to recruit two health and safety advisors to improve its health and safety standards at each office location. The company was not considering alternative actions as it had already exhausted a number of other measures aimed at improving health and safety.

(Another possibility might have been that the company wasn't as certain about hiring these new employees. If this had been the case we would have suggested running two Implementos – one on the recruitment of two HSE advisors and one on whatever the alternative was. However, in this case the organisation was poised to advertise the vacant positions). We decided on the Implemento to help this organisation enhance its decision to recruit through the benefit of hindsight. In addition, it would help them establish key success measures and further actions required.

Workflow

Our approach was decided after a one-hour consultation meeting with the HR Director. It was decided that a single Implemento session would achieve the objectives desired. We ran the Implemento with two Directors (one of which was the HR Director), an HR Manager, an existing HSE Advisor and two location managers. The session lasted 3 hours. Having completed the Implemento, the HR Director took responsibility for collating the data and ensuring follow-up, specifically the management of agreed actions resulting from the Implemento.

The Process

Go!

• Recruit two health and safety advisors

Best Outcomes

• Recruit excellent people, with great experience
• No. of safety incidents dramatically decrease
• No major incidents (deaths)
• Costs associated with time off work greatly reduced
• We adopt a safety culture

Acts To Enhance

• Assess safety incidents occurring and develop mitigating actions
• Conduct risk assessment of at all office locations
• Introduce a reward scheme for safety consciousness
• Appoint safety representatives at each location

Worst Outcomes

• No. of safety incidents either stay the same or increase
• Major incidents (deaths) occur
• Time off work as a result of sickness or injury increases
• New recruits don't understand our business/locations and their effectiveness is diminished as a result

Acts To Recover

• Assess the causes of time of work and develop action plans to prevent further cases
• Carry out an inquiry into major incidents and injuries and take steps to ensure these never happens again, including:
  • Draft communications to warn of the dangers of certain types of tasks
  • Run safety induction courses at all manufacturing plants
  • Carry out safety audits at all locations
  • Run safety workshops with all departments
  • Develop policies around minimum requirements for dress etc
• Run effective induction for new recruits in order that they understand the business and the nature of our office locations

Shooting For

• All locations taken through safety induction within first year of recruiting health and safety advisor
• No major incidents and a reduction of 50% of other incidents within two years

Minimum

• There are no major incidents (deaths) after recruitment of health and safety advisors
• The number of other safety incidents decreases
• The number of days taken off work as a result of incidents decreases
• Some locations taken through safety induction within six months of recruiting health and safety advisors

Must Do

• Carry out risk assessment and safety audit at all locations
• Develop minimum standards of dress
• Run safety induction course at all manufacturing plants
• Assessing safety incidents that have occurred and develop mitigating actions
• Run effective induction for new recruits in order that they understand the business and the nature of our office locations

Consider

• Draft communications to warn of dangers of certain tasks
• Introduction of award scheme for safety consciousness
• Appoint safety representatives at each location

Measures

• No. of major incidents
• No. of other safety incidents
• No. of days taken off work as a result of injury
• Awareness of safety requirements amongst staff

Conclusion

Through using the Implemento, the group was able to pinpoint things it must do in order to make this a success and it was able to also understand possible actions that could be taken to enhance health and safety further. It was also able to clearly articulate success measures from the Implemento process and from these identify a series of additional actions required in addition to simply recruiting two new health and safety advisors. In particular, the following actions were deemed key to a successful outcome:

• Carry out risk assessment and safety audit at all locations, including minimum standards of dress
• Safety induction course at all manufacturing plants
• Assess safety incidents that have occurred and develop mitigating actions
• Run effective induction for new recruits in order that they understand the business and the nature of our office location