Alignment Optimization Technology

SchellingPoint offers a suite of tools providing deep coverage in support of the four principles key to operational excellence.


SP/Align™

Alignment - critical to business success - is not binary, yes/no, are/aren't. When each person is asked what defines success, the barriers to getting there or their assumptions about the topic - the factors which drive their behavior - the level of agreement on each aspect will vary from strong to weak.

Through the proprietary algorithms of the Active Convergence Engine™, the web-based SP/Align™ software accelerates the traditional incomplete, time-consuming and subjective conversation-based approach, bringing clarity to the dialogue and rapidly pinpoints the group’s like-mindedness.

The comprehensive and actionable data set presented in SP/Align's Convergence Dashboard enables any group requiring coordinated action to foresee and mitigate those factors which unsurfaced would lead to suboptimal performance. Alternatively, when current actions are not producing their intended outcomes and alignment is suspect, SP/Align™ can be deployed to understand where divergent views and opinions are impacting performance.

A maximally aligned agreement, joint action, project or contract allows the participants to enjoy working from what they do know rather than what they think they know.

SP/Solve™

When people are engaged in joint action, some of them will often see reasons why it is not the right thing to do, the barriers to making it happen, reasons why it won't sustain. Unaddressed, these factors will constrain an individual's commitment to taking full action, drive them down alternate paths, and negatively impact the activity.

SP/Solve™ uses a rapid, proven process to surface barriers to success, and to design sustainable, practical responses. Being a real-time, web-based tool, any size of group from any location can ask themselves 'What does or may prevent us from fully achieving what we want to accomplish?' and jointly transform these negative barriers into practical solutions.

SP/Solve™ can be deployed at the start of any joint action, program, initiative or collaboration to remove the public and hidden barriers to absolutely effective action. When progress or the quality of the results of an activity, process, collaboration or relationship are not meeting expectations, the SP/Solve™ tool is used to identify the restraints and get things back on track.

From board rooms to water-coolers, participants enjoy the process as they have a platform to productively share their issues and see them addressed with valid responses.

SP/Network™

SP/Network™ provides a way to identify the nodes and relationship threads connecting individuals and organizations, in all or parts of a supply/value chain, and by using Exchange Theory, to predict and understand the synergies and dis-synergies affecting sustainability.

Normal organizational structure - org charts - fail to typify the communication paths, flow of information and impact of individual advocacy within such organizational structure. The true network of individuals required to “get things done” in an organization crosses the organization chart horizontally, and is often far more complex and nebulous. Studies have shown how dramatic these impacts are when key personnel are incompletely communicated with, or transferred to other positions creating structural holes in the web of relationships.

SP/Network™uses the organizational chart as a basis for evaluating an internal organization's network and then supplements this using advisor/advisee and team memberships to surface the true high-impact individuals who are key to supporting effective change through the communication and influence channels they support.

SP/Dialogue™

Business is a mixed-motive, non-zero sum game - where people try to balance personal needs within an interdependent business environment to achieve winning results. SP/Dialogue™ presents the two systemic models which cause waste in group action and the six communication tools which allow individuals and teams to safely treat these natural workplace dynamics.

SP/Inference - enables business people to recognize and convert incomplete recall and inaccurate inference into tested data, which results in higher quality decision-making.

SP/Discussion - the difficult-to-discuss thoughts between reports and managers, peers, employees and customers, or any relationship pair, hold enormous value. The Dialogue module provides the skills and tools to approach business issues previously considered “untouchable” and unlock new capabilities in the relationships.

SP/Dialogue™ training and associated online tools strengthen and sustain effective business relationships.

SP/Perform™

Best practice is for any group action to have a scorecard describing the intended outcomes and the programs for achieving them. However, while scorecards are theoretically valid, for many managers the effort to produce and manage them is burdensome.

SchellingPoint's SP/Perform™ removes the major constraint to creating scorecards – defining the goals and objectives – by importing the results of the SP/Align™ and SP/Solve™ tools.

As project scorecards are web-based, participants can access them from any location, 24/7 and update the status of activities they are responsible for from a personalized update screen.

SP/Perform™ scorecards can be rapidly assembled for situations of any size. They include the power of the Balanced Scorecard concept but address the ability-to-execute factors lacking in traditional scorecards.

SP/Team™

A group’s ability to effectively coordinate their activities is driven by three primary factors:
  • Their ability to be in alignment with the group
  • Their ability to productively dialogue with their partners
  • Their ability to decide the right time to take action together

The primary component of the web-based SP/Team™ is the Multi-Party Comparison – an interactive utility that graphically maps and compares the working styles of all parties in the team.

Utilizing SchellingPoint’s Active Convergence Engine™ (ACE), the specific points of like-mindedness around their approaches to collaboration, alignment and decision-making are surfaced, providing the group with clarity at a detailed level to the team's concurrence and divergence of opinions as they form plans and take action.

As new teams are formed, SP/Team™ can be used by team leaders and managers for team design and awareness from detailed understanding of style synergies and dis-synergies rather than vague generalizations.