Solutions

SchellingPoint's solution treats Aligning as a critical business process to be measured, maximized and maintained.

Alignment Assessments

As part of designing an effective group action, to ensure that alignment is understood rather than assumed, SchellingPoint utilizes its innovative SP/Align™ software to bring clarity to the subject and pinpoint the elements of alignment and disagreement. Where an existing activity is not producing desired results and alignment is questionable, an Alignment Assessment (AA) will safely surface and crystallize the group's dynamics.

An Alignment Assessment is a swift, efficient, safe process for providing any group with data on the thoughts, views and opinions driving behavior towards any collaborative activity requiring coordinated action. An Alignment Assessment saves time, money, rework, and frustration, and creates effective leaders and team participants by enabling a group to understand and act based on what they do know, not on what they think they know.

At the heart of an Alignment Assessment is ACE, SchellingPoint's web-based Active Convergence Engine™ for mathematically evaluating like-mindedness across a range of topics. The end results of the Alignment Assessment contribute input to SP/Solve™ and SP/Perform™ for subsequent action.

Requiring just a couple of hours over a period of two or three weeks via individual teleconference and interactive web access, the Alignment Assessment process is ideal for remote teams and busy professionals with limited availability.

The Alignment Workshop is a compacted Alignment Assessment, achieving the same quantifiable and actionable results in one day, or integrated into your own workshop or event agenda over multiple days. This is ideal for onsite meetings or offsite retreats and team-building events.


Barrier Resolution	What are the issues or barriers which could prevent your collaboration from fully attaining its intended outcomes? What hidden barriers are preventing you from achieving your desired results? Barrier Resolution is a straightforward and powerful three-step process for safely and fully surfacing the issues and dynamics present, and designing valid mitigations. Barrier Resolution provides a safe way for all participants in an activity to contribute their views, thoughts, and opinions - particularly those that are difficult to discuss in the regular business environment - in order to optimize the activity's outcome. By leveraging our private, web-based SP/Solve™ software to surface issues and directly transform them into solutions - which in most cases become innovations to the existing business processes and relationships - maximum commitment to the activity can be created or restored.
Rich Scorecard Assembly	While almost everyone in business will agree that scorecards are conceptually and logically the right way to proceed, in practice they are often burdensome and time-consuming. Using SP/Perform™, SchellingPoint's lightweight, fully-featured web-based scorecard management tool, an existing template can be adapted to the client's unique situation, or the goals, objectives, and indicators of success endorsed during an Alignment Assessment can be imported. Solutions designed using SP/Solve can also be imported and therefore the scorecard accommodates the unique programs designed for that activity. SP/Perform allows any project, initiative, program or relationship to enjoy the management power of a right-sized scorecard. The difference from traditional scorecards, beyond the speed and completeness of assembly, is that the ability-to-execute is designed in when driven by the inputs from SP/Align and SP/Solve.
Team Compatibility Analysis	Successful execution in business is controlled by several relationship dynamics, of which the three most essential are: The ability to produce and remain in alignment The ability to collaborate fully and to discuss difficult topics as well as the easy ones The ability to balance the need to act on decisions and to progress down new paths with the appropriate levels of path selection and rigor In commercial operations success rarely comes from 'me', but rather from all of 'us'. As a complement to individual assessment tools, the Team Compatibility Analysis (TCA) uses SP/Team™ to provide team members with an explanation as to the group's abilities and challenges with alignment, collaboration and decision-making based upon the intersect of members' individual styles. The intent is not to suggest to individuals how to change their behavior but to inform the group of proactive measures it can take to be most effective in coordinating their actions - thus maximizing the sustainability of their collaboration and diminishing rework.


Influence Mapping	Influence Mapping provides a unique perspective into the communication influences that occur among a collection of individuals - internal to an organization, or throughout an "ecosystem" of individuals. 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 than the traditional view. Studies have shown how dramatic these impacts are when key personnel are incompletely communicated with, or are transferred to other positions creating structural holes in the web of relationships. Influence Mapping is a process for bringing a tangible face to this informal network, and crystallizes where the hubs, spokes and choke points exist. Using the SP/Network™ technology, clients can utilize this information to increase the quality of existing processes such as: Succession Planning Disaster Planning/Sustainability Market Influencing Acquisition Impact Analysis Corporate Performance Management
Alignment Dialogue Training	Our thoughts drive our actions. We have two sets of thoughts - those we are comfortable speaking, our External Dialogue, and those we're not, our Internal Dialogue. Our Internal Dialogue might be different to what we say, or may support it but be an important, negative qualifier. In either case, our actions and behavior are always driven by our Internal Dialogue. So, the challenge collaborations of two or more persons face is that they are trying to design action, yet the vital thinking driving action, Internal Dialogue is by definition, difficult to discuss. Catch 22? This is a primary reason that the conversation only approach to designing coordinated action is significantly flawed and after all of the discussion we still don't get the actions and results we expected. Dialogue Training explains the two core conversation and thinking models at play in all relationships. SP/Align, SP/Solve and SP/Perform are designed to provide technology based vehicles for groups to share their Internal Dialogues at key steps in any collaboration. For those times during the design and implementation of the collaboration when people are interacting, Dialogue Training provides the skills, tools and internet facilities which enable individuals to ensure alignment with their peers, in the moment. Dialogue Training replaces the tension, stress and inaction of perceived and real misalignment with a crystal clear view of reality and the confidence to productively engage in the parts of 'working with others' which are easier for some to avoid or hope will go away.
Delta Alignment Assessments	Measure enabled all participants to share their core views and opinions on the topic of their collaboration, and understand their degree of alignment. Maximize accomplished several objectives - clarifying the collaborations' indicators of success, disagreements over underlying assumptions and objectives are resolved, and solutions to barriers to success are designed. When all of these agreements are translated into a rich scorecard and action roadmap, alignment is 'maximized'. However, several factors will cause alignment to reduce over time: Activities external to the collaboration, such as industry change, new customer needs, and competitor actions often shift the landscape in which the collaboration operates New people entering the collaboration, with different views and opinions of the subject At a minimum, people's views of a topic usually change through 'doing it': There will be different views on the degree to which objectives are being attained, Some participants will feel the original objectives remain valid, others will feel that the goals of the collaboration can or should be adjusted, up or down Others will see new barriers to success as old assumptions are invalidated Delta Alignment Assessments are used to Maintain maximum alignment throughout the duration of collaborative actions. A periodic refresh of the degree of alignment, Delta ( as in Difference) Alignment Assessments can be conducted once or twice per year as part of the Program Governance process. A subset of the most recent Alignment Assessment results (original or Delta), plus pre-defined interview questions designed to surface changes in attitude, are used to measure alignment 'drift' and quantify the participants current views and opinions regarding where the collaboration is, and where it should go.
Relational Network Analysis	We often think of business in terms of supply chains and value chains. While such models can help us understand the flows of goods, services and monies, they are not designed for optimizing commercial relationships. A Relational Network Analysis (RNA) using 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. One-dimensional terms such as "customer" and "supplier" are replaced with network roles providing the platform for identifying each party's value drivers relative to their unique relationship threads. The RNA will surface innovation opportunities, service and value delivery disconnects. In addition, it will provide clarity to the intent driving behavior, which is often inaccurately interpreted by those on the other side of a relationship.