by John Hibble
This is one mechanism which facilitates acceleration and group genius in an MG Taylor event - the Magic!
The intent of parallel processing is increase the diversity and integrity of thought around a problem, especially when we are designing, testing and iterating possible solutions.
The art and the skill lies in HOW we divide up the problem. The multiple lenses we take will depend on the problem we are solving. One way to visualise this is a Rubick's cube. if you imagine that the entire cube is the problem space but within that space there are many different patterns that can emerge depending on how we move the cube.
Examples of lenses may include:
- Different stakeholders
- Different parts of a value chain
- Stretch scenarios e.g. cheapest, fastest, highest quality
- Another logical breakdown of the particular problem space or domain
Breakout teams are given different cuts of the problem to work on and then come back together to report and share their work.
Often another round of work is done to iterate this output but taking a different cut of the problem.
These multiple iterations using different lenses ensure that the best ideas emerge and survive the rigorous testing process that participants will subject them to.
The acceleration is achieved because we are not having a large group of participants all work on the same thing or work linearly on a problem.
