1.4.4 Theory U

When working on our strategy, we often use Theory U. In fact, during some of our quarterly meetings we have followed the process inspired by Theory U that we have learnt from Marcus Rama from Bananalyze at the Teal Camp in 2016:

Step 1- DOWNLOADING: in groups of 3, each person speaks 2 min and downloads what’s going on. Step 2 - SEEING: define a few perspectives/roles/stakeholders (determined in advance) that you would like to explore. Then ask each person to take the perspective for that perspectives/roles/stakeholder and says what he/she « sees » or 3D sculpting. Step 3 - SENSING: write down or draw everything that you see on post its and stick them on a wall. After that make a pattern/relation map. Try to have everyone looking at the post its in silence. Step 4 - LETTING GO: what should we NOT be doing? What is taking a lot of our energy? What bothers us? What processes waste time/energy? Step 5 - LETTING COME (idea finding methods): brainstorming, silent brainstorming OR do nothing… send people out in nature with a piece of paper. This is the space for the open: what « wants to happen » can emerge. Step 6 - CRYSTALLIZING PHASE: capture what (everything that) is present and try to turn it into something tangible / options. Step 7 - PROTOTYPING: selection of what’s been crystallized to make prototypes. use of simulations with 2 or 3 prototypes. Which strategies will we use?

Important: TRANSITIONS between the phases need to be designed carefully.

This process has helped us many times to look back and forward.