Brigitte Benquet, Strategic Financial Initiatives Manager for Europe and Asia for Applied Materials - Now based in Santa Clara, California

Poldy Hergarden, Project Manager for the European Distribution Network, Honeywell, based in Amsterdam

Now that you have used SolutionsMap™ in your organization, would you recommend it to other companies and organizations?

BB: It is certainly a tool that I would recommend to other companies and organizations. I would recommend that they consider using the tool for business objectives and work situations that require high quality exchanges between people. For example - for generating ideas on a project, for working out critical issues, for reaching consensual decisions, for re-engineering processes, for improving productivity, for lowering costs, for creating action plans, for improving the results of certain meetings, for team building, breaking new ground, and more.

PH: Yes, it certainly is an ideal tool to structure group processes without lessening the creativity and participation of the team members. On the contrary, any effect on participants will be positive.

What would you tell other business - why should they use it?

BB: Any business could benefit from having employees go through a SolutionsMap workshop for three reasons:

1. Employees will learn to improve the planning and design of meetings to better achieve their business goals;
2. They will learn to use storyboards. Storyboards are, by definition, highly visual and they stimulate full participation. Quality participation is very important at a time when companies can less and less afford to leave the potential of many employees untapped;
3. They will learn about using an external facilitator in certain situations to optimize the return on meetings. And, if they send a bunch of persons to SolutionsMap training, they will build a group of trained facilitators.

How have you used it? How has it helped you with creating and managing your work?

BB: My company has started using storyboards in a number of situations. The ones I am familiar with deal with the shortening of the cycle of our financial close processes.

Recently I facilitated myself storyboard sessions in several counties across Europe, for communicating to employees the results of a job satisfaction survey they had just completed. We determined in each session their top 2 concerns and developed concrete action plans to address them. I also recently used SolutionsMap in the United States to help rewrite the charter of a department and to come up with a proposal for an organization design and job deliverables that would best support the department's purposes.

In all the above cases, people gave very positive feedback on the sessions. I did not note any major difference due to culture, although each group brings its own style. At all the sessions people recognized that the focus, the level of involvement and quality of the results were very high. They also recognized that the tool we used helped achieve that. I believe that the following elements:

• The design of each session including the up-front communication of relevant background information, deliverables and off-limits for each session;
• The sharing of ground rules providing a structure to the session;
• The visualization provided by the boards themselves;
• The recourse to facilitation techniques to keep the session going in the desired direction...

PH: We have used it in the development of new logistic processes (re-engineering), strategic decision-making, determining priorities, the formulation of requirements and wishes, the planning of activities and brainstorming.

Can you tell us how the projects would have gone if you had not used SolutionsMap and storyboards?

BB: All the sessions I have mentioned had a very positive feedback from participants and they realized this method helped significantly to Afocus@ on the real issues. Together with the larger involvement of the employees, being compelled by this method, the quality of the final result was much higher than usual. Without SolutionsMap, the process would have taken much more time and the consensus on how to handle the project would have been doubtful.

PH: It is unlikely we would have achieved Acommon processes.@ In many other instances it was not possible to have clearly formulated requirements and wishes. Dynamic planning would not have been realized as rapidly and as effectively and we could not have reached such a high level of group consensus in such a short time.

What do your people have to say about SolutionsMap?

BB: People who use storyboards successfully like the tool and they generally bring forward its visual and participative aspects. Certainly, to use SolutionsMap and storyboarding on a grand scale will allow you to reap the most benefits. But, even on a small scale, in smaller groups, people can widely benefit from the tool. The best proof that people like the tool is when people outside a group come up after the event and ask me about it and want to know how we could do a similar session for their group.

PH: Learning the method is fast, effective and natural. It=s pleasant to achieve group consensus without emotions. At least one group member on each team must take the initiative to use SolutionsMap.

What is the most advantageous thing about using the storyboards - what's the best part?

BB: I would say it is a tool that you can use and adapt as you wish. I would recommend that people understand enough of the principles behind storyboarding before using it, also to use it as a support for strategies. You really can do anything you want with the tool and produce results. I like it because it is visual, participative, effective and fun.

PH: It is so convenient - the tools, the supplies. And, I like the way is allows visualization of thoughts.

You have used it for big projects. Do you see other possibilities in your companies for its use?

BB: It's being very often already in the States and it is snowballing. In short, SolutionsMap and storyboarding are relevant tools in your toolbox. You need those tools on your journey toward your business goals.

PH: In my opinion SolutionsMap will be applied more and more as a standard and, surely, when group philosophy or group decisions have to be achieved - when we need group consensus.

Why not consider joining the list of the businesses and organizations that have used storyboards to drive time out of processes, draw out the best thinking of their people and gain a competitive edge...

• Honeywell (US and Europe)
• First Union National Bank
• Bank One
• The University of New Hampshire
• State of Tennessee Department of Education
• Ohio State University
• Miami (Ohio) University
• Battelle – Europe
• Applied Materials – US and Europe
• Hewlett-Packard
• Sheetz Convenience Stores