Outcomes.. Or outputs?

Had an interesting discussion today. What's outcome, and what's output?
Let's say, you build a bus stop. You put in effort, consume raw materials. At the end of it, you have a bus stop. The end result of your activities, I.e. Your output is the bus stop.
What, then, is the outcome? Consider the completion. We could say that the outcome of the project is an eyesore, or public convenience. The difference, pretty much depends on whether there was any benefit from it. It's a convenience if the public benefited, it's an eyesore otherwise.
And what if no one used it? Eyesore again! Thus we could think of an outcome as a function of output, usage and benefit. The outcome is negative if any of these inputs are not satisfied.
We could apply it to our performance measures, and our outcomes would be easily separated from our outputs.

Lab Learning: Day 21

We are now on overshoot. We didnt finish in time, so our lab is extended. As the rest of the lab is testing our model, I realised that things could be far different if we had gotten the lab story wall done from day one. We didn't understand what was required, so it kept on having to be changed. Had we started with the story wall right, then our presentation would be easy to prepare as the story line would already be identified. Right now as I write, I struggle with what we have to present. How could the story wall help? When we finally understood it, our wall was organized into 4: what the lab is about, what the lab did, what the lab found, and what the lab recommends. The lab charter could be broken up into simple slides that explained it for everyone to see. That would form the introduction of our lab Our syndications summary would go into what the lab did. Had we been able to debrief at the end of each day, our support staff could prepare the slides and put up on the wall daily. By today, we would have the summary of syndications already done. Our findings could be captured during the daily debriefs. We could immediately turn it into slides and then put it up the next day. As our finding become more refined, we would then update the slides. By today, then, the latest findings would be on the wall. The same goes with the recommendations. Because we weren't able to do this, we're now struggling, as we have several versions of our recommendations on several pcs. And we haven't yet gotten a credible story line. If I could start over, I'd have the lab ensure that debriefs are done at the end of the day, and I'd also insist that a lab member captures the findings and recommendations and scribbles the slide. Then this can be passed to the support crew to turn into slides and printed to be put up on the story wall.

Lab Learning: Day 18

Today we continued refining the model. We had a big syndication session, Where our stakeholders came with guns firing. I saw it as a result of a poorly planned syndication. Its true that we did not plan with the 6Ps (Purpose, Picture, Profit, Part, Plan, Program)in mind, but our facilitator pointed out that they were coming based on what they heard the day before, and they are following the phases of negative change I..e. SARAH (shock, anger, rejection, acceptance, hope). Looking back at the response, I realise that they experienced that. The blazing guns were nothing more than shock and anger that later turned to rejection (they said so, "you can do what ever you like, just dont touch us") but later, they cooled down and left with a positive air. At shock and rejection, we cannot fight them tit for tat, but we need to let them ventilate and release all the tension in their minds. After that, having gotten everything off their chest, then they would be receptive to discussion. That was one real lesson, if you asked me.

Lab Learning: Day 16

Haven't had much opportunity for direct learning the last few days thanks to being distracted with some other things while others went about detailing our model. 2 things happened, though. We've been working to detail out our model and we have been moving forwards and stepping back. It's been frustrating, fun, painful and satisfying all at the same time. I saw that the higher the stress, the more our personalities stand out, and the anger, frustrations begin to simmer. It makes managing this lab challenging, and many times the wisdom of the lab leader in managing the group saved the day. Knowing each others profiles is definitely a big help! We've also been detailing out our model, each working on a different part of the model and we syndicated it against a big group. It was made difficult because we didn't have a big picture to work on. After the session we put together a big picture, and we realised that had this been done earlier, the syndication conversations would have moved in a different direction, probably smoother, too. Because of the many individual concerns, a big picture would have focused everyone on the whole elephant, instead of its individual parts, and we would have been able to discuss on the really big issues first. Still, an interesting experience in managing a big group discussion.

Lab Learning: Day 14

Lab wise, there isn't anything that I can post as I was away interviewing a TNB customer.
It was interesting that the 2nd most important aspect to the customer was the ability to compare our service to another service provider.
This tells me that of need to outdo the customer service of maxis or TM, coz that's what they compare our service to. It also tells me that until we benchmark our service to others, it will be tough to get very excited customers.
What a revelation.

Lab Learning: Day 12

Today we spent the day with half the group meeting vendors, and the other working on detailing the model.
Under the stress of trying to meet our deadline, our personalities are being thrust forwards and knowing the personalities at play it became easier to manage the dynamics.
Our group is complementary. As we were struggling with trying to move forwards, one of us walked to the board, and simplified the solution. Each of us have our strengths. We just need to stand up and show it when the need arise and not hope someone else can do it.

Lab Learning: Day 11

Today we continued to refine and detail our model.
I was called into a discussion over an issue unrelated to the lab, and I realized the real power of our approach.
As the parties centered over what's currently wrong and how it affects our image, and how we need to show to the regulators that changes need to be done, I realized how our approach would really be helpful.
Formulate, syndicate, sell. Instead of arguing over what's wrong, we could very well formulate what we want and already syndicate and sell to the regulators. In doing so, we would already be communicating to them our intent and commitment to change. And we could cover a whole group of internal and external parties over seven days and move forward with it.
No doubt there were the cynical ".. Some people want a lab for everything" comments, but as I listened, I realized that hey, we have the approach to give the maximum impact.
There were already people in that discussion already working on a solution, but they expect to be done in June.
It would probably take up till June for a lab to come up with a solution, too but the difference is, within the first week of the lab launch, the people who matter would probably be engaged already.
Wow.