The tool to make your organisations responsive conversations happen.

Instructions on making the Responsive Organisation Discusion Scale #RODS

A few weeks ago I decided to hack the Responsive Org slideshare pack in order to add what I felt would be valuable to our Microsoft customers and our customer facing staff. Adam Pisoni, Co-founder and CTO of Yammer had put up this slide deck on Slideshare as a conceptual OpenSource type project for us all to add value to. I wanted to be a part of the experiment. As I slid my finger through the presentation I felt that the Responsive Org performance indicators of Experimentation, Autonomy and Transparency and thier counterparts really appealed to me and I could see how valuable these are as a scale of organisational responsiveness.

I took slide 12 in the deck: https://bit.ly/Responsiveorg

and began to work on it to make a tool to support conversation about how responsive you consider your organisation to be.

My daughter helped me on the production line

and Coco our dog did the Dogfood testing.

The end product was a set of Responsive Org Discussion Scales #RODS which we were able to use at a Responsive breakfast we held in Melbourne and at other events since then.

The discussions with our customers which ensued highlighted customers current position on the scales and what it might take to shift from the left to the right in order to be more responsive. This is what was intended so I thought how could I find a simple way for you too to build your own #RODS in order to take these scales into meetings and have your own Responsive Org discussion:

What you will need to build your own #RODS:

  • 1 x copy of slide 12
  • 1 x piece of cardboard (I used the back of a pad of paper)
  • 3 x drawing pins
  • glue stick
  • sharp blade
  • eraser
  • ruler
  • sticky tape (not in photo)

Step 1:

Place a strip of sticky tape along each of the coloured lines to reinforce the paper. Use the ruler to help you slice a straight line along each of the 3 coloured lines.

Step 2:

Go crazy with the glue stick on the back of the slide being careful not to put glue to close to the slices you have made in the paper. Leave at least 1cm of a no-go glue zone around the slices in the paper.

Step 3:

begin to lower the slide onto the cardboard in a similar way to how you would apply a protective screen to your mobile phone. By this I mean make contact with the left side of the slide and slowly apply pressure to the paper from left to right. When you are approximately half way take the three drawing pins and place them on the cardboard with the pins sticking out of the slots you cut into the slide.

Step 4:

Now take the eraser

and slice it into three even pieces. (Please don’t cut yourself! If you do however the best responsive action is to put your finger under cold water)

Step 5:

Press the pieces of eraser onto the drawing pins and for effect place a cross, dot of circle with a pen on the top of each.

There we go! You have made your own #RODS

Do let us know how you go with making them and also I would love to know the kinds of conversations they evoke. When I started using them I never imagined the effect they would have in opening peoples minds up to the possibility of what a responsive organisation could look like and how to get there.