The walnut explains group dynamics

Ola Möller
MethodKit Stories
2 min readJan 6, 2015

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The Walnut Model also know as the Process & Content model describes what happens in your working team when you are doing a project together.

As a student at Hyper Island 2007–2009 I attended an UGL (The Swedish Army’s one week leadership programme). The Walnut also known as the Process & Content Model was a part that. It’s described in the video Hyper Island in a Nutshell (If you’re in a hurry see at 1m 5s).

Hanna Kulin also describes this model in-depth here (in Swedish).

The model

The model basically describes that there is two focuses in group work. Result-focused effort (refered to as content/what), what you as a group are creating. and group-focused work (refered to as process/how), that the process and interactions going on in the group to keep yourselves aligned.

Using it

I been using the walnut model to describe what happens in a project, not only referring to it as a static model. Mapping the way projects went becomes a good way to discuss the group process in a hands-on way.

Below I have mapped how failed and successful projects compare (in my own personal experience). Time spent on group focused tasks versus result based tasks.

Example 1. Successful project

  • Focus early on group
  • Thorough planning (roles, plan, vision, core values, focus on team alignment)
  • Follow-up meetings when productivity drops.
  • Effectiveness

Example 2. Failed project

  • Poor initial structure
  • Focus early on result
  • Effective in the beginning but that might be a chimair as productiveness might have been miss-directed on the wrong goals.
  • Few follow-ups and lack of clear goals
  • Followed by a crisis meet in the end.
  • Everything delivered in last minute.

Published in MethodKit Stories on Medium.

/Ola Möller (@olamoller)
Founder & Designer at MethodKit

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