brainstorming. The question now is, “How do these key factors
relate to one another?” How does the group make sense of them?
At this point I ask the group to shout out two ideas, from the stickies
on the wall, that seem related. Example: The topic for the exercise
is valuation of Internet stocks, and two ideas that were posted are
“Price to Sales Ratio” and “Price to Earnings Ratio.” I would place
these notes, which seem to be related, one above the other, in their
own column. It’s best to stick them to the wall surface separately,
rather than to each other. If too many notes are stuck onto each
other, the entire column eventually falls off the wall. (Aren’t you
thrilled to get this caliber of professional advice without consult-
ant fees?)
To add creativity to this process, I tell the group that the col-
umns they are now forming can have only four notes in each. This
forces the group to make fine distinctions rather than lumping all
the ideas under two big headings, like “Internet Stocks with For-
eign Operations” and “Internet Stocks with Domestic Operations
Only.” These sorts of general headings may be accurate, but they’re
not particularly useful. An important point (which harks back to
our earlier discussion of top-down versus bottom-up investors from
Chapter10) is this: Participants invariably try to name the general
categories before they have really done the pairings of ideas. Some-
one will look at the mass of notes and start dictating categories:
We need one for “P/E ratios,” one for “Price to Sales ratios,” and
so on. I suggest that you enforce the instruction of simply pairing
up related ideas. In other words, stay at the level of details and
don’t jump to the intuitive level of concepts. That comes next.
Some participants will get into this pairing and organizing
exercise (the S and J types love it) and others will step back and get
a coffee refill. That’s fine. That’s the power of self-organizing teams.
It’s neat to watch. Without any explicit leadership or
micromanagement, this task of organizing the data occurs quickly
and effectively. The right people step up and get it done. It’s like“T” Is for Tools and Techniques 20914-25 ware 209 1/19/01, 1:16 PM