Peer Assist
Before starting something important, a team invites peers from elsewhere who have done something similar. The host team presents its context and plans, the visitors ask questions and then talk among themselves about what they have seen work and fail, and finally feed back options. The host team keeps ownership of every decision.
Use when a project or big decision is about to start and someone elsewhere has probably faced the same problem.
Solves: Teams repeat mistakes another part of the organisation already made, because nobody asked them.
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Step 1: Define the problem and what you hope to get from the session. Invite peers with relevant experience and send a short brief (prep).
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Step 2: The host team presents context, history and current ideas (30 min).
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Step 3: Peers ask questions to understand what is covered and what is missing (30 min).
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Step 4: Peers discuss among themselves what knowledge could help and where it can be found. The host team listens without defending (45 min).
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Step 5: Peers feed back, first what is strong in the current plan, then options to do things differently (30 min).
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Step 6: The host team thanks the peers and says which actions it will take and how it will share the result (15 min).
- Hold it early enough that the host team can still change course.
- Ask peers to describe what they did rather than prescribe what the host team should do.
- Mix roles, locations and levels among the peers.
- Run a short online version for a single question, with three peers and 90 minutes.