The two challenge exercises below demonstrate that The Bioclaris Method ™ is not just for individual companies. The Method works equally well for executives from different companies gathering to help each other resolve their most important challenges.
First implementation
Challenge: Local Chapter Leadership Team wishes to expand membership.
Participants: Local chapter leadership team for a global business networking organization (8 persons)
Challenge: double membership in the chapter to 30 members by July 31, 2011. Having 30 members is the magic number according to the organization’s statistics – the inflection point for having a consistent and strong level of business referrals between the members. The chapter has discussed this challenge informally for a long time but has never done anything about it.
Bioclaris meetings: Due to time constraints and volunteer status of the group, Bioclaris meeting time was limited to only one hour for each session. The group was, however, successful in working within this constraint, with the first meeting taking 1 hour and the second meeting taking 45 minutes. After the second meeting, Bob Lanier, Founder of The Bioclaris Method ™, consolidated all ideas into a spreadsheet and sent the spreadsheet to the leadership team for their votes. Bob was able to tally all idea votes overnight and a spreadsheet of vote totals, sorted by the highest scoring idea at the top, was re-issued to the team for the following day’s meeting.
Results to date: The process generated 37 ideas, some of which were totally original and all of which had never been seriously discussed in the normal chapter meetings, much less acted upon. The top ideas will be implemented by those who have volunteered for them, and the remainder of the chapter membership will be involved in volunteering for the top items as well as encouraged to contribute to the idea pool. Periodic votes on new ideas will take place. In addition, regular reporting on the progress will also be reported.
Feedback: feedback will be continually collected over the duration of the implementation period.
Second implementation
Challenge: Successful entrepreneur needs more than just one client!
Participants: 6 independent entrepreneurs focusing on one entrepreneur’s business challenge.
Challenge: The entrepreneur’s challenge the group focused upon was that his company, a custom software development company specializing in custom ERP systems and related database issues, had only had one client for the past 8 years. He wanted to find a way to keep his client happy while branching out to new customers.
Bioclaris meetings: These meetings were normal length meetings, with the first lasting 2.5 hours and the second 3 hours, with a one hour break after the first two hours to enable Bob Lanier, Founder of The Bioclaris Method ™ to consolidate the ideas generated into a spreadsheet that the participants could prioritize by vote sorting the highest scoring idea at the top.
Results to date: 136 ideas were generated and 99 were voted on. With appropriate follow up from Bioclaris it will now be up to the entrepreneur to implement the ideas and actions derived from the meetings.
Comment from the entrepreneur focused upon during this exercise:
Thank you so very much for the experience and also putting these ideas together. I can’t wait to get started! In the next few days and weeks I will be working on these ideas to move myself and my company forward and I am sure I’ll be making great progress. Since Friday, I have been running scenarios of the types of meetings I would have with my client and how the new future would be like. I will make sure to keep you posted with my accomplishments!
And a comment for one of the supporting participants for this exercise:
I feel like we really created multiple breakthroughs, came together as a team, helped him enormously, and he is in great spirits as well.
