MOUSETRAP...CONSIDER THIS!!

Hey Team,

I was trying to brainstorm how to demonstrate mental models to the class and was wondering if there was a way to connect it to the mousetrap game we're using to demonstrate system's thinking. AND i had an idea that might work.

what if we gave everyone a sheet of paper and had them draw the words we put on the board:
- cat
- cheese
- mousetrap

and then see if anyone draws anything but a standard little wooden mousetrap. Then we can show them the game and explian how our ingrained mental 'memories' lead us down on way of thought, but there are usually more than one mental model that could be correct...

just an idea. could any of the other disciplines use mousetrap as part of the demonstrations?

Beer Beer Beer!!! :)

Ok, sorry it took so long but i have been swamped @ work. Here's a link that explains a bit more about the Beer Game. Basically it's a board game used to introduce the concept of systems thinking.

http://www.solonline.org/repository/download/bibl.html?item_id=456327

and this was a good real user description with his thoughts and ideas to improve the game:

http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/pub/den/archive/98.10/msg00130.html

Paper Outline and Due Dates

Hi Team,

Here are the notes from our Thursday class. We discussed each of us taking our main topic and writing a minimum of two pages on the topic - following this template:

• Explanation/Interpretation
• Application (how are we connecting this to our team/class)
• Connection/linkage to the other 5 (build off previous or link to the next...)

Outline:

I. Introduction

II. Systems Thinking

III. Personal Mastery

IV. Mental Models

V. Shared Vision

VI. Team Learning (Learning Org)

VII. Conclusion

Due Dates:
4/14: Drafts of our sections
4/21: Provide feedback to each other
4/28: Draft the Introduction + Conclusion / Begin editing of entire paper / Coordinate presentation
5/5: Review final paper + Rehearse presentation

Can someone help test the 'comments' function of the blog??

Hi, can someone try and leave a comment at the end of this posting? Can you attempt to include a hyperlink to another website? i want to see if it works for us to use this for sharing articles and information.

Here's an example of an article i really liked about Senge: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm

What we'll be doing thursday instead of drinking green beer!

Hi Team, i think we covered some good ground last week in class. I like our idea of sharing our key topic with each other this week during our group time. I think we decided that we would each take 5-10 minutes to share the main points of our particular area.

Does it make sense for each of us to bring a one pager recap for each other?

Division of Labor

From: Corrigan, Molly B.
Sent: Fri 2/25/2005 3:37 PM
To: Jamie Barrie; jjacobson@carlson.com; Sharon@parkmidwaybank.com
Cc: Corrigan, Molly B.; molly.b.corrigan@wellsfargo.com
Subject: An update!

Hi, all -
Jamie - we missed you last night! Hope the play went well. Here's an update on our group discussion:
Senge talks about so much -- he as so many great ideas and theories -- the group met last night to simply establish a focus for our studies.
We'd like to structure our paper around one central "umbrella" or thesis.
Beneath that umbrella, we'll study specific aspects of Senge's studies -- explaining, applying and evaluating them individually, and then relating them back to our umbrella idea/thesis.
We decided that our specific aspects would be Senge's five core disciplines:
1. Personal mastery
2. Mental models
3. Shared vision
4. Team learning
5. Systems thinking
An example of an umbrella statement/thesis around these aspects is:
"Individual change always preceeds organizational change." (i.e. How do disciplines 1 and 2 relate to 3-5? Can 3-5 really happen if 1 and 2 don't happen first?)

Another example of an umbrella statement/thesis is: "The quality of relationships -- or contact between persons -- is as important as ny other variable to the succes of organizations."
Sharon's umbrella suggestion suggested that we compare Senge's disciplines to other organizational theories out there -- like emotional I.Q., etc. and then relate all theories to our personal experience with this class and this project.

Steps for next week:
Each of us will study a core discipline -- gather more information about it
-- and relay this to the group on Thursday. As your researching your discipline, be thinking about possible umbrella topics -- what idea/topic can we study that will allow us to incorporate our analysis of the five disciplines? Come to the group next week witha few options/suggestions.
Is this clear as mud? :)
We've assigned the five disciplines this way:
1. Personal mastery - Sharon
2. Mental models - Jen
3. Shared vision - Jen and Molly (due to high potential of overlap)
4. Team learning - Molly
5. Systems thinking - Jamie
Give a call or zap an e-mail with any questions. Also - Jamie - if you have any qeustions about this, or want to add/change anything, just hit reply to all, and we can go from there. Thanks team!
Talk soon,
Molly
612-916-0135