Clarifying the Innovation Vision: Writing a “Well-Formed Outcome”

With Anne Mary Dellera, Jovit Cueva and Alexies Peligro, I have been working on the ISO accreditation for the Office of the City Civil Registrar of Cebu City (ISO 9001:2015). Our objective is to optimise the quality of service delivery in this office through adherence to a Quality Manual and a Manual of Procedures.

On August 28, 2017, to clarify our ideas about this project, we wrote a “Well-Formed Outcome”. We started by clarifying our practical visions, which in this case included the issuance of the ISO certification, compliance with procedural and quality standards, and expressions of satisfaction by OCCR clients. Starting with these ends in mind, we projected our “Indicators of Progress” by “walking back in time” to the situation at the time of our planning session.

We then considered the “ecology” of our project - the relevant “what, why, who, where, and how”. In this exercise we noted that we will be working with one of the more rigorously structured offices in the City Government, with a head of office who is considered strict, stern, professional and reasonable. We knew we would be working with ISO specialists or consultants, and at the time that we were making these plans we still didn’t know who these experts would be. We were also conscious of the three-year terms of local officials, and decided that we want to complete this project before the next elections.

Aside from ourselves, we had no other Resources to bring to this project. So we thought we would just learn to be resourceful, maybe ask HR and OCCR to fund meetings and consultations.

Among the Constraints that we had already discerned at that point, we anticipated resistance to be the biggest road block. Our only antidote to this would be infectious optimism - to brighten up the task by putting colors into it and giving excitement to people’s faces.

These considerations helped us to write our Implementation Plan.

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Writing the Well-Formed Outcome helped us to see our project in a better light, and increased our sense of teamwork and collaboration. At the end of the exercise I felt a sense of satisfaction in completing this WFO. It also gave us a glimpse into Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

Since then the WFO has been helpful in monitoring the progress of our project. It has also helped us to understand the reasons behind backlogs. It is helping us to be resourceful - at one point we were able to ask the Mayor for resources for a week-long writeshop. Most important, it helps us to maintain a positive perspective about our work, esspecially now that we are entering a challenging phase.

For those who are planning a big project, I would recommend writing a Well-Formed Outcome. It can help them conceptualize, monitor, and complete their project.

#WellFormedOutcome #Innovation #Internalchangeagents