Earlier today, I was responding to an entry in our Rally and Large Scale Agile hive about dealing with cynical developers. I then realized that the topic was potentially of broader appeal. Here is the entry:

Peter,  if you want to cut through some deep developer cynicism, you could try a doomsday approach as outlined by Sam Kaner in his
“Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making” (Sorry to throw another reference at you!) He calls it catastrophizing (”We’re doomed
no matter what we do”)  Here is the rundown:

1. Ask everyone to think about the problem from their own perspective, imagining anything and everything that could go wrong

2. Have each person in turn state his or her worst-case scenario

3. Encourage each speaker to build on the previous ideas until the situation seems doomed. (Whining and complaining are an integral part
of the activity :- )

4. When the humor has calmed down, have the group identify obstacles that merit further discussion.

5. Finally, go down this list and one-by-one, ask, “Is THIS one capable of producing a catastrophe?” And if the group believes so, ask, “What
could be done to reduce its potential impact?”

What do you think of that?  Nice twist (twisted!) on the appreciative inquiry approach isn’t it?  Let us know what you end up doing!

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