Towards understanding problem structuring and groups with triple task methodology ‘e’

Abstract

The many issues which confront Problem Structuring Groups (PSGs) engaging in applying problem structuring methods (PSMs) are well reported in the literature. Often group problem structuring work is well organised around an array of processes and methods which has received wide-ranging testing in the field however, the assessment of the group in terms of its output, group dynamic and self-assessment tends to be handled piecemeal at best. Triple task methodology (TTM) has been described as a means to manage the three group assessments—group output, dynamic and self-assessment in one frame. In this paper an experimental version of TTM (TTMe) is described in use in an Education project setting in Abu Dhabi. It was intended to make TTM less cumbersome and time consuming and, at the same time, more systemically integrated, a significant objective being to make it easier to use by practitioners who have not used it before or who have only small prior use of group assessment methods. The paper describes the application of TTMe, provides an overall assessment of the value of the exercise, discusses the outputs of the group work and points to the value of TTMe in identifying and clarifying unique group qualities or signatures. The major contribution of the paper is to bring to PSG processes a degree of rapid, non-specialist, empirically comparable assessment on the richness of the group use of PSMs.

Keywords:

• triple task method
• participatory
• systemic
• problem structuring method

Acknowledgments

This working paper was developed using funds made available through the Abu Dhabi Education Council, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1 Systemic insight was interpreted as evidence in the outputs of the groups of one or all of three additional elements drawn from systems science; these were: a focus on relationships in the diagrams, emergent outcomes in the tasks and issues and systemic wholeness is implied in the scenarios. For example, the group output could have identified new links and relationships with other, related approaches in other sectors or other countries or, describing outcomes which are emergent from the context and not ‘given’ as part of the known landscape of education in the Kingdom or, presenting the current situation in a diagram as a ‘system’ as opposed to a disorganised and un-integrated ‘mess’ or ‘complex reality’.