The Opportunity Space Method
Defining your challenge, understanding your situation, and solving your problem is what the Opportunity Space Method helps us do. A viable solution is born out of an agile process through its steps. This method is our way to use best practices in complex problem solving and solution design.
Methods do not constrain us. We are effective through discipline.
The Opportunity Space Method results from a military legacy, science, and experience. It carries a strong DNA of well-proven principles to create operational effects on all organizational levels and in all dimensions under extreme conditions. The method adapts to your situation and focuses on solving your challenges. The output is a deep understanding of possible courses of action needed to reach specific objectives or solve particular problems.
Tailors to your problem
Combined with the best management practices, scientific theories, and evidence, Opportunity Space Method is the foundation for our way of working. The Opportunity Space Method enables the use of any tool necessary to drive the process further. Therefore the exact tools we use are defined by the shape of your problem and are chosen in collaboration with you to ensure that we can work efficiently together.
Adapting to your way of working
Often our clients have their established ways of working, and we think it’s better to adapt to them rather than force new ways. The Opportunity Space Method will still be our baseline approach to get successful work done.
What is an Opportunity Space?
The opportunity space describes what is possible to do in any given situation. In simple terms, it represents the action alternatives you have as a decision-maker. And as we all know, you rarely have unlimited room for maneuver.
Limiting factors
Most often, various factors complicate or prevent what you can do and shrink the room for maneuver. Financial frameworks, organizational constraints, competence, or legal and technical conditions all set limits for what is possible to do. They are limiting factors, and their values constrain what is possible to achieve.
Focus on your objectives and action alternatives
The opportunity space is left when you have considered all limiting factors, and to reach your objectives, it must be kept open enough. Therefore, a large part of our work focus on identifying the limiting factors and what they allow and do not allow for opportunities for action in the given situation. The opportunity space method focuses on your objectives, action alternatives, and limiting factors to determine how these must be influenced to open up the opportunity space to reach your objectives.
Field of safe travel, 1938
The opportunity space is not something we invented ourselves. Still, it is a further development of a theoretical concept that has its origins in an article by Gibson and Crooks from 1938, which describes what a car driver must do to drive a vehicle safely in traffic and what information the driver requires.
Gibson and Crooks considered that the information needed was information about what they called ”the field of safe travel,” which is simply the area of the traffic environment where the driver can drive without colliding with any obstacles such as houses or other cars.
Overview of the Opportunity Space Method
To provide consistent quality in our complete viable solutions, we deliver our services in 5 modules carried by the Opportunity Space. Each module creates a specific value and ends with a go/no go option for the next step. It allows for incremental commitment and evaluation of the possibility to proceed without our support.
Explanation of general work in each module
These are examples of recurring work packages. The exact configuration of work effort in every block is always subject to your situation.
Shape the Opportunity Space
Work
Determines what is possible to do in the given situation and what factors limit the opportunities, how they interact, and how they impact the opportunity space.
The opportunity space iteratively takes shape along the process.
Output
- What is possible to do at different times
- What factors limit the opportunity space
- How is it possible to monitor and impact the limiting factors to open up the opportunity space
Explore problems
Work
Understand and define the root causes, context, and interrelations between different observations that sum up the challenges that are in focus. Assess the justification to start work to handle the challenge or problem.
Output
- Joint problem understanding
- Validation of problem and work justification
- Visualized problem statement
Create a viable solution
Work
Creating a solution to the problem, considering the design rules for a viable solution. This creative work anchors the understanding in the organization of objectives, direction, and guidelines for operationalization. In this step, you will choose between different courses of action that fits the opportunity space.
Output
- Defined viable solutions
- Validated opportunity space
- Risks & opportunities
- Direction & Guidelines for operationalizing design
Design a fluid plan
Work
Turn the chosen course of action solution into a fluid plan describing the concept of operationalizing the prioritized and coordinated activities to realize the viable solution. The plan will consider the limited resources and the limitation set by the opportunity space.
Output
- Concept for Operationalizing
- Fluid plan* of sequenced objectives, tasks, and opportunities
- Description of organization design, knowledge and expertise, way of working, governance processes, and critical technology.
* If situations, ideas, or plans are fluid, they are not fixed and are likely to change, often repeatedly and unexpectedly
Operationalize the solution
Work
Implement the viable solution and initiate transformation according to the Concept for Operationalizing and the fluid plan. The first steps can include pilot testing minimal viable products to verify and adjust parts of the concept. Stepwise the new capabilities are generated and deployed in a DevOps manner. Depending on the problem scope, the effects and activities will be different.
Output
- Refined and validated Concept for Operationalizing
- Refined and validated viable solution
- New capabilities
Operate the solution
Work
The viable solution to your problem is operational and entirely under your control. It delivers the expected effects and continuously improves as the circumstances change.
Output
- New capabilities and effects
- Assessment of result and progress to adjust the solution
- Updated possibility space to support dynamic decision-making
Blocking fallbacks
Nudging
Work
Depending on the scope of your problem, the level of change needed will differ. Small or big, change take time, and there is a risk of returning to what was before, risk losing traction, and not succeeding as expected. Because we have an outside perspective on your situation, expert knowledge of your solution, and an independent position, we can help you block fallbacks and help fill in the gaps.
Output
- Less waste in implementation, better return on investment
- Assessment of result and progress to adjust the solution
- Updated possibility space to support dynamic decision-making
DEFINITION
”Problem: A question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution”
Merriam-Webster