Feel the Power of Powernoodling!
February 06, 2017
Feel the Power of Powernoodling!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Powernoodle Inc.
Our non-profit organization is using Powernoodle Inc. to help us define and refine our purpose, our goals, and our strategies for achieving them. After a hiatus of roughly ten years, our organization is being revitalized, and in that process, we have discovered the need to really look at what we do best, why we do it, what do we hope to achieve for our stakeholders, and how will we achieve those things. As we move forward, we realize we need to be much more concise in the way we convey to others what we do and what the benefits are. Powernoodle has helped tremendously with this!
- Powernoodle has ignited deeper, more candid conversations among our team leaders. We've been able to see through these discussions that we haven't always told our story in the most compelling manner, and that we need to be clearer, more concise and less wordy. Since Powernoodle limits your contributions to a certain number of characters, it forces you to think hard about what you really want to say. This feature was particularly powerful for our organization, which has tended to verbosity.
- Powernoodle allowed us to vet old and new ideas in a safe space, minimizing biases and groupthink. In many organizations there are some who speak more than others, and often their ideas get more attention. What Powernoodle does brilliantly is it allows, actually requires, each participant to write what they wish anonymously and without interruption. Each participant is equal in the sense that all input into Powernoodle is brief (limited number of characters) and the anonymity definitely prevents the usual bias toward those who speak the most.
- Powernoodle increased critical thinking about our organization and forced us to re-examine why and how we do what we do. With Powernoodle, we were able to look at everyone's ideas, comment on them, decide if some should be merged, and ultimately vote on them. The Powernoodle process forced us to be clear, which meant we each needed to think critically about what has worked and what hasn't worked for us, and how we move forward with what has worked and with new ideas.
- Our group found that it was sometimes difficult to respond immediately to directions from the facilitator, and that we needed time to absorb what was written on the tiles and what we were being asked to do. This put us behind on the schedule laid out for us. Part of the reason for this is, I'm sure, the fact that Powernoodle was new to all of us.
- Merging tiles that were similar is something only the facilitator can do, but it was confusing at times for our group to work together to decide which tiles should be merged. I think each of us should have emailed the facilitator with our ideas for merging tiles, however, this didn't happen with our group. We ended up having additional "private" meetings without the facilitator to make decisions about what should be merged. Perhaps there is a better way to handle this important step of merging tiles.
- While we are still in the beginning stages of taking action on the decisions we made using the Powernoodle process, I have no doubt that there will be a very positive ROI on our overall objectives.