Likes, Concerns, & Suggestions--

a Tool for Continuous Development

LCS: debriefing at it’s best..

Debriefing on how your team just accomplished or didn’t accomplish a project can be a sensitive and overwhelming process. Mitch Ditkoff President of Idea Champions came up with this simple tool that encourages positive change while building a strong team dynamic. This tool or system is called: LCS (Likes, Concerns, & Suggestions). It has been successfully practiced by many different kinds of organizations as a way of assessing ideas without killing them, and as a debriefing process for organizational learning.

The LCS Process:

• Everyone involved in the LCS session voices what they like about the subject at hand (The program, the idea, the proposal, etc.). This establishes what it has going for it.

• When that round is complete, each person expresses any concerns they have. In the case of an event, what bumps in the road occurred, what could have been done better with some planning, miscommunications, misunderstandings, etc. In the case of an idea, what might be a roadblock to this idea working, what we need to consider in implementing it, etc. And then...

• For each concern expressed, the person takes responsibility for their concern by offering at least one suggestion that might help address the concern.

• A scribe captures all of the feedback.

The process builds in an appreciative approach, and facilitates collaboration.

Mitch Ditkoff is the Co-Founder of Face the Music and the President of Idea Champions, an innovation consulting and training company headquartered in Woodstock, NY. He is also the author of the very popular Heart of Innovation blog and is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.