The BRIDGE: A Streamlined Approach to Solve Complex Issues

Complex issues in work, school, community, or life can significantly impact productivity, performance, and goal attainment. Collective brainpower can many times be the best way to creatively solve issues. The BRIDGE is a tool that communities, businesses, educators, staff, volunteers, and youth can use to structure the collection of those creative ideas and streamline the process for developing an implementation plan. The BRIDGE model actively engages groups of diverse people. The structure of the process allows for dynamic exchange of ideas that are captured on idea cards and ultimately churn and meld into synthesized solutions supported by the entire group. Learn how you can become a certified facilitator of The BRIDGE.

Description

Complex issues in work, school, community or life can significantly impact productivity, performance, and goal attainment. Collective brainpower can many times be the best way to creatively solve the issues. The BRIDGE is a tool that communities, businesses, educators, staff, volunteers, and youth can use to structure the collection of those creative ideas and streamline the process for developing an implementation plan. The BRIDGE fluidly incorporates adaptations of several organization analysis tools designed by business scholars arranged in a logical flow: Covey's Circle of Control/Influence, Lewin's Force Field Analysis, SWOT, and Kotter's Change Model. The BRIDGE model supports the research of Welsh scholar David Snowden and his Cynefin Decision Making Framework. Snowden contends that different situations require different responses to successfully navigate them. His framework interprets complexity theory with four domains of decision making: obvious, complicated, complex and chaotic. Decisions in the complex domain require experimentation and creativity to come up with a new approach. The BRIDGE model lends itself well to solving those complex decisions. The BRIDGE has been used to solve complex issues with a variety of groups: 1) a nonprofit start-up created structure, policies and procedures to run their new organization; 2) a 4-H group identified a new training program; 3) a focus group of leaders in the long-term services and supports industry identified talent development as a critical concern, which led to the creation of two new non-credit curricula to improve workforce skills; 4) a training department for a for-profit company developed a plan for management approval to implement a new initiative; 5) an FFA chapter developed several service learning projects for their school and community and at the same time learned valuable critical-thinking skills; and 6) a trucking company created a strategic plan to lead the company into a new phase of services. The BRIDGE model actively engages groups of diverse people. The structure of the process allows for dynamic exchange of ideas that are captured on idea cards and ultimately churn and meld into synthesized solutions supported by the entire group.
AUTHOR AFFILIATION: Myra Wilson, program director, Ohio State Alber Enterprise Center, wilson.2025@osu.edu (Corresponding Author); Cynthia Bond, assistant professor and OSU Extension educator, community development; David Marrison, associate professor and OSU Extension educator, agriculture and natural resources; Emily Marrison, OSU Extension educator, family and consumer sciences; Amanda Woods, Healthy Finances program specialist, OSU Extension family and consumer sciences; Kyle White, OSU Extension area leader and educator, community development

Keywords

BRIDGE, solutions, implementation, facilitation, community

Citation

Engaged Scholars, v. 7 (2019).

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/1811/87324

Collections

Engaged Scholars: Volume 7 (2019)

Full item page

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