Goal Tree Chronicles- 2 Trees built in one 2-day workshop

November 2022, I moderated a Goal Tree building workshop in which 2 teams of 5 built a Goal Tree, in the same session and same meeting room. After a couple of hours spent training about the basics of “Necessity logic”, the rules of building a Goal Tree and the different uses of such a Tree, …

Goal Tree Chronicles – Where a Goal Tree is advised

Third round of a job interview. I am facing the CEO of a midsize 800+ people company in search of a VP of Operational Excellence. This interview was somewhat weird, with a CEO painting the picture of the actual state darker than I had sensed it during my shop floor tour and other interviews. Usually …

Goal Tree Chronicles – Special Lockdown – What happens to a Goal Tree in case of lockdown?

We write the 2nd of April, 2020. This is 16th day of lockdown for the coronavirus COVID-19 here in France, started March 17th, at noon. Worldwide it is half of the humankind that is locked down. Many business owners and senior management team members try to figure out how to first cope with the situation, …

Goal Tree Chronicles – I got Interviewed about the Goal Tree!

January 2019, Ms Angela Lovelll reached out for an interview about the Goal Tree. She's a copywriter for the Canadian agricultural magazine Country Guide. During the first contact she explained me she got intrigued by the Goal Tree which is very different than what she had found and heard over and over again about setting …

Goal Tree Chronicles – A logical analysis, not a brainstorming

It happens almost every time I facilitate a Goal Tree building seminar: Tree builders rush to the post-its and start writing down their ideas as it was a brainstorming. Hold on! Building a Goal Tree is a logical analysis, certainly not a brainstorming! A Goal Tree is built with a logical analysis A Goal Tree …

Goal Tree Chronicles – From Goal Tree to project WBS. Yes but.

I use to say that one of the benefits of the Goal Tree is to provide a project Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to roll out the project, or the Goal Tree to be used ahead of a new project planning to ensure that no step was forgotten. With experience accumulating, I can confirm this to …

Goal Tree Chronicles – Where to start when almost all Prerequisites are missing?

It happens almost every time, I facilitate the building of a Goal Tree, bring the group of Tree builders to build the Tree which is the roadmap and benchmark altogether for reaching the organization’s Goal, and when we color this Tree to assess where the organization currently stands, the Goal Tree is depressingly amber and …

Goal Tree Chronicles – Your Current Reality changed, not your Goal

Bill Dettmer, the “father” of the Goal Tree keeps repeating “A Goal Tree well-built remains valid until the business environment changes or the way the organization is doing business changes significantly". Indeed, in times of instability and disruptions, business owners or CEOs may feel that some significant change happened in business requiring to rebuild a …

Summer blog “logical” cleanup

Dear subscribers and regular visitors of this blog, you may have noticed over time the growing number of posts related to this fabulous logic tools called the Goal Tree. In order to facilitate navigation and tidying up my blog, I've created a specific category for Goal Tree-related posts as well as a category for the Goal …

Goal Tree Chronicles – A hierarchy in time, not of importance

A common mistake for newcomers to the Goal Tree is to understand the tree structure as a hierarchical system, with the most important Necessary Conditions on the top - the closest on the Goal - and the least important at the bottom of the tree, farther away from the Goal. In fact, the relative position …