Opportunity Mapping with ORCA

As part of our Facilitation Tools sharing series, we are delighted to introduce you to ORCA (TM)

There are many opportunities out there, if we go looking for them, but not all of them are worth pursuing. Or they might not be worth pursuing YET. So how do we help teams sift through those opportunities to determine which ones are right for them and worth their effort? That’s where this ORCA tool comes in. It’s an acronym that stands for:

1. Opportunity

2. Reward

3. Consequence and

4. Action

Just because opportunities are out there, doesn’t mean we should chase them all, at least not all at the same time. Not all that glitters turns out to be gold. That's why we need to be selective and discerning. It’s easy to chase the shiny new stuff and overlook the less bright stuff lurking in the corner. Yet spotting opportunities requires us to look in more than the obvious places. And sometimes, the opportunity doesn’t exist, so you won’t spot it just by looking. You have to imagine it and tease it into being.

If you are facilitating a team event, ORCA can help you spot, clarify and analyse opportunities; it will help the team understand which ones they should go for and which they should leave behind; and it will encourage them to use foresight as they bring those opportunities to life.

The stages of ORCA are described below.

ORCA tool for facilitating team planning

1. First, encourage the team to create a list of possible Opportunities that currently exist as low hanging fruit or might be more obscured and daring. These opportunities will reflect the level of ambition in the team. Record all ideas on a flip chart (or two).

   
   

2. The list is likely to be a long one, so use a voting system to trim it down to the top three opportunities which the team wants to explore further at this time.

   
   

3. Taking each opportunity in turn, identify and record what Rewards are likely to follow from pursuing each opportunity. These rewards might be personally for team members, for the team as a whole, for the company, or for its stakeholders/customers. It is a chance to evaluate why this opportunity could be so beneficial and worth pursuing. If the opportunity seems great for you but makes no material impact on your organisation, it will be hard to gain support for it. You need to know what the prize is, and who wins it.

   
   

4. Next, take each opportunity in turn, and assess the Consequences of pursuing it. Consider what it will require from you in terms of effort and resources. You may need to acquire new resources or change your priorities. Pursuing a new opportunity as an additional project means that something else may have to give. So, what’s the price of this opportunity? Consequences will include impact on current schedule/workload/commitments, resources required, costs, time, new skills needed, stakeholders who will need to be involved, any new equipment needed, etc. Are there any negative consequences you can foresee that you will need to mitigate? Record everything. This evaluation is a reality check, helping the team weigh up whether the the benefits are attractive enough to make them worth any effort that might be involved.

   
   

5. Once you have worked through the Results and Consequences of your three Opportunities, work with the team to put them in rank order from Most Attractive/Worthwhile to Least Attractive/Worthwhile.

   
   

6. Now work through the top opportunity by identifying what Action(s) the team will need to take to bring this opportunity to life. This is a planning activity, so the team needs to be clear about how it will start and what the primary activities will need to be. It prevents the team from rushing headlong into danger. Think out what needs to happen on day one and plot key activities from there.

   
   

7. Having completed these stages, the team has a decision to make. Should it go ahead with any of the opportunities? Give each team member three options for each Opportunity: Yes, Go for it! Yes, but not now. No, let it go! Once the results are in, you may need to facilitate further discussion to iron out any concerns or disagreements. And it can be helpful to determine in advance whether the final decision requires complete consensus or a majority vote.

   
   

ORCA is a fitting acronym, taking its name from the large whale. Part of the dolphin family, the Orca lives in groups that work cooperatively to hunt, and although it is also known as the Killer Whale, it is nowhere near as dangerous to humans as its name suggests. It is a big and beautiful creature; graceful and majestic; taking just what it needs and no more. So, work cooperatively to identify and exploit new opportunities for your team, but don’t bite off more than you can chew. chew.