cocooners - making it happen - no 1, september 2016

COCOONERSN°1 - SEPTEMBER 2016 M A K IN G I T H A P P E N

PLAY. SERIOUSLY.On their way to becoming a Small Giant.

In this issue we are glad to talk you about a

company located in southern Italy, which

represents the excellence among state-of-

the-art Media Companies. They approached

us for supporting their development process

in order to attain a higher maturity level.

Read at page 6

Stop focusing on briefs. Let UX start playing seriously.

We ceased pretending companies get involved in

a project with us on the basis of a complete brief

and a precise budget. What we are asking is more

immediate and not banal: trust and openness for

a mutual and enriching partnership.

Read at page 4

A word about Cocoon ProjectsRead at page 10

Meet LiquidOTM

Read at page 12

OUR STORY, YOUR STORY FROM THE FAMILY: FIFTH BEAT

COOKING IN OUR LABS• Rory’s Story Cubes®

• LSP• YousRead at page 8

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2

PLAY. SERIOUSLY.

CLAUDIA PELLICORI

In the previous issue of Cocooners, Michele Luconi said:

“It’s definitely true: a company starts growing when

people in that company start growing” and I totally agree

with him.

Usually, in a company people work together to achieve the same

goals and I have heard some managers talking about teams and

their business results. That sounds good but, they often aren’t

talking about teams. These are groups.

To be part of a team isn’t running a 4x100 meter relay in an

athletic competition, it is playing in a basketball team.

Really working together means learning to have trust in each

other, to be ready to support the teammates, to share the

same root and to understand when it’s time to lead and when

it is important to step back and leave space for others. People

involved in a team have more accountability towards the

results, they work better and are more motivated. The first rule

in a team is: “win all or lose all” and it’s not only the destina-

tion that matters but, sharing the way is the real value.

The evolution of the path isn’t simple and the relational

dynamics are complex to manage, but the real power of a team

is: to learn to sail through these dynamics and grow in order to

turn from a group to a team.

Today, working life is changing and companies cannot aim for

results without thinking about people and their wellbeing.

As Michael Jordan once said: “Talent wins

games, but teamwork and intelligence

win championships.”

So….Timeout! It’s time to start growing as

a Team!

Did you ever hear about Swarm Intelligence?

The way in which animals can coordinate their behav-

iors has always fascinated and intrigued humans. The

harmony in which thousands of birds can fly together like

a single organism, the complex bee structure, the perfect synchro-

nized movements within a school of fishes.

Today many researchers are investigating how it is possible replicate

these behaviors, named “stigmergic”, in human organizations.

The term “Swarm Intelligence” was introduced by Gerardo Beni,

professor of electrical engineering at University of California, in the

context of cellular robotic systems. In fact, the concept was initially

employed in work on artificial intelligence, and then applied at biolog-

ical systems. Eric Bonabeau and Marco Dorigo, some of the world’s

leading experts in complex systems, argue that Swarm Intelligence is

based on three characteristics:

• Flexibility – the colony can adapt to a change environment;

• Robustness – even when one individual fails the group can still

perform its task;

• Self Organization – activities are not centrally controlled and not

locally supervised.

In nature, biological systems use Swarm Intelligence to survive at

predators attacks, and environment changes. In some way the inter-

connections of these single being allow them to access to more smart

abilities. According to researchers the key is enabling a positive feed-

back within the system. Each individual amplifies the actions of the

previous one leading to the emergence of an “intelligent” global

behavior unknowns to the single. Simple organisms, as termites,

are able to build air conditioned “castle of clay” more sophisticated

than the vast majority of human constructions

without any centralized control. How can we

enable such behaviors in our organizations?

How is it possible wake up the awareness about

the deep interconnections among people?

Nowadays something is moving and according

to Cocoon Projects people need new tools and

practices to engage each other in effective

collaboration, exploiting collective intelligence

and individual diversity for value co-creation.

ALESSANDRA CIANCHETTINI

VALERIO CIANCI

Cocooners - n° 1 - September 2016

3

In the age of Disruptive Innovation, I couldn’t find any better

landscape than the Chinese Market.

Two years ago, arriving here I felt lost in this confused mix

of different ages mashed all together, while innovation

randomly explodes and culture and society trying to keep up. Then,

approaching many organizations, I figured out how they were able to

manage all this: continuously adapting to the context. Surprisingly,

despite the enormous number of people, products and services are

perfectly shaped around them.

And that’s wonderful. But the deeper you dig into organizations the

more you realize that often the principles they’re built on don’t take

into consideration people as they should. How can a hiring process

be compelling if there’s no attention to the way each individual

approach may impact on the effectiveness of the team or more

broadly on the organization?

Are you sure I am just talking about China? Aren’t you familiar with

this, wherever you come from?

Everywhere the mania to control complexity converts organizations

- naturally complex systems – into something just complicated.

Exchanging tools with purposes twists the very idea of innovation.

So you can now see a bunch of people reading books and taking

certifications, but how many of them are really willing to involve

their coworkers in decisional processes? Curiously, in a time where

machines are already human, companies still think of coworkers in

terms of executors. Confusing leadership with power raises up the

gap between strategists and executors. And that’s where the black

hole lies, where companies lose the chance to

create value.

If organizations can’t face this, they won’t

see the Elephant with the whole Savannah in

the room. So let’s rethink mindsets to change

behaviors, processes, and organizational prin-

ciples. This could be an innovative start.

What are you afraid of? Have you ever noticed

how you relate with your fears? Think about a

situation that time ago got you completely nuts.

Personally, I’ve got several situations where my

only wish was to run away, disappear, earth-please-eat-me…But

today, I can even smile thinking of how much I was scared about

things, contexts and people.

We are constantly in touch with Fear, often through its most

daily nuances such a continued uncertainty in doing anything;

Fear tends to block us and it will not disappear for itself because

it’s just in our minds. We have to face it, even by small steps

because it’s the only way to get a change and move ahead. When

something is blocking you, find the smallest thing you can do to

get a solution and start, otherwise, the risk is to get used to not

act at all and always leave decisions and actions to something or

someone else.

Reflect on the way we deal with Fear, even when it’s present in

small doses in our everyday life, allows us to understand ourselves

a little more deeply and it can cause a change or an improvement

in our approach to life. It can make us more proactive and free.

Cocoon Projects tends to attract and to continue its path with

people with a proactive attitude, caring and committed. It’s an

open enterprise, so everyone interested in joining and compat-

ible with our values has free access. The path and what this

person can give and gain in this context

always depends on his actions. We believe in

collective intelligence, and I personally trust

the “Butterfly effect”.ALESSANDRA COSIMATO

MILUSKAOJEDA

SOME OF OUR HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE 1ST HALF OF 2016

IN COSA CONSISTE IL METODO LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®?

THE NEAR FUTURE OF WORK HOW YOU ARE GOING TO WORK TOMORROW WITH STELIO VERZERA

BOSSLESS ORGANIZATIONS IN PRACTICE

10 DAYS OF PUBLIC WORKSHOPS3 CITIES130+ PARTICIPANTS

FROM THE WHOLE WORLD

COCREATION INITIATIVES

3 NEW LABS16 COCOONERS INVOLVED3 CONTENTS PUBLISHED

COCOON LABS

TALKING ABOUT US

1 NEW MEMBER9 NEW CONTRIBUTORSSHIFT-OUT DYNAMICS INITIATED

CP OPEN GOVERNANCE

3


4

We ceased pretending companies get involved in

a project with us on the basis of a complete brief

and a precise budget. What we are asking is more

immediate and not banal: trust and openness for

a mutual and enriching partnership. Techniques

and method of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® help

Fifth Beat to establish good relationships with

our clients.

Our objective is to let our stakeholders perceive

the value of co-designed products and services,

with and for the people. Whenever we have to

create an identity or communication strategy

or explore user needs, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®

gave us the chance to advance with confidence in

several areas of interest: a manufacturer of blast

chillers ready to enter in the domestic market,

an NGO focusing on agricultural development, a

facility management company in need of coordi-

nation with a thorny client.

A communications strategy designed with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®Fifth Beat uses this technique to foster in a

neutral ground different points of view within the

marketing team, the business department and

who is in charge to promote and design a product

or a service.

From generating what it seems apparently a

mute construction made of little bricks, we lay

the foundation to find values, scopes and a list

of priorities to face, in order to develop a shared

communication strategy.

An interesting case-study is the LEGO® SERIOUS

PLAY® workshop we lead with Cocoon, where

clients and managers of this home appliance

company were involved together. It has been

exciting to observe each participant to work with a

smorgasbord of Lego pieces and elaborate a rather

complex template such as a value proposition

canvas. Furthermore it was invaluable to blend

each personal strategy of the company’s new

platform into three collective scenarios, immedi-

ately transformed in concrete actions to take.

Pushing the elephantThe power of this technique is in the resolution of internal dynamics and can be used to build a channel of communication between different teams that work on a single project or among persons in the same company, with heteroge-neous responsibilities. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® enhances our ability to build a common vision and the model made of little bricks becomes the mirror of the positive and negative aspects in a project (pain & gain).

One of the most interesting visions on the necessity to use the web with “little characters without body”, connected

with flexible tubes to exchange news and information linked to company products. All the participants, included

marketing staff, have positioned their models in the center, bringing out a map of priorities for the strategy of this

platform aimed to promote company and products.


In this number of Cocooners we are happy to share with you an article from our ohana on the importance of trust, people and the right methodology to deliver real value for the market.

Fifthbeat.com

FROM THE

FAMILY

STOP FOCUSING ON BRIEFS.

LET UX START PLAYING SERIOUSLY.

We naturally create an element of discussion capable to overcome any personal or hierar-chical dynamic.Participants to the workshop have to choose which portion of their model will be saved in order to create a shared vision. The selected part will be assembled with all the others parts and they will piece together in a unique common model, with a high symbolic value and which is the representation of the connection of the single artefacts.We were especially surprised by the outcome of a workshop where an elephant, tired and lazy, represented the abandoned project we were discussing on. At the end of the day, each participant contributed with a solution to instill dynamism to the animal and lead it back home, towards the goal. Weeks after, the project rekindle itself and lived of a strong vital energy. The working team focusing on the new unexpected findings managed to give new life and a new structure to the project.

COCOON PROJECTS

WEBSITE HIGHLIGHTS

5


LSP Fest: immerse yourself in the world’s first LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Fest We are glad and particularly proud to invite all those who love the evo-

lution of work, serious play and the legendary colored blocks to join us in

Milan on the 22.nd and 23.rd of October (2016).

#EODF15 has ended: feedback and thanks! Which images come back to us about this beautiful

event?

STOP FOCUSING ON BRIEFS.

LET UX START PLAYING SERIOUSLY.

COCOONERS n°0 is online! Making It Happen.The N°0 of our “Cocooners” half-yearly publication is

online in digital version! Catch up about news, tools, thoughts, facts,

people, work, future.

Once an initial pace

of change was

applied through the

above retrospectives,

we could finally start

to go and act deeper

and deeper into the

culture of the whole

organization and the

people who make it up.

Everyone, regardless

any job title or position

in the organization

chart, was enabled to

express his own ideas

and potentialities

6

Every (single)

human system

is by its very nature

unique.

There is absolutely

no way to apply any

standardized process

improvement without

admitting honestly

it won’t produce any

real positive effects

on the system itself.

This is the reason

why as for our normal

practice we started

what we call “itera-

tion 0”, that is a first-

Following the

Pareto focus prin-

ciple we then identi-

fied those (specific)

areas where small

interventions might

have implemented

great changes. Its

immediate effect was

a two-way workflow:

on one side the

introduction of a first

system of flexible

agile retrospectives

on different company

levels and at different

pace, on the other side

the start-up training

In this issue we are glad to talk you about a company located in southern Italy, which represents the excellence

among state-of-the-art Media Companies.

They approached us for supporting their development process in order to attain a higher maturity level.

We started in February 2016 and from the very beginning we realized we were experiencing an extraordinary

story to share.

step intervention

to understand the

current situation we

are going to face and

operating. This would

lead us to set short-

and medium-term

objectives through

the co-creation of a

new area where all

identities in the group

can properly emerge

and reveal.

of a renewed manage-

ment team through

an in-depth process

of identity alignment

and co-creation of

guidelines by using

LEGO® SERIOUS

PLAY® methods.

in respect with the

current change and

from that moment

on we could start

spreading the best

practice and a shared

proactivity mindset.

ITERATION 0

CULTUREAND PEOPLE

AGILERETROSPECTIVES

OUR STORY IS YOUR STORY

ON THEIR WAY TO BECOMING A

SMALL GIANT


7

After a strong

cultural and

relational background

had flourished, our

next step was to start

evolving the workflow,

that is eliminating

first the root causes of

wastes (c.d. “muda”)

and then highlighting

all the dynamics that

in an opposite way

create value in all

working process.

Thanks to the

combined use of

Model Storming and

a QuEST procedure a

first new experimental

advancement phase

was launched for 3

weeks and then a

This is a stable

framework, where

the company can take

the first necessary

steps towards a

systemic and system-

atic evolution process.

And this will also be

the guiding path of

the next 6-month

term iteractions that

deeper intervention

that was applied on

bi-annual basis. In this

way the company has

been able to apply a

double-loop learning

process for the contin-

uous improvement: a

first loop, lighter and

faster, regarding tools

and processes, and a

second longer-term

and deeper loop

concerning mind-set-

ting and decision

criteria of the whole

organization.

will lead this extraor-

dinary company to

reach high conscious

management levels

and evolution. With its

own hands.

SYSTEMICEVOLUTION PROCESSDOUBLE-LOOP

LEARNING

“They’re interested in being great at what

they do, creating a great place to work, pro-

viding great service to customers, having

great relationships with their suppliers,

making great contributions to the com-

munities they live and work in, and finding

great ways to lead their lives. I call them

small giants.”

Bo Burlingham.

FINAL THOUGHTS

110 HOURS OF WORK FACILITATORS PARTICPANTS3 35SOME DATA

ON THEIR WAY TO BECOMING A

SMALL GIANT


8

Rory’s Story Cubes®

We started to play with the Rory’s Story Cubes®

with a Spanish collegue who shared this tool with

us and we soon discovered that it was possible

to use them in so many different ways and in so

many interesting areas. Then in March 2016 we

decided to open the lab.

The Rory’s Story Cubes® are nine cubes with

images on every face.

You can give them a good shake, roll them out and

start to tell a story using these pictures.

We have experienced strong impact (both)

on individuals and groups of people.

If you open your mind you can deeply understand

yourself and your context, then you can choose

your direction with increased awareness and

consciousness.

We are also using the Story Cubes® linked to

other tools and we are discovering very inter-

esting contaminations.

Follow our journey and share your points of view

and ideas with us!

LSPSince LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® has been with us

for a couple of years now, as a really powerful tool

for the evolution of human systems, for the first

output of this lab we’ve decided to go for some-

for real-life encounters and experience-making,

to build creative spaces and constantly enhance

flows of knowledge in and among people.

In these few months we have completed the

envisioning phase through which we came to

important considerations about the inefficiency

of the current institutional life growth paths

and conversely about the potentialities of our

proposed solution.

But as that was just our own idea, we decided to

ask real people about their real needs in their real

lives and listened to them deeply. We collected

important information and (we have) started to

iteratively improve our solution.

In the meanwhile we have started working with

some companies who are interested in their

employees’ work/life improvement.

This particular interest generated by the real

world is stimulating us to accelerate in the devel-

opment of the first working MVP of the platform

and a great team of Cocooners are ready to make

it happen.

Stay tuned for the

publication of all the

active Labs and their work

at labs.cocoonprojects.com

thing big! So we’ve used part of the first half of

2016 to organise the “LSP Fest” (LSPfest.com).

It is the first fest entirely dedicated to the LSP

methodology and its ways of facilitating thinking,

communication and complex problem solving

both for groups and for individuals. We’re organ-

ising it in partnership with Rasmussen Consulting

and Juego Serio, in the persons of our long time

friends Robert Rasmussen and Lucio Margulis.

The goals of these days of LSP Fest are to get

people to really know this method, gather with

professional facilitators, allow them to meet

people interested in knowing more about it in

order to evolve their way of working, exchange

valuable experiences, and learn basic principles

that can effectively guide through the complexity

of today’s world of work.

We won’t be talking much, in fact we’ll be working

hands-on most of the time! We want to focus on

direct experience, not on theoretical knowledge.

Directly trying how it feels to use LSP in different

workshops of various lengths and on different

topics is absolutely the best way to understand

what we mean by “hard fun”!

YousYous is a bottom-up ecosystem of functional

modules for worklife advancement.

it is a means which has been purposely devised

IN OUR

Cocoon Projects Labs are our own innovation engine, which have developed driving forces for new knowledge, mastery and even

new value proposition elements. They are open and voluntary structures, working by specific processes designed for proactively

generating market-driven and high-quality value proposition.

It’s in the CP Labs that entrepreneurs and professional game-changers can express their best contribution in the co-creation of

the upcoming Cocoon Projects.


LABSCOOKING

A Cocoon Projects Jam happens twice per year, at the beginning of each half. It is the most important CP governance event, open to all members and contributors and lasting two or three days. During the CP Jam we cocreate our direction for the next 6 months. Here below you can have a peek at our last Jam.

#CPJAM

9

JAM NEWS

@CocoonPro

Continuous improvement and respect for people #lean #respon-

sibility #retrospective #CPJAM #2016h2

@MattiaRapisarda

I’m really tired after this two days of #CPJam but at the same time

I’m feeling better. I’m growing and it’s thanks to @CocoonPro

#2016h2

@emagorse

I love #CpJam because it never begins and never ends, just hap-

pens. And it’s beautiful. #2016h2

@giusyfratta

Be prepared to be surprised, guided by passion & responsibility!

#CPJAM @CocoonPro @ShiverTweet @emagorse #OST

@Guido_Martini

Envisioning our growth through #storycubes @CocoonPro

#CPJAM #learning

@ShiverTweet

My life is no longer in my command. #CPjam #2016H2

@CocoonPro

@hoxeheome

Interesting #OST session for sharing experiences to improve

#CPJAM #2016H2 @cocoonpro https://www.instagram.com/p/

BI0Dw3yjM2M/

@pellicors

#CPJam #2016h2 Starting to understand how we feel, the position

between vision and determination… https://www.instagram.

com/p/BIwsNEnA21s/


10

Cocoon Projects’ governance system itself is

based on the Lean managements and Open

Collaboration principles. It constitutes a last

generation adaptive organisational model

called LiquidOTM that has already collected

high interest and direct interaction by some of

the most relevant international experts in the

enterprise and management innovation fields.

Cocoon Projects is thus involved first-hand in

the edge international efforts for the develop-

ment of methodologies and tools enabling the

systemic improvement of organisations.

And it is directly engaged on a regular basis

by global networks of professionals in the

field, such as the European Organisation

Design Forum, the Stoos Network, the OuiS-

hare network, the Management Innovation

Exchange (MIX).

Cocoon Projects is a last generation company,

devoted to supporting innovation and fostering

real value creation in the world entrepreneurial

ecosystem. It’s been designed to be effective,

agile, open, fast and adaptive. Its Customers

are people and organisations in the need for

significant evolution within the scopes of

work methodologies, tools and techniques and/

or stakeholders end-to-end relationships.

INCLUSIVENESS

OP

EN

NE

SS

LEANNESS

Imagine the space of evolution

in these three dimensions.

A value of zero on all of

the three axes would fit

for a company from

the Fifties of the last

century.

Where is your organ-

isation today?

Where should it

be tomorrow?

A WORD

ABOUT US


These ongoing activities within the scopes of

Innovation, together with intense and contin-

uous field operations at the side of national

and international Customers highlight Cocoon

Projects as the ideal partner for those organisa-

tions in search of sound experience within the

most core and relevant scopes of Innovation.

We believe this is the time for establishing

a whole new culture in the management of

today’s challenges for any organisation. And

we’re able to design and co-execute ad-hoc

evolutionary paths on all the vertical aspects

of this scenario.

The goal is to make this change

really happen.

11

AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

SERVICE MODELDEVELOPMENT

WORKPLACEEVOLUTION

REPUTATIONDEVELOPMENT

IDENTITYAND HERITAGEEMPOWERING

CROWD-PLATFORMSIMPLEMENTATION

REAL TIMESTRATEGY MAKING

EXPERIENCEDESIGN

ADAPTIVE ORGANISATIONDESIGN

INCLU

SIVENESS OPENNES

S

OPENINNOVATION

LEANNESS

ADAP

TIV

E

ORG

ANIS

AT

ION CONTIN

UO

S

IMPROVEMEN

T

IT’S ALL ABOUTPEOPLE

In the evolution of work across

the three dimensions

of leanness, inclusiveness

and openness, we can

provide services

in these 9 different areas.


What is LiquidO™You might have heard of a new breed of organisational models, responding

to the fast growing adaptability, engagement and collaboration needs

within modern company structures. Or you might have simply experienced

the sound problems of slowness, rigidity, bureaucracy, disengagement

along with various kinds of waste and bottlenecks that “traditional”

organisational models generate and suffer nowadays.

This is what LiquidOTM is all about: the original “liquid organisation”

model for governance, born from direct experience within Cocoon

Projects and in use in a growing number of for profit and not-for-profit

organisations willing to get liquid.

Liquefying an organization means disrupting the industrial-age driven

assumptions on which rigid structures are designed and move on to make

it adaptive, dynamic and anti-fragile. Based on lean management and

open collaboration principles, the LiquidOTM model is fluid,

meritocratic and value-driven, enabling stigmergic

behaviour and “organic” effectiveness.

Why you would want it in your organisation

Rigidly structured organiza-

tions cannot cope with the

current pace of innovation

and its complexity, let

alone exploit it. We need a

completely different mindset

and consequently new models.

And we need them to be simple

and people-centric.

This is exactly why LiquidO™

was born.

1. Real-time adaptability.

The industrial age organisational approach, where

each area is defined as a restricted group of activities coherent

to one another, has its biggest limitations in the risk to fall in fragmented,

sealed administration and culture. As the company grows, so grows the

complex ramification, branching and costs of these models. Lack of

communication, heavy bureaucracy, disastrous efficiency.

The completely different perspective realized by LiquidO™, in fact relying

on people and competences without fixed roles, provides an integrated

and adaptive business management scenario shifted to a systemic

approach, pragmatically meritocratic and inherently capable of real time

adaptability to any context. It’s just like water, some would say.

2. Better and faster information processing.

Hierarchies are a sound bottleneck both for decision making and compe-

tences evolution. Too many info to process in order to succeed. Moreover,

on the other hand, the distance between where and how in the organi-

zation strategies are created, and where and how they have to be executed

too often creates waste, lack of effectiveness or even complete failure.

Non-peer evaluation, silos and recruiting inefficiency are additional

heavy side-defects of an organizational design philosophy based on the

two illusions of control and predictability, and therefore actualized with

structural divisions between thinking and doing.

LiquidO™ is a viable and operational way to let all the brilliant people in

the company effectively emerge. Anybody can join each wave, surf it and

enrich it, so to say. And leveraging different viewpoints, backgrounds and

competences today is definitely critical to succeed in taking better and

faster decisions.

3. Engagement and spontaneous leadership.

People are key in this picture. In fact, within

LiquidO™ everyone can decide whether to

join a process or not, try, and conse-

quently determine her level by fast

feedback loops from frequent and

specific peer-reviews driven by

the actual delivered value.

Besides a natural engagement

due to continuous feedback

and consequently improving

results, within this scenario

it’s really difficult to deny

emerging problems. Within

the old way of thinking the

organizations very often

conflicts, work overload, sense

of impotence, lack of decision

power, absence of endorsement,

unfair treatment and misalignments

are among the real causes of failures.

There is much more that can be done today, if

only we let go of control, predictability and rigidity.

LiquidO™ moves structures, processes and the organization

itself away from the center, where it is assumed that people have to adapt

to them, instead shifting the focus on people and truly empowering

them to dynamically find their maximum value creation spot within

the organization, expressing leadership effectively and without fear,

naturally growing and being rewarded for this.

Read the whole LiquidO™ whitepaper. It is available in

Creative Commons at liquidorganisation.info

12

COLLABORATIVEWORKING BOARD

REPUTATION TRACKING

CONTRIBUTIONACCOUNTING

COLLABORATIVE DECISIONMAKING

MEET LIQUIDO™


cocooners - making it happen - no 1, september 2016

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