The new system works perfectly. Nobody uses it.
Recognize this situation? Below are the Liberating Structures that change it — a concrete example, and the reason this one fits here. New to Liberating Structures? Here's what it is.
Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD) asks who's already using it — and what makes them different.
For example: IT rolls out a new planning system. The tests are solid, the documentation is complete, the help desk is ready. Six weeks later, less than a quarter of the team uses the system. Everyone else just keeps working in the old spreadsheet — not out of stubbornness, but because nobody ever asked them what they actually needed.
Liberating Structures for this situation:
Purpose-to-Practice (P2P)
Purpose-to-Practice (P2P) shifts the moment when users get involved: not after launch to "get used to it," but upfront, at the design stage. In groups of four, participants work through five elements — purpose, principles, who needs to be involved, structure, and concrete practices — each time using the same 1-2-4-All structure.
The system that comes out of it isn't something that needs to be "explained" — the people who'll actually use it helped build it, including the principles it has to follow.
Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)
Discovery & Action Dialogue asks a different question than "why isn't anyone using it?" — it starts from who already is. One of the seven fixed questions is literally: "Do you know someone who regularly solves this problem? What approach made that possible?"
For a system that a quarter of the team already uses, that's gold: instead of explaining from the top why everyone else "needs to follow," the group itself surfaces what that quarter does differently — and what it takes to pass that on.
No certification, no lengthy prep — read the steps and try it at your next meeting.