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.
Keep exploring
Browse the full list of 43 structures, or get support if this situation is too complex to facilitate yourself.