Evaporating Cloud
For a conflict that keeps coming back
Goldratt's own name for it. Also called the Conflict Resolution Diagram.
A cloud is for a conflict you keep having with yourself, or the same argument the team has every few weeks. Not a decision with a clear right answer. The kind where both sides are genuinely right, which is why it never gets settled.
Start where you already are: the two things you cannot do at once. Work back from there to what each one is for. The conflict is never between the two needs. It is between the two wants, and that is the discovery worth having.
1. Start with the conflict
The two things you cannot do at the same time. Write them as actions you would take, not as feelings about the situation.
The want. Usually the thing you do by default.
What the other side wants instead. It has to genuinely rule out D.
2. Work back to what each one is for
Not why you like it. What it protects. If the answer is another action, keep going: you have not reached the need yet.
I want to [D]. What need am I meeting by doing it?
I want to [D′]. What need am I meeting by doing that?
3. What are both needs serving?
Look at [B] and [C] together. What are you trying to achieve that requires both of them?
There is one. Two needs you are genuinely torn between are always serving the same thing, which is exactly why you cannot simply drop one of them. If you cannot name it yet, the needs are probably still written as actions. Go back and ask what each one protects.
4. Surface the assumptions
Every arrow carries a belief. Finish each sentence out loud. The cloud evaporates when one of these turns out to be untrue, or true only under conditions you can change.
In order to have [A], I must have [B], because…
In order to have [B], I must [D], because…
In order to have [A], I must have [C], because…
In order to have [C], I must [D′], because…
I cannot [D] and [D′] at the same time, because…
Usually the weakest of the five, and the one nobody has ever said out loud.
Read it back
You built it from the conflict. You present it from the objective, because that is the order somebody else has to be able to follow it in.
In order to have [A], I must have [B].
In order to have [B], I must [D].
In order to have [A], I must also have [C].
In order to have [C], I must [D′].
But I cannot [D] and [D′] at the same time.
If that does not sound like a real dilemma read out loud, one of the boxes is wrong. Usually B or C is still an action rather than a genuine need.
5. Break an assumption
What you write here is the injection: the change that makes the conflict stop existing. Not a compromise, and not a way to live with it. Look for the assumption that is easiest to break and does the most damage to the conflict when it goes.
One injection often does not hold on its own. If a second assumption looks weak, or if breaking the first one leaves a gap somebody will object to, work that one here too.
Optional. Leave it empty if the first injection stands up by itself.
Do you need a hand with this?
These are simple to draw and hard to fill in honestly. Most people get most of the way and then get stuck on the box, or the assumption, that actually matters.
Send it through and I will look at it properly. Doing this on factory floors since 2005, and 300 businesses later. You will get a straight answer about what I would do next, and whether that is something you need me for at all.
Your evaporating cloud is sent with the message. No charge, no obligation.
Stuck on it?
These are simple to draw and hard to fill in honestly. If you want a second pair of eyes on yours, that is a thirty minute conversation and it costs nothing.
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