Intervening with Actions

In Southbeach 0.9, a new type of colored box has been introduced. What management consultants told us was that in client presentations it would be useful to them to distinguish their recommended actions and interventions to solve the client's problem. We call these agents 'actions', and they are shown in blue in order to distinguish them from useful boxes (green) and harmful boxes (red).



Actions can be considered to be in some ways 'outside' of the model, or superimposed on the model - intervening on it. In TRIZ, this could be called the 'supersystem' or 'external environment'. In effect, the consultants that gave us the feedback that led us to add 'actions' to Southbeach, are 'external' to the client as they make their proposals for change/transformation.

Whether you are a management consultant or another kind of problem solver, we hope you find these visually distinctive 'action' shapes useful in your work. Formally, 'actions' are considered 'useful' in a Southbeach model.

In the example model above, also note the use of 'insufficient'. There is both an action to increase the 'insfficiency in the system'. There is also an 'insufficient action' which may or may not be sufficient to address problem area three.