Blue Sky Thinking

In a planning meeting once I heard the question: If you had $200,000 dollars right now to solve this problem, what would you do?

The "unlimited resources" question can get to the heart of your dreams. In fact, in this particular planning session, the $200k question allowed most of us to figure out where to pour our energies and brought up some really good ideas.

The question reveals how much we limit our thinking with what we believe we "can't" do.

There is a constant tension between "blue sky" dreaming and what is actually achievable. Sometimes people spend too much time in "blue sky" conversations to ever actually make something real happen. Other times we put so many fences around our thinking that we think we can't do anything.

The question has value in generating ideas. Because though you may not have cash you often have creativity, energy and other resources and the question can get to the heart of where you want to spend them.

Strategic Dimensions mission is to "change the way facilities are planned." To reveal the line between "wish list" and "impossible" to a project that can actually be accomplished.