Ralph Chapman Quality Solutions

Desires to Results Process

Identify: The process starts with a nagging feeling that you put into written words, or a written response to the question, "What action do you feel you need to take soon - either to get something that you want, or to prevent something you don't want from happening?"

Translate: Now take what you've written and translate it into two motivational statements, one positive to describe the expected outcome when you take action and one negative to describe the expected outcome if you do not take action.

Brainstorm: With your desirable and undesirable outcomes in mind, and ignoring constraints, list any ideas you can think of for possibly achieving the desirable outcome. This can include asking a specific person for advice and consulting books or other publications for more ideas.

Plan: Choose one or more objectives based on your brainstorming ideas. An ideal objective is specific and measurable, but sometimes is not crystal clear until you've taken some steps toward completing it. So write down something with the awareness that it might change. Similarly, the steps to achieve the objective may require more research to define, so "placeholder" steps like "Figure out the next step" and "Determine remaining steps" can suffice until the actual steps you need to take become clear. Also record what resources you may use, realizing that you may discover other ones along the way.

Track: Begin immediately to track your progress by writing down what you have accomplished and what you plan to do next. 

Finish: When all objectives are complete, record the final result.

Assess: Review the path to completing your objective(s) and record what went well and what didn't go so well. Assign a quality rating to how well the process went. This review and assessment step is important for making what you learned through the process stick, and can be a handy reference while completing future goals.