About the PMI (Plus, Minus, Interesting) Template
What is Plus, Minus, Interesting (PMI)?
A critical thinking and brainstorming tool, PMI was developed by Dr. Edward de Bono. it fosters discussion of an idea from multiple points of view, specification what is positive (plus), negative (minus) and what might be neither but is worth considering (interesting). It can be used for a retrospective exercise or a futurespective one depnding on the context of the topic.
As one of simplest templates to use, the goal is simply to provide everyone the opportunity to express their views from different perspectives. The PMI Template is essentially lists headers of Plus, Minus and Interesting and allows participants to add ideas in, either one column at a time, or across the whole template depending on the style of your convsersations. By using the template and having people brainstorm individually, there is less group think and bias and anchoring of ideas or opinons.
- Edward De Bono’s 6 thinking hats technique
- Plus Delta retrospective
- Mad Sad Glad retrospective
- Start Stop Continue
- Agile retrospective
- 4L’s retrospective
- What are the positive things about this sprint/policy/feature/issue?
- What are the negative (minus) things about this sprint/policy/feature/issue?
- What is interesting about this sprint/policy/feature/issue?
Who Should Use the PMI Framework?
- Agile or scrum teams
- Change managers
- Workshop facilitators
- Policy and change makers
- Teams having to evaluate a decision or outcome
- Project teams, including remote teams
- Education settings and lesson plans
Why Should I Run a PMI Retrospective?
The simple goal of Dr De Bono was to overcome some of the narrow views that can be shared when a person expresses their opinion. By considering the plus, minus and interesting aspects of the same decision, it opens up each person’s thinking and encourages creativity. In scrum or agile retrospectives, the PMI is a very useful tool for getting groups who are stuck to list down different perspectives and to then consider the whole picture.
How to Use the PMI Template to Run Better Meetings
Brainstorm
Start brainstorming through each of the different hats.
Vote
Have people voted on the topics that they would like to discuss the most.
Share
Share the results and facilitate the discussion towards a decision.
Invite everyone to your PMI template in GroupMap and introduce the purpose of the meeting. Ask everyone to start sharing what they think are the positive ideas on the virtual sticky notes in the Plus, Minus and Interesting columns.
Depending on the nature and size of the group, you can either have them do this one column at a time, or at any time. If you have done this via individual brainstorming, then you may want to add a group stage to consolidate ideas that are the same.
Ask people to read through each of the statements and to vote on the top 5 that they would like to discuss further. All votes are independent.
Reveal the results of the votes and sort the ideas by top votes if needed. Then discuss the top voted ideas to help the team progress, learn or decide.
Save effort, time and money with GroupMap
Whether you have your best minds together in the same room, or distributed around the world, GroupMap’s unique technology allows groups of up to 2000 to submit ideas independently at separate times, from different places, in different timezones. Prevent dominant personalities swaying the group, drowning out the opinions of others – GroupMap allows everyone to brainstorm independently then effortlessly combines that information to reveal the full spectrum of ideas. GroupMap templates keep the objective front and center throughout the session, keeping everyone on task. This ensures the activity identifies actionable issues rather than becoming just a discussion on ideas. GroupMap gives you all the group decision making tools you need to prioritize, decide and take action.
Create your first map and invite people in to start sharing their thoughts right NOW. Experience the power of GroupMap with our 14-day, no risk, FREE trial. You don’t even need to provide your credit card details to access to all of our features, including the entire suite of templates, for a full 14 days.