The “give a care scale” is a simple startup issue processing tool to help facilitate decision making at team meetings. One of the more challenging aspects of running a team can be resolving disagreements. Team members often have differences of opinion. However, the importance of a particular issue varies depending on your role and the issue to be resolved. For example, if you are a business role vs a technical role product pricing will carry a different level of importance.
How it works
The “Give a CARE Scale” goes from 1 to 10 where 1 is not important at all and 10 is VERY Important! Using the tool to process issues is a bit like playing poker. If you would like to see an issue resolved more quickly you can start the process issuing a friendly challenge. For example; “On the give a care scale what would you rate this issue?” The poker equivalent of placing a bet.
In response to the challenge either; yield (if it is not important with a low bid) or (Challenge ACCEPTED!) offer a genuine bid on the importance of the issue to you. Now it is time for the counter offer. Often you can make a snap decision on where this issue lies relative to your priorities. If it is very important give it a high rating, if it is not important give it a low rating. The intent is yield if it is not important to you. What often happens is the decision is very important to one team member and not to the other.
Value to the team
The give a care scale can be a valuable tool for issues processing. The tool tends to work best when used to determine which issues are worth spending time to discuss. If the issue is important to two or more team members it is probably worth spending some time to sort through it. If the issue is unimportant it should be reflected in the give a care score. Either way (important vs unimportant issues) the tool gives you a way to separate the wheat from the chaff and focus on what is really important.
We used the give a care scale quite a bit and found it a great way to keep team meetings on track!