IQing, a technique wrapped in a Navy sea story.

"Mr. Benson, I want this to be the best pre-deployment party this ship has ever had. Am I clear?"

"Aye, aye, sir." The ship's young recreation officer did a quick about face and entered the passageway outside of the captain's cabin.

A rattled Ensign Benson slumped against the bulkhead and thought nervously to himself, "How am I going to pull this off?" Later that day he called the naval station's Fleet Recreation Coordinator (FRC), a young civilian recreational specialist in the MWR Department. During the conversation, Benson mentioned the pre-deployment party. Sympathetic to the uneasiness in the recreation officer's voice the FRC promptly offered to help. Benson took the FRC up on the offer.

The first thing the FRC wanted to do was to interview the captain, the ship's executive officer and the command master chief. "Why?" asked a wide eyed Benson, "the skipper knows what he wants and told me to deliver."

"I need more information to go on before we can start planning." said the FRC in a calming voice. The FRC knew the captain had a deeper purpose. They scheduled a short interview to get at the root reasons for the "best ever" pre-deployment party.

At the interview meeting FRC asked why the CO wanted a pre-deployment party. He didn't let the CO off the hook with "its traditional." Through a series of respectful yet explorative questions, the real social reasons started to emerge. The captain wanted a party where the crew and their families could interact in a bonding type of activity. The ship was headed to the Indian Ocean in harm's way. The families faced long stressful separations from their Sailor spouses and parents. The captain also wanted to do something that would involve everyone in a caring and sharing, extended family situation. He definitely did not want a beer-ball game picnic.

The social objectives were determined to be bonding among crew and families, a sharing/caring for each other type of activity. And, of course, fun in an innovative outdoor recreation event.

Armed with the results of the interview, he suggested that Benson get seven to nine members of the crew together who were active in the ship's recreation program. There should be a mix of non-rated Sailors, petty officer, chiefs, and junior officers in the group.

The FRC was skilled at facilitating group sessions, but the FRC wanted to try a new brainstorming technique learned from an Armed Forces Recreation Society's training session called IDEA CUEING (IQing). IDEA CUEING or IQing combines traditional brainstorming rules with elements of the Nominal Group Technique.

The FRC as the facilitator wrote out the brainstorming question. The question had to communicate a general notion of the desired outcomes of the event without being so tight that creativity would be stifled. The FRC wrote this question: "How do we create a pre-deployment party that will bring crew and families closer together in a caring and sharing recreational event?"

The FRC wrote the question on a flip chart as well as running it off as a heading on 20 blank pieces of paper. "Brainstorm" appeared on 10 sheets under the question, "cues" on the other set of 10 sheets. Opening the session, the FRC welcomed the participants and related the desired outputs of the session (see Fig. 1).

FIGURE 1

STEP 1 Individuals are asked to internally and silently brainstorm the question for five minutes writing down their ideas, however wild, on the sheet labeled "brainstorm."

STEP 2 The facilitator starts listing on a flip chart the ideas participants wrote on their "brainstorm" sheets. This is done round-robin style with each participant verbally giving one idea at a time. The round-robin of ideas from the brainstorm list continues until each individual's list is exhausted. During brainstorm round-robin, participants write down ideas on the "cue" sheet that are cued or triggered by the brainstorm ideas as they were recorded by the facilitator on the matter list flip chart.

STEP 3 After the brainstorm lists are exhausted the facilitator asks the participants to read the ideas from the "cue" list, one at a time, in round-robin fashion.

STEP 4 When there are no more ideas to be added to the master list from the cue lists, the facilitator, with the help of the group, starts discussing and clustering similar ideas.

STEP 5 The similar idea clusters are now edited by the IQing group. The facilitator, with the help of the group, writes and numbers descriptive rough draft program idea cluster statements on a new flip chart.

STEP 6 Participants are given index cards and told to vote for five program idea statements listed on the master list by writing down the numbers of five statements.

STEP 7 The facilitator collects the cards and records the vote on the master list. Take the top ideas and discuss them further if the group desires. At this point the IQing sessions ended with a summary of the results and a brief description of the next step

STEP 8 Recreation programmers take the ideas and create a program event plan of action and milestones (POA&M).

The individual silent brainstorming period is important to IQing. In traditional "no holds barred" brainstorming Pareto's 80/20 rule takes over as the quicker, loudest and most assertive participants dominate the session. Individual silent brainstorming rudiment of the IQing technique allows everyone an equal opportunity for their ideas to be heard and considered.

After an hour-and-a-half session the framework of the "best ever" party took shape. Ensign Benson, the FRC and an event working committee made up of ship's crew and family members refined the results of the session, created a POA&M, and went to work.

Fast Forward to the Event

The party was centered around the family auto. The party committee made arrangements with the MWR auto hobby shop and the Navy Exchange service station for party support. The crew and family members were organized into teams. Each team had one or two members who were skilled in simple auto repairs plus the expertise of the auto hobby shop manager to oversee the technical aspect of the event. At party time each team checked out the entire car: belts, batteries, oil, water, windshield wipers, turn signals, safety belts, tires. If parts were needed they were purchased from MWR or NEX. Each auto was inspected, and safety parts were replaced on the spot, or a list of discrepancies was prepared so the work could be preformed by a competent mechanic later. The cars were also washed and waxed by the teams assigned to that task.

Young boys and girls worked along side mothers and fathers and single Sailors. While all this was happening the younger children were entertained and engaged in recreational activities led by parents and single Sailors with on-site programming advice and leadership by an MWR recreation specialist.

At the end of two-and-a-half hours of auto recreating the "rollers and sliders" were ready (Navy colloquialism for hot dogs and hamburgers).