Problematic Moments Approach
Can you recall an instance when something happened in a team you were working in and you didn’t know what to say or, you knew what you ought to say, but didn’t? Perhaps someone said something and everyone became silent; someone changed the subject; you felt anxious, angry, or sad; you could feel the group tension; you wished you had done something differently; you felt upset afterwards, without clarity as to why.
Problematic moments are moments when things appear to be going wrong or in an unexpected direction in a group. It seems like the group has reached a kind of impasse and does not know, perhaps just for a few seconds, how to go on. Capturing and analyzing these occurrences in everyday teamwork enables members to break through hierarchically-imposed and over-simplified organizational discourses in order to generate alternative ways of perceiving social interactions.
The problematic moment approach provides stakeholders with the opportunity to collaborate laterally across their differences and to agree on measures for improving, and possibly transforming, the design of their work. Moments of silence frequently occur in group conversations and interactions. These silences can have many possible meanings depending on the context. A silence may indicate that the group is enjoying a moment of reflection, or that it is waiting for the appropriate person to respond to a question, or that it has said all that can be said about a theme and is ready to take up another topic.
Problematic moments are unlike other moments because they mark a brief point in time when the conditions of possibility for the group to have new, more productive and deeper conversations can be realized.
