Glossary
Three Columns vs the Three Doors
The Three Columns (Remove, Redesign, Accept) are how a leadership team sorts the work in a quarterly Three Columns Workshop. The Three Doors (Remove, Defer With Clarity, Accept) are how the facilitator commits one decision per cluster on the record. Same vocabulary at the architecture level; different cadence and audience.
The Frustration Condition pins two surfaces that share the word 'Remove' but do different work. The Three Columns Workshop is a quarterly leadership offsite that takes every recurring frustration cluster from the previous quarter and sorts it into Remove, Redesign, or Accept — a planning surface for the operating team.
The Three Doors is the in-the-room decision the facilitator commits to for each cluster as it forms. Its three options are Remove, Defer With Clarity, and Accept. Defer With Clarity is the door that exists because, between workshops, a decision has to be made even when the structural change isn't ready yet.
The two surfaces are intentionally aligned: a cluster Deferred at the door becomes a Redesign candidate at the workshop, and the workshop's Accept decisions are written back into the Constraint Register the doors reference. The vocabulary is shared so the room doesn't have to learn two systems.
How it is measured
- Door-to-column conversion: share of Deferred clusters that become Redesign items at the next Three Columns Workshop.
- Column-to-door coverage: share of workshop Remove items that have a recorded door decision against the originating cluster.
Dr. Tim Hough · ISBN 979-8-9965397-1-0 · Buy the book →