90-Min ERRC Grid Workshop Agenda (With Script)

The 90-Minute ERRC Grid Brainstorming Framework

A 90-minute ERRC (Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create) Grid workshop is a structured facilitation session that evaluates what an organization should remove, scale down, elevate, or invent. By enforcing strict timeboxes across these four strategic vectors, innovation leads move teams away from feature bloat and toward high-margin trade-offs. This framework compresses weeks of strategy debate into a single 90-minute alignment session, creating a clear operational roadmap for product and executive teams.

How does a single 90-minute exercise force cross-functional leaders to stop piling on expensive features and actually cut operational complexity?

The Failure of Traditional Additive Brainstorming

Standard corporate ideation fails because it default-stacks complexity. In typical unstructured sessions, participants spend 90% of their time proposing new tools, extra service tiers, and supplementary product features. They ignore operational drag entirely.

Operational drag is the cumulative financial cost, team delay, and technical debt added to an organization when legacy workflows, unused feature requests, and unmaintained codebases build up without pruning.

When teams only add features, profit margins shrink. Research published by Harvard Business School demonstrates that up to 80% of a product’s ultimate manufacturing and support costs are locked in during the initial conceptual phase. Piling on features without removing older ones increases maintenance overhead and confuses customers.

In their book Blue Ocean Strategy, authors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne introduced the ERRC matrix to counteract this additive bias. They highlighted how Southwest Airlines built a dominant market position by eliminating passenger meals and hub seats, cutting plane turnaround times to under 15 minutes while drastically lowering operating costs. Applying sound Value Innovation Principles requires equal focus on cost reduction and novel value creation.

Balancing Cost Reduction and Value Creation

The ERRC matrix balances two opposing forces: driving down costs and driving up buyer value. Facilitators guide teams across four specific quadrants:

1. Eliminate: Identify factors that industry competitors have long competed on that your company can completely drop.
2. Reduce: Determine features or services that have been over-designed and can be scaled well below industry standards without damaging core value.
3. Raise: Pinpoint elements that can be elevated far above current industry standards to solve critical customer frustrations.
4. Create: Discover entirely new sources of value that the industry has never offered.

+------------------+------------------+
|    ELIMINATE     |      RAISE       |
| Drop factors     | Elevate factors  |
| completely.      | above standards. |
+------------------+------------------+
|      REDUCE      |      CREATE      |
| Scale down       | Discover new     |
| over-design.     | value sources.   |
+------------------+------------------+

When you force executive teams to fill the Eliminate and Reduce quadrants first, you liberate resources. You cannot fund bold new ideas without clearing away legacy commitments. Using structured Brainstorming Techniques for Innovation prevents workshops from turning into endless wish lists.

To run this session effectively with your team, you need a tight agenda and exact wording for each phase—starting with the minute-by-minute facilitation script detailed below.

Table of Contents

• The 90-Minute ERRC Grid Brainstorming Framework
• The Minute-by-Minute 90-Minute ERRC Agenda Breakdown
• Navigating the 4 Quadrants Without Organizational Friction
• Your Copy-Paste 90-Minute ERRC Facilitation Script Template
• Sources & Further Reading

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The Minute-by-Minute 90-Minute ERRC Agenda Breakdown

An ERRC grid is a strategy framework that prompts teams to evaluate which product factors to Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, and Create to lower costs while increasing customer value. Developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne in their publication Blue Ocean Strategy, this tool forces teams to make explicit trade-offs rather than building endless feature wish lists.

Running a successful 90-minute grid session requires strict timeboxing. Without a defined schedule, teams spend 45 minutes debating minor line items and run out of time before setting priorities.

Pre-Workshop Setup Checklist

Complete two administrative tasks exactly 24 hours before gathering your team:

1. Prepare the 4-Quadrant Canvas: Set up a shared digital workspace in Miro or Mural, or draw a 2×2 grid on a physical whiteboard. Label the top two quadrants Eliminate and Reduce. Label the bottom two quadrants Raise and Create.
2. Distribute 5-Minute Pre-Read Materials: Send a 1-page brief detailing target user metrics, current operating costs, and top customer complaints. Instruct participants to read this document for 5 minutes before entering the room.

Setting ground rules upfront prevents circular debates and equalizes participation across team members:

• Silence over debate during generation: Ideas go onto sticky notes without immediate verbal justification.
• Strict time quotas: Give each participant 12 sticky notes—exactly 3 per quadrant. This cap stops dominant voices from flooding the board.
• Mandatory pairing: Every proposed "Create" item must be balanced by an "Eliminate" or "Reduce" item to preserve budget discipline. Following established brainstorming best practices for innovation keeps the discussion grounded in real operational boundaries.

The 6-Phase 90-Minute Agenda

[00-10m] Context & Ground Rules
       |
[10-25m] Silent Quadrant Generation
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[25-55m] Group Mapping & Clarification
       |
[55-70m] Dot Voting & Impact Mapping
       |
[70-85m] Feasibility Assessment
       |
[85-90m] Action Steps & Ownership

Phase 1: Context & Ground Rules (00–10m)

Open the session by stating the target problem statement. Review key data points from the pre-read material and define each quadrant clearly. Remind participants that applying core value innovation principles requires cutting legacy features to fund new value drivers.

Phase 2: Silent Quadrant Generation (10–25m)

Participants spend 15 minutes writing sticky notes in total silence. Working silently prevents early consensus bias and keeps senior executives from anchoring the room. Each participant aims for 2 to 3 notes per quadrant.

Phase 3: Group Mapping & Clarification (25–55m)

Go through the quadrants one by one over 30 minutes. Each person places their sticky notes on the board and gives a 30-second explanation per note. Merge identical items instantly. If an item causes an argument, move it to a temporary holding area on the side of the board and keep moving. This structured cadence aligns closely with the pacing used in a 90-minute systems thinking workshop agenda (with script).

Phase 4: Dot Voting & Impact Prioritization (55–70m)

Give each participant 4 green dots for customer value and 4 red dots for cost reduction. Spend 15 minutes allowing participants to vote on the strongest ideas across the board. The top 3 items in each quadrant move forward to the next stage.

Phase 5: Feasibility Mapping (70–85m)

Plot the 12 selected items on a simple Effort versus Impact matrix. Spend 15 minutes dropping any item that takes longer than 12 weeks to complete unless it yields a 5x ROI on cost reduction.

Phase 6: Next Steps & Task Ownership (85–90m)

Assign a single owner and a 14-day execution deadline to each accepted action item. Record these commitments in your project tracking software before closing the meeting.

Now that you have the minute-by-minute timeline locked down, you need the exact facilitation scripts to steer the room when strong opinions threaten to derail your schedule.

Navigating the 4 Quadrants Without Organizational Friction

The ERRC grid is a strategic matrix that prompts teams to eliminate, reduce, raise, and create specific product elements to break the trade-off between differentiation and low cost.

When you lead product managers and engineers through this framework, you will encounter internal pushback. Teammates build emotional ties to existing systems, defend legacy features, or offer minor 5% performance tweaks instead of bold operational shifts. Navigating these four quadrants without political friction requires active facilitation tactics that keep the conversation grounded in business value.

Breaking Resistance in the ‘Eliminate’ Quadrant

The Eliminate phase triggers the highest emotional friction during brainstorming. Teammates often view removing a feature as an admission of past failure or a threat to current clients.

To neutralize this pushback, replace personal opinions with objective usage metrics. In their Feature Adoption Report, product analytics firm Pendo found that 80% of features in standard software products are rarely or never used. Pointing to this benchmark helps teams realize that dropping unused tools frees up engineering bandwidth for high-impact work.

When a team member defends a legacy system, ask them to justify its ongoing maintenance budget against current strategic goals. If they argue that a small fraction of enterprise users still relies on it, turn the issue into a clear operational metric. Offer a choice: either charge those specific clients a custom service fee, or migrate them to a standardized workflow. Framing elimination as a resource reallocation strategy aligns directly with core Value Innovation Principles.

Defining ‘Reduce’ Without Sacrificing Core Value

The Reduce quadrant focuses on factors you can drop far below current industry standards without losing your primary customer base. The goal is to slash operating costs on elements that buyers do not value enough to pay for.

To identify these factors, weigh feature development costs against actual user demand. In research published by Harvard Business Review, authors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne detail how Southwest Airlines reduced hub connectivity, seating options, and meal service to zero. By dropping standard industry perks, Southwest cut ground turnaround times to 15 minutes and significantly lowered operating expenses per seat mile.

Use insights from User Research for Innovation to isolate features where your team over-engineers solutions. Look for workflows where customers utilize only 10% of available functionality, or service levels where a 24-hour response window is acceptable instead of 1 hour. Lowering those specific service thresholds yields immediate budget relief without driving customer churn.

Pushing ‘Raise’ and ‘Create’ Beyond Incremental Tweaks

Teams naturally default to safe, incremental ideas. When asked to Raise or Create, participants usually suggest routine bug fixes or minor interface polish instead of true strategic differentiators.

To push past incremental thinking, set aggressive baseline targets during the session. If someone suggests improving system processing speed by 10%, reject the proposal and demand a plan for a 300% improvement. Forced numeric constraints compel the room to rethink technical architecture rather than patch existing bottlenecks. You can also run structured prompts from our guide to Unlock Product Features with SCAMPER: A Brainstorming Guide.

When tackling the Create quadrant, force the team to evaluate adjacent industries. Kim and Mauborgne document how Cirque du Soleil created a new market space by combining traditional circus elements with high-end theater production. They eliminated costly animal acts and star performers while raising venue sophistication, ultimately reaching over 100 million spectators worldwide.

To replicate this performance in your workshop, ask your team to draft three product capabilities that no direct competitor advertises on their homepage. To run these four quadrants efficiently within your team’s limited schedule, you need a tight, minute-by-minute facilitation script for the session.

Your Copy-Paste 90-Minute ERRC Facilitation Script Template

The ERRC grid is a strategic matrix developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne that forces teams to evaluate which market factors to eliminate, reduce, raise, and create. This framework forces product leaders to look beyond incremental improvements and eliminate unnecessary costs.

To run this session smoothly, set up a physical whiteboard or a digital canvas on Miro with four distinct quadrants. Use these specific prompt questions in your board setup to guide participant thinking.

Fill-in-the-Blank ERRC Board Template

+-------------------+-------------------+
|     ELIMINATE     |      REDUCE       |
|  [Insert Ideas]   |  [Insert Ideas]   |
+-------------------+-------------------+
|       RAISE       |      CREATE       |
|  [Insert Ideas]   |  [Insert Ideas]   |
+-------------------+-------------------+

Eliminate

• Which features or costs does our industry take for granted that we can completely drop?
• What processes add friction without increasing customer willingness to pay?

Reduce

• Which features were over-designed to beat competitors and can be scaled down below industry standards?
• Where can we trim operations by 50% without hurting the core value proposition?

Raise

• Which single factor should we elevate well above the industry average?
• What customer pain point do competitors address poorly that we can solve twice as fast?

Create

• What entirely new value can we offer that the industry has never produced?
• Which hidden demand can we unlock by combining two existing tools?

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Step-by-Step Facilitation Script (90 Minutes)

Use this script verbatim to manage time, stop off-topic debates, and maintain momentum during the session.

Phase 1: Framing and Ground Rules (Minutes 0–10)

Facilitator: "Welcome. In the next 80 minutes, we are using the ERRC grid to rebuild our product strategy. Our goal is to exit this room with 3 concrete 30-day experiments. Reviewing core Value Innovation Principles shows us that strategy requires hard trade-offs. You cannot add new features without removing old ones. Rule one: silence means agreement. Rule two: every sticky note must state a specific action, not a general complaint."

Phase 2: Individual Silent Brainstorming (Minutes 10–30)

Facilitator: "You have 20 minutes on the clock. Write your ideas silently on digital post-its. Aim for at least 2 sticky notes per quadrant. Timekeeper, set a 20-minute timer now."

Timekeeper Announcement (at Minute 20): "10 minutes remaining. Ensure you have placed at least one note in the Eliminate quadrant."

Phase 3: Group Review and Conflict Resolution (Minutes 30–65)

Facilitator: "We will spend 35 minutes categorizing and debating these notes. We process Eliminate first, then Reduce, Raise, and Create."

Conflict Resolution Prompt (when team members argue over keeping a feature): "We have a debate on whether to eliminate the custom reporting module. Instead of debating opinions, let’s check the usage data. What percentage of monthly active users opened this module in the last 90 days? If it is under 5%, it moves to Eliminate immediately. If we lack data, we flag it for a 14-day tracking test."

For structured discussions on other workshop formats, you can adapt phrases from this 60-Minute Ideation Workshop Agenda (With Script) to maintain rapid focus.

Phase 4: Prioritization and Dot Voting (Minutes 65–75)

Facilitator: "Everyone gets 4 dot votes. You must place exactly 1 vote in each quadrant. You have 10 minutes to review the board on Zoom or Miro and vote."

Phase 5: Action Plan and Wrap-Up (Minutes 75–90)

Facilitator: "We have our top items. Let’s assign an owner, a success metric, and a $5,000 budget cap for each top vote to build our 30-day experiments."

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Post-Session Decision Matrix

According to market research published by Harvard Business Review, over 70% of corporate strategy execution efforts fail due to poor follow-through after initial planning sessions. Avoid this failure mode by converting your workshop votes into rapid experiments immediately.

Take the top-voted sticky note from each quadrant and complete this decision template within 24 hours of workshop completion:

Quadrant	Selected Action	Experiment Hypothesis	Target Metric	Owner	Timeline
Eliminate	Remove legacy export format	Turning off legacy export for 10% of users will not increase support tickets.	Ticket rate < 2%	Engineering Lead	14 Days
Reduce	Limit review cycles	Lowering sign-offs from 3 rounds to 1 round will cut delivery time.	Cycle time down 25%	Product Manager	30 Days
Raise	Accelerate onboarding	Doubling onboarding speed will increase early user retention.	30-day retention up 12%	Growth Lead	30 Days
Create	Auto-sync to Slack	Launching a basic Slack notification trigger will drive weekly active usage.	20% account adoption	Tech Lead	30 Days

If an experiment fails to meet its target metric, run a Failed Sprint Post-Mortem: 60-Minute Agenda (With Script) to capture learnings before re-allocating capital. Following proven Brainstorming Best Practices for Innovation ensures your team treats every failed test as useful product data rather than lost time.

Open your team calendar right now, schedule a 90-minute block for this Thursday, and paste this facilitation script into the meeting invite.

Sources & Further Reading

The Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create (ERRC) Grid is a strategic management matrix that forces teams to simultaneously pursue differentiation and cost reduction by evaluating which industry standards to eliminate, reduce, raise, or create.

When you facilitate a strategy session, team members often resist creative exercises unless you ground the process in empirical frameworks. W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne developed this methodology at INSEAD after analyzing 150 strategic moves across 30 industries over a 100-year period. Their research, published in Harvard Business Review, revealed that while 86% of corporate launches were incremental line extensions, the 14% of launches that created new market space generated 38% of total revenue and 61% of total profits.

To design facilitation scripts that consistently yield these outcomes, rely on validated research in organizational psychology and cognitive design. The sources below provide the theoretical and operational foundations for the timing, constraints, and prompts used in this guide.

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