QUERY ""Flawless Consulting"" and SD
Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 1:47 pm
Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>
[ OD Organizational Development
SSM Soft Systems Modeling
SD System Dynamics ]
I've been thinking about this for a while, but recent threads (perhaps especially comments from Fred, for he and I and perhaps others of you are on an OD mailing list, too) have prompted me to see what others think.
Classic OD interventions, as typified by the process in Peter Block's _Flawless Consulting_, suggest one start with contracting and then move to data collection. Data collection usually consists of interviewing people to get raw data and then providing it back to the people who were interviewed to ask them to interpret it, to make sense of it. Out of that data feedback and interpretation meeting comes a decision by the client as to what action to take and how to do it.
I've used that approach, and it can be powerful. I am curious, though, how people blend that, if they do, with SD.
One can conceive of SD being a potential tool to be applied in the action phase of that consulting process. That gives ownership to the group for deciding to move forward with SD as part of the path to a solution. In a way, I think SSM sometimes adopts that sort of approach; as I understand it, SD can be used as a natural adjunct to SSM somewhat late in the process.
Yet SD has a role to play in understanding data, too. As an example, Barry's strategic forum seems to start with data collection and then proceeds to feed back processed information to the group in the form of a sequence of models. I've done that sort of thing, too.
I very much like the power of the message one sends when one gives the group the responsibility to interpret their data. Except in rare cases, I suspect groups don't have the ability to apply SD as part of the interpretative process, though, so bringing SD in early risks sending the message that they don't really own the interpretation given to the data -- it has to be done with the help of an expert. Yet waiting until late risks people getting stuck on certain interpretations an SD model might show to be naive.
How do you handle that issue? Or do you ignore it or bypass it (those might be different approaches)? If you consider yourself more of a client in this regard, how have people handled it when they've worked with you?
Bill
- --
Bill Harris
Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:13:16 -0700 _______________________________________________
[ OD Organizational Development
SSM Soft Systems Modeling
SD System Dynamics ]
I've been thinking about this for a while, but recent threads (perhaps especially comments from Fred, for he and I and perhaps others of you are on an OD mailing list, too) have prompted me to see what others think.
Classic OD interventions, as typified by the process in Peter Block's _Flawless Consulting_, suggest one start with contracting and then move to data collection. Data collection usually consists of interviewing people to get raw data and then providing it back to the people who were interviewed to ask them to interpret it, to make sense of it. Out of that data feedback and interpretation meeting comes a decision by the client as to what action to take and how to do it.
I've used that approach, and it can be powerful. I am curious, though, how people blend that, if they do, with SD.
One can conceive of SD being a potential tool to be applied in the action phase of that consulting process. That gives ownership to the group for deciding to move forward with SD as part of the path to a solution. In a way, I think SSM sometimes adopts that sort of approach; as I understand it, SD can be used as a natural adjunct to SSM somewhat late in the process.
Yet SD has a role to play in understanding data, too. As an example, Barry's strategic forum seems to start with data collection and then proceeds to feed back processed information to the group in the form of a sequence of models. I've done that sort of thing, too.
I very much like the power of the message one sends when one gives the group the responsibility to interpret their data. Except in rare cases, I suspect groups don't have the ability to apply SD as part of the interpretative process, though, so bringing SD in early risks sending the message that they don't really own the interpretation given to the data -- it has to be done with the help of an expert. Yet waiting until late risks people getting stuck on certain interpretations an SD model might show to be naive.
How do you handle that issue? Or do you ignore it or bypass it (those might be different approaches)? If you consider yourself more of a client in this regard, how have people handled it when they've worked with you?
Bill
- --
Bill Harris
Posted by Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:13:16 -0700 _______________________________________________