Over the past ten years or so I've produced all kinds of material. Papers, workshops, frameworks, guidelines and other bits and pieces.
You are welcome to take a look, and use them. One condition. Please don't change them without letting me know, and please acknowledge me when you use them. OK two conditions then.
Fortunately I'm not the only person in the world with oddball ideas and valuable experiences. So I've also created a section for those pieces of work that are entirely of someone else's making.
To download a document, click on the title. To allow you to play around with the documents most of the downloads are in Word format. THIS MEANS YOU WILL GET A BLANK PAGE AND YOU WILL NEED TO CHECK YOUR DOWNLOAD FILE. Let me know if you have trouble with any of them, by clicking here. Where people have reported trouble, I've converted the documents to Acrobat format. I hate the format, but have no real option. You might also find that you get a blank page rather than a download. Let me knowif that happens, or if you want to play around with the documents and I will send them to you in a more flexible format.
I update this page regularly, adding more resources and improving those already posted. So why don't you bookmark this page and return from time to time.
Latest Update : DECEMBER 2010 - See "Hot off the Press" in the Systems Section
I've organised the resources into six groups :-
Enjoy and let me know how you've used the material
I provide training and consultancy support in the use of systems concepts in evaluation. This includes the material below, workshops, evaluation design, and one-on-one mentoring and advice. Contact me for more details about what I can do for you and your work.
Why? Because I believe strongly that the systems field can contribute strongly to the development of the evaluation field.
How so ?
The systems field comprises methodologies, methods and tools that are deeply evaluative. But it is not just about method. As a friend said recently, the biggest benefit of systems ideas in her work was that it enabled her to ask more powerful questions. And questions, especially powerful questions, are the lifeblood of good evaluation.
For me, systems concepts provide me with very powerful ways of exploring inter-relationships, perspectives and boundaries. These are important issues within evaluaton.
- Inter-relationships are the key to understanding how programs behave.
- Perspectives provide insight into motivations and thus how people behave.
- Boundaries determine who wins and who loses from an intervention, what is "in" and what is "out" of an assessment of that interventions. In other words indicate value or worth.
More than evaluation, the systems field has thought deeply about these three concepts and come up with approaches that can transform the way in which evaluation does its job.
The material in this section indicates what is possible and how people have used systems concepts in evaluation.
I'm indebted to many people in developing
this work. Bill Harris, Glenda Eoyang, Teri Behrens, Phil Capper, Bob Dick, Patricia Rogers,
Craig Russon, Martin
Reynolds, Richard
Hummelbrunner, Gerald
Midgley and Jerry Winston have
played vital roles. What follows is as much to do with them as me - although
all the mistakes are mine. Much of the other material emerged from workshops
for the American Evaluation Association
and the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation and I thank them for
their support.
HOT NEWS OFF THE PRESS
SYSTEMS CONCEPTS IN ACTION : A PRACTITIONER'S TOOLKIT
Richard Hummelbrunner and I have been working on this book for a couple of years. For a special 20% early-bird discount, use the promotion code SYSTEM10. More details here.
The book is focused on the practical use of systems ideas. It describes 19 commonly used systems approaches, complete with case studies, variations and discussion of each approach's pros and cons. Each chapter begins with a set of questions that the particular method addresses.
To the best of our knowledge no other book comprehensively explores the practical side of such a large range of systems methods.
The methods are :
Causal Loop Diagrams
System Dynamics
Social Network Analysis
Outcome Mapping
Process Monitoring of Impacts
Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing
Strategic Area Assessment
The CDE Model
Assumption-Based Planning
Cynefin
Solution Focus
Viable System Model
Cultural Historical Activity Theory
Soft Systems Methodology
Dialectical Methods of Inquiry
Scenario Technique
Systemic Questioning
Circular Dialogues
Critical Systems Heuristics
Here are some of the nice things that people have already said about our book :
"The book promises and delivers: tested and practical methods for understanding and taking action in messy situations; inquiry approaches for describing, analyzing, learning about, managing, and changing complex situations; a coherent systems framework for thinking and acting systemically. The authors compare 19 systems approaches, and do so comprehensively, insightfully, exquisitely."
—Michael Quinn Patton, author of Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use
"This book presents well-written and accessible accounts of a variety of systems methods, methodologies, and models; a veritable treasure-trove from which the critical systems thinker can choose in constructing appropriate systemic responses to complex situations." —Michael C. Jackson, Hull University Business School
"This book is written for those who want to intervene in the world, but are aware that brute force methods often prove inappropriate—if not counterproductive. Systems Concepts in Action provides a toolbox of methods for harnessing systemic thinking to instigate custom tailored, creative solutions. If you ever felt that systems theory is abstract and noninstructive, then have a read!"
—Wolfgang Hofkirchner, President, Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, Vienna
"The book demonstrates convincingly that systems approaches to evaluation are more than 'spaghetti diagram' logic models. With clear introductions to many different approaches, and how they can be used for evaluation, it will be indispensable for evaluators and evaluation commissioners. It's bound to become dog-eared and shabby on my book shelf." —Patricia Rogers, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
"This book stands out as an invaluable, fresh, and practical guide to the use of systems concepts from two internationally recognized practitioners."
—Martin Reynolds, The Open University
SYSTEMS CONCEPTS IN
EVALUATION - AN EXPERT ANTHOLOGY
This volume is the first systems publication to focus exclusively on evaluation. It draws on a wide range of systems traditions -
- the "hard" systems of
cybernetics and system dynamics
- "soft systems"
- "critical systems"
- "complex systems"
... as well as several others.
Each chapter comes with an evaluation case study and a method, plus some methodological discussion. It is arguablly one of the best and certainly the broadest systems primer available.
It was edited by myself and the late Iraj Imam for the American Evaluation Association with a grant from the WK Kellogg Foundation.
The full details can be viewed here
Williams B. Imam I. (2007) Systems Concepts in Evaluation - An Expert Anthology EdgePress/AEA Point Reyes CA.
ISBN 978-0-918528-22-3 softbound, and 978-0-918528-21-6 hardbound
Copies can be ordered from EdgePress PO Box69 Point Reyes, CA 94986
USA or via Amazon
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF SYSTEMS THINKING
During the development of the above publication, most of the authors got together in Berkeley, California to discuss what everyone had in common. The idea was to write the opening chapter, but things got a bit bigger than that. In the end we came to the conclusion that despite the huge diversity of methods, methodolgies and notions floating around the systems field, three things glued us all togeher: a deep interest and orientation around inter-relationships, perspectives and boundaries. This document provides an introduction to those ideas and links them to various systems methods. Since evaluators are primarily interested in questions, I've linked each element and method to a set of evaluation style questions. So if you are attracted to Question X, use systems approach Y.
This particular document was prepared for a symposium - Navigating Complexity - organised by Wageningen University in the Netherlands. My thanks to Jim Woodhill and Irene Guijt for making that possible.
Various writings spun off this text including an article in Capacity.org called "Thinking Systemically" that is, in my view, a useful companion piece. You can access it here.
BEYOND LOGFRAME : USING SYSTEMS CONCEPTS IN EVALUATION
In December 2009, Patricia Rogersand I held a series of workshops for FASID in Japan. FASID researches the effectiveness of Japanese international development projects. This publication emerged out of these workshops and reflects the state of my current thinking about the role of systems ideas in evaluation. The publication contains three key articles.The first is a paper by Richard Hummelbrunner, that looks at alternatives to LogFrame that reflect systems ideas. Richard is currently helping the German international development agency (GTZ) replace LogFrame as their key management and evaluation tool.
The second is an expanded version of the Capacity.org paper mentioned above. It goes into much greater detail about the specific contribution of systems methods to capacity development.
The third is a "constructed" conversation between FASID staff, Patricia Rogers and myself about the potential for systems ideas in evaluation, and some of our experience (both good and bad) in applying them. I especially like this piece because it is more reflective than promotional.
QUALITY MODELS AND SYSTEMIC THINKING
Evaluators and clients constantly grumble about the models used - sometimes required - to illustrate the logic of interventions (eg LogFrame, Program Logic, Outcome Hierarchies). Yet they rarely seek to look beyond the relatively narrow band of models used - mostly drawn from project planning and policy literatures. In this paper to the 2010 American Evaluation Association conference, I explore the potential contribution of models drawn from the systems field. The framing, "quality", was the theme of the Conference - with quality being defined as the beauty, truth and justice. The framing started out as a bit of fun thing to liven up the paper, but actually fits very well with some cores systems ideas .... inter-relationships (beauty), perspectives (truth) and boundaries (justice).
Peter Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is one of the most important (and possibly most misunderstood) systems approaches. Even Checkland himself acknowledges it took him the best part of twenty years to discover its most powerful role - as a learning tool rather than a modelling or planning tool.
It's one of those simple frameworks that looks easy but can be very demanding in practice. And so it should be if it is to get the kind of insights that it was designed to promote.
This version is the basis of a workshop I run on SSM. It started off life as a workshop at the Australasian Evaluation Society and American Evaluation Association Conferences, but much improved thanks to the interest of the the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
I've also posted an alternative workshop version developed by Bob Dick which provides an alternative way of understanding SSM. I've altered it based on my own experience.
This workshop is a lot of fun and a very
useful way for people to learn about Soft Systems Methodology. It is best used
on a real life issues, which further adds to the pleasure.
CRITICAL SYSTEMS THINKING
The idea of holism in systems approaches misleads us into thinking we can look at everything. But that is an absurd notion - we can't consider everything neither in theory (as complexity science tells us) nor in practice (as just about everything else tells us). So we have to draw boundaries.
So by the early 1980’s questions were being raised about the ethical dimension of drawing boundaries, in particular C West Churchman. He argued that at a practical and theoretical level we had to think of the consequences of the boundaries we draw. His seminal book "The Systems Approach and its Enemies argued that you always had to look at both sides of the boundaries - and consider redrawing boundaries to ensure that those you eventually drew were based on sound ethical principles. Google did not invent the idea of "do no harm".
Somewhat later the German planner Werner Ulrich produced an heuristic that provides a practical way of implementing Churchman's ideas. Critical Systems concepts have had a profound impact on my thinking and practice as an evaluator, since criteria and values both delineate boundaries.
This short paper is based on a workshop developed with Martin Reynolds of the Open University Systems Group for the American Evaluation Association.
CULTURAL-HISTORICAL ACTIVITY THEORY
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This is heady stuff, but alongside Argyis and Schon's Action Science, and Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology, probably forms the basis of my professional practice.
Activity Systems theory (or more accurately Cultural-Historical Activity Theory) is really an attempt to merge systems, Vygotskyian based learning, and action research theories. Plus a bit more. I think it is an astonishingly powerful tool for understanding what is going on in a system, and how to help shape events. It was developed primarily by Yrjo Engestrom at the Centre for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research in Helsinki, and adopted by my colleagues at WEB Research here in New Zealand.
Like many apparently simple things, it takes a bit of working out. Here's my attempt to explain it, based on a paper by the WEB Research crowd. It was developed for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and also presented at the 2004 American Evaluation Association Conference.
System Dynamics is probably the most familiar of all the systems based methods. As such it probably creates more confusion than all of the other methods put together. Because it has been marketed so successfully through books such as Peter Senge's 5th Discipline and closely associated with such prestigious institutes as Harvard and MIT, many people think it is the only systems approach. So people treat the weaknesses of system dynamics as weaknesses of systems based approaches as a whole. It's also created the wide impression that systems is about boxes and arrows or complex computer simulations - so people get genuinely puzzled when confronted with systems based approaches that feature neither.
People criticise system dynamics for
being mechanistic, over-simplifying complex situations and being unreliable
when it comes to predicting real life. All of which says more about the
expectations that have been created around system dynamics than what it is
really about. So what is it really about ? Bill Harris
has been a strong advocate of getting people
beyond the prejudice and on to the practicalities. It has been a fantastic
experience working with him from time to time doing this. Here's one of the
best that we prepared for the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation and the American Evaluation Association.
COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS
Complexity or complex adaptive systems (CAS) is still a relatively new kid on the block. In its early stages it came close to being promoted as the answer to everything - a core set of rules and principles that underpin ... well everything. A decade or so on from the heady days, people tend to be breathing through their noses a bit more. However I get a strong sense that CAS still has to demonstrate to many people that it is more than pretty pictures of fractals on the screen, or New Age waffle. On the other hand within management academia, especially in the UK, it has developed considerable grunt and a large following. Personally I find a lot of the concepts make sense, but I was always at a loss to work out how to put them into practice. Which is pretty much how I met up with Glenda Eoyang from the Human System Dynamics Institute, and her grounded, innovative and practical approach to such an esoteric field. If you don't believe me try her book Coping with Chaos; Seven Simple Tools, or the more academically oriented investigation into the implications of complex adaptive systems for evaluation.
I've been enormously fortunate to work with Glenda on a range of workshop for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the American Evaluation Association. Here's an excellent piece she prepared for a workshop she, Bill Harris and I did for Kellogg. In addition to the usual butterfly wings and fractals, it describes unique and powerful tools developed by Glenda and her colleagues over the past few years. I use them all the time.
There's an ironic tendancy towards absolutism in the systems and complexity field. Systems are either "simple", "complicated" or "complex". I've always felt uneasy about such definitive statements, they didn't match my own way of understanding things or indeed what I saw on the ground. The Cynefin framework provides a very useful means to navigate these distinctions, plus provides a base to do many other useful things.
The Cynefin framework has been building up a head of steam for about five years, mainly through a network of consultants under the banner of Cognitive Edge. Developed originally by Cynthia Kurtz and David Snowden at IBM it's an unusual and powerful tool that draws from several fields especially systems, complexity, knowledge management and network analysis. I was initially highly sceptical about it and many of those within the knowledge management field still are. However, the more I used it the more useful I found it in all manner of ways. I'm not the only one; a recent Harvard Business Review article was designated by the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management as the 2007 Best Practitioner-Oriented Paper in Organizational Behavior. Whatever your views on the theoretical basis for Cynefin, it is a very smart piece of work and a useful one too. This is my attempt to explain the framework and how it can be used.
{Note this is a download not a web page. A blank page may appear. You will need to check your download folder for the document}
If you, like me, think most planning
frameworks look better on paper than in reality, then give this a go.
A
STRATEGIC PLANNING TOOL
I'm no fan of strategic planning. I largely agree with Henry Mintzberg that most strategic planning ends up as bad strategy and bad planning. I believe that strategising and planning are conceptually, emotionally and cognitively very different activities, and any attempt at directly combining them is fraught with difficulty at all kinds of levels.
On the other hand ... several years ago, I came across a remarkable little publication by the Rand Corporation called "Assumption Based Planning". Although it explicitly rejects the "strategic planning" tag, I think it is damned close to resolving the tension between strategy and planning.
However, I found that people had great difficulty working with assumptions, so I took the idea and blended it with the "force field" technique. This seems to work better - at least in New Zealand. I use this tool primarily when I want people to explore the relationship between what they are doing, and the environment in which they are doing it. The workshops on Evaluation and Organisational Learning and Upside Down Strategy (see below) use the framework extensively.
The download is a graphic representation
of my process. Very bare. I suggest you use your imagination if you want to use
it. I've also added a rough description of the original concept and suggested a
way of applying it.
AN EVALUATION TOOL
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This is a bit unfair, since there are dozens of good evaluation tools. However, I've included this one for several reasons. Firstly it combines several methods of inquiry and analysis, including action research, performance measurement, strategic planning and program logic. Secondly it is one of those methods that looks deceptively easy, but is actually very powerful. Thirdly, it works well in many settings, especially workshops. Finally, despite it's apparent closeness to many standard evaluation approaches, it has never really been widely adopted by the evaluation community. I think that is a pity.
The tool was originally developed by Wes
Snyder in Africa, and further modified by Bob
Dick. The version I use is even more
modified, since I don't think Bob's version covers environmental factors in as
much detail as I tend to. However, I've included Bob Dick's version, since it
is the most clearly written. You can view a shorter introduction here.
A WORKSHOP FRAMEWORK
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This little framework has never failed
me. It treats the workshop planning like a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes you are
clear what you want to achieve, sometimes you just know what you would like to
do. Using this framework you do the easy bits first and then fill in the rest.
The document is an example of a real workshop. Drop me an email if it doesn't
make sense.
A REFLECTION TOOL
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I developed this tool from an original idea by Shankar Sankaran now at UTS in Sydney. It is based on the Plan, Act, Observe, Reflect, Plan cycle familiar in action research. I've always been convinced that powerful reflection depends to some extent on the questions asked, and this tool uses a dozen or so questions that force us to think below the surface. It forms part of a "Learning Log" developed by myself and Bill Harris,. Learning logs are featured in Bill and my chapter in Effective Change Management Using Action Research and Action Learning.
In late 2009 David McDonald, Gabriele
Bammer and Peter Deane produced an excellent e-book on the use of dialogue
methods in a variety of settings. Many of these methods are drawn from the
systems and organizational development fields. Some are highly reflective.
Worth a good look. You can download it here
A CLUSTERING
TOOL
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This is a really neat process when you have a room full of people who need to cluster lots of ideas quickly. It is also very good at exposing unspoken assumptions.
It's based on a process called "Fastbreak" which I came across when working with Pegasus Communications Inc and WEB Research. The big snag is that people don't believe the process works until they do it. The tool has never, ever, failed me.
Some tips.
If the point of clustering is just to simplify people's task, then you don't need much debate about the clusters themselves and what ideas go where. If the clusters form a fundamental step in the task, or you are wanting to uncover assumptions, then take time and allow people to discuss what goes where.
Some people get very frustrated by the clustering process. Invariably they form a little knot at the back of the room and create lots of noise. You can overcome this by acknowledging that some people don't want to be involved, allow them to do so, but suggest they temporarily leave the room !
This works really well if you use hexagonal "Post It" notes. You can get them on-line from Vis-It, although someone should tell them that the glue needs improving. When the room heats up they fall like Autumn leaves.
{Note this is a download not a web page. A blank page may appear. You will need to check your download folder for the document}
Actually this is one of those interesting little tools that defies categorisation. It's not just a data analysis tool. I've used it a lot when presenting results of research to stakeholders, and to help people debrief unstructured meetings.
One of the big challenges in evaluation or any applied social science or consultancy task is how to help people engage with the results. How do you get them to acknowledge often uncomfortable conclusions ? Would it be better to get them to analyse the results ? If people participated in the actual data analysis, then maybe they would accept the conclusions a bit more.But there were several problems with that idea :
- people are busy, they have hired you to do the work, why should they spend their valuable time doing something they have paid you to do ?
- you spent a lot of time collecting the data - you have masses of it. Just how much data is enough to get good quality analysis ?
- how to you discourage people from œseeing only those patterns in the data that reflect primarily their own view of the world ?
- if you can get them to step outside their own mental space how do you prevent them from being defensive about their existing ideas and engage in the possibility of actually learning from seeing things from other perspectives ?
- and finally how do you do this in a group setting where the pressure tends to be for discussion rather than dialectic ?
I realised at that point that much of our analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, was based essentially on patterning. With relatively few exceptions, œoutlying data was removed from view and thus from the analysis. With that went much of the "puzzling" and potential learning. However, if you approached this outlying data with the possibility of it being there for a reason rather than chance, then maybe by discussing the bulk of the data's relationship with the outliers you can get a deeper understanding of what is going on. In other words, encourage people to puzzle over the data rather than pattern the data.
From there it was a relatively short step to thinking about applying the same idea to data that were progressively less extreme, until in the end you were forcing puzzles onto apparently consistent data. I can™t claim credit for this insight my colleagues at WEB Research (http://www.webresearch.co.nz) had got there long before me. All Ive done is expanded on their ideas, initially with colleagues at New Zealand Department of Labour who helped me refine it. I have used variations on many occasions - always successfully. On one or two occasions people told me it was the best way they had ever come across of analysing data quickly in a group setting.
A DECISION MAKING TOOL
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We take decisions all the time. Indeed we
are so used to doing it, that we often forget to check with others who might be
affected by that decision how they would like to be involved in that decision.
Sometimes we don't think that through ourselves either, and get surprised when
a friend or colleague starts shouting at you down the telephone line.
There are four basic ways to take decisions, and good decision-making is about
having clear agreements about which one should be used.
I haven't a clue where this tool came
from, but I'm deeply indebted to the person who originally thought it up.
HELPING PEOPLE
LISTEN
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In a group discussion it is common for
ideas and discussion to flow rapidly. Group members hear things and respond.
Not much listening is going on. There are many times when this is absolutely
appropriate, especially when the group is in a very creative mood.
However, a group can be stuck "wheel" spinning, or skimming along the surface
without actually getting to the core of the issue. At this point it helps to
slow things down and start listening. I'll be honest, the first time I used
this I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was faced with a dysfunctional
group and made it up as I went along. Somehow everything came out OK, and I've
used it many times since.
4 ROOMED APARTMENT
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This is just a great tool when you, or a
group has lost it's way or has got stuck. It basically explains how the
creative process usually involves getting lost, and getting stuck. It helps
people understand where they are in that process, and why they are feeling what
they are feeling. The concept originated in Sweden, but I came across it in
Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff's book "Future Search". I've added my own
thoughts.
OPTION ONE AND A HALF
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Bob Dick's brilliant little tool helps people resolve
apparently irreconcilable difference. It is from his equally brilliant book
"Helping Groups to be Effective" - quite the best facilitation and group work
book on the market. Unfortunately it is currently out of print, but Bob
promises to prepare a new edition soon. Meantime check out his other excellent
publications via Interchange.
DISCUSSING UNDISCUSSIBLES
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This is another wonderful Bob Dick tool, this time written with Tim Dalmau. It resolves a really tricky and common situation in a way so simple that you kick yourself for not thinking it up yourself.
One of the big problems in any group
process, or discussion is what is not talked about. It erects a hidden boundary
around a discussion and is the source of much frustration. Bob and Tim
developed this tool to surface the conditions that create boundaries, and allow
people to decide what they want to do about these boundaries. The really clever
bit about the tool is that it you can do all this without actually talking
about the undiscussibles themselves.
OTTAWA CHARTER FRAMEWORK
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How do we stop people assuming that all you need to do is tell people to do something and it will change their behaviour ? That assumption is linked with more "failed" campaigns than I care to mention. It's made advertising agencies a mint, but that is often all it does. As you can probably guess, I'm no great fan of social marketing.
On the other hand ....
The Ottawa Charter is a WHO health
promotion framework used to overcome this problem. It is credited with the
success of strategies to promote smokefree workplaces, reducing the incidence
of HIV, road safety, and melanoma prevention. I have used it in all sorts of
other areas such as dairying, energy efficiency and land management. It's one
of those frameworks that people go "oh yes" to almost immediately.
What is seeks to achieve is voluntary behaviours which are consistent with a
"cause"
It is also based on the concept of "leverage". A strategically selected jigsaw
of people and organisations doing what they are most effective at, rather than
a single agency trying to change the world on its own.
For the framework to work properly you need (or need to develop) :-
A clear cause (or vision)
A clear set of initial principles or values
Initial agreement to the above by all key stakeholders
The strategy framework has five components, which aim to develop and
maintain :-
1. The knowledge and skills
required to adopt these behaviours.
2. Relevant services which promote and model the cause.
3. A sense of involvement in and ability to contribute to the cause.
4. Policies and rules which promote the cause.
5. Support from the wider environment for the cause.
To gain leverage, you need a range of strategies across the 5 areas which
reinforce each other. You also identify the organisation or individuals most
able to develop each part of the strategy.
The nice thing about this framework is that it works at any level you wish to
apply it. I have used it at a national level (where for instance rules =
legislation), and in single organisations (where services could be the canteen
serving up decent food). I find the framework helpful even when doing something
which is part of the strategy framework. For instance, if I am trying to
developing a "relevant service", the framework helps me to strategise and plan
how to develop that service.
The document download has a longer
discussion of the framework, plus a couple of non-health examples.
HOW TO DELIVER NEGATIVE RESULTS CONSTRUCTIVELY
This is a summary of the suggestions provided by members of Evaltalk, the
American Evaluation Association Discussion List. These suggestions are based on
the assumptions that the primary purpose of evaluation is to improve programs
or initiatives, and that people are more open to learning and change when they
are not feeling threatened.
The summary was produced by Susan Lilly.
The above link takes you to her WEB site, where you can obtain the summary and
also find out more about Susan and her work.
CREATIVITY TECHNIQUES AND TOOLS FOR PROBLEM SOLVING
This is a real gem.
Every so often you come across a website that takes your breath away in terms of usefulness and the generosity of those involved. If the UK consultancy called Mycoted are anywhere near as good as their resources then they are a pretty sharp outfit. This website has over 200 different tools and methods relating to action research, large group processes, strategy development, evaluation - just about everything really.
Each method has a short description of what it is and just enough information for you to use it relatively safely.
WORKSHOPS
VALUES IN ACTION
{Note this is a download not a web page. A blank page may appear. You will need to check your download folder for the document}
It sometimes strikes me odd that despite evaluation being so focussed on values, so few evaluation techniques are designed specifically to find out what people's values really are. In particular those "values" that come into being when people feel under pressure. Here is an approach I based on some Bob Dick work using the concepts of Chris Argyris and Don SchVdn. I developed this as a workshop for the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES) a few years ago. It is quite powerful, so use it with some caution.
EVALUATION AND ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
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Here's another AES workshop, written with
Patricia Rogers of CIRCLE, and David Turner from the New Zealand Department of
Labour. This time it focusses on how
evaluation can contribute to "organisational learning". It primarily focuses on
how to tweak an evaluation so that it has maximum influence on subsequent
events. The workshop also uses part of the Strategic Planning tool I've posted elsewhere.
UPSIDE DOWN
STRATEGY
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This is a workshop I designed with James Baines of Taylor Baines Associatesfor a client who wanted a reverse engineered strategy. A what ?
The client was a government agency charged with developing a national strategy. Most strategy approaches work towards some kind of common vision or goal, and then develop practical steps or projects within that move towards that goal.
However, in this case what the agency wanted was to develop a strategic framework around all the really good stuff that was happening out there in the real world.
So this is what we came up with. People really liked these workshops. I suspect the main reason was that unlike many strategy workshops which become a bit airy fairy, this one was strongly based on what people were actually doing or planning to do. That of course didn't prevent us asking some good questions about all that activity ....
The workshop used the Clustering
Tool, and elements of the Strategy tool, described elsewhere.
Go To Top of Page
One way or another I seem to spend a lot
of time writing. Mostly it is ephemeral and ends up on some email discussion
group or other, but occasionally something sticks around for a while. Here's a
sample of the more tacky stuff.
TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVALUATION
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Every so often I get phoned up by someone
wanting to undertake an evaluation for the first time. One day as an exercise,
I decided to jot down everything I tend to say to them.
NETWORKS, COORDINATIONS & PARTNERSHIPS
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Networks, coordinations, collaborations and partnerships between government and non-government agencies have become very trendy in New Zealand. It will be interesting to see how this trend pans out. The commitment seems to be there, but the last fifteen years of compulsory competition will take some while to work its way out of the system. I only hope the various initiatives are given appropriate time, tasks, support and resources to demonstrate their potential.
As part of a job evaluating a particular collaborative venture, I was asked to find out what had been written about networks, partnerships and all that. The original version of this download was product of that. Since then with the help and support of other colleagues, I've edited it down to the rather more coherent piece you can get here.
Since this was written several other references have come my way. This includes a more formal literature search undertaken by the New Zealand Ministry of Social Development, and a book edited by Myrna Mandell called Getting Results Through Collaboration: Networks and Network Structures for Public Policy and Management , Quorum Books. There is also an on-line "collaboration inventory" here where you can assess how well your particular collaborations are doing. This framework is produced by the Wilder Foundation and claims to be based on research into collaborations. It certainly seems to include all the major factors.
My thanks to the several dozen people who
helped me with this summary. My particular thanks to those whose work is quoted
in this summary, and to Judi Altinkaya, Chief Advisor for Adult & Community
Education here in New Zealand who gave permission for the original document to
be made widely available. Thanks also to Penny Hawkins of the NZ Department of
Child Youth and Family, and Patricia Rogers of CIRCLE for their support in developing
this document.
KEY FEATURES OF ACTION RESEARCH
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I was asked a while ago to describe the
key features of action research. And this was the result. I still don't think
it quite gets there, but it's a good start. Actually I think THE key feature is
the quality of relationships. "Ordinary" research tends to emphasise more the
quality of questions. As someone said to me the other day when I made that
distinction, good quality relationships actually allow you to ask better
questions. Nice point I thought.
PERFORMANCE INDICATORS - THE TYRANNY OF NUMBERS
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From time to time I get hot under the
collar about the current trend for measuring everything and the unquestioning
use of "performance indicators". Here's something I wrote when the temperature
singed my shirt. It draws from a variety of sources, including a small bit of
research by yours truly. The article was originally published in the
Australasian
Evaluation Society (AES) "News and
Comment".
ZEN AND THE ART OF CONTRACT MAINTENANCE
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This piece has a long history. Back in the early 90's Mary-Jane Rivers and I were asked to help negotiate contracts between a government agency and some community organisations. After some head scratching, this is how we approached the job. First we decided that contracts were fundamentally about relationships. We then asked ourselves what were the building blocks of good relationships ? We identified six. We then used these six core features to design a form of strategic planning which we put the various parties through. The actual contract document then fell out of this process.
For a while the approach was very successful, and we trekked around New Zealand helping people develop these contracts. Then the New Zealand public sector was thrust into a contracting environment that was the antithesis of what our approach sought to achieve. It was competitive, divisive, distrustful, and exploititative. The idea of contracts being based on good relationships was a goner, and with it went our little process. I was so bloody angry with what I saw happen as a result that I wrote this article for the "Public Sector" - the NZ Public Sector Association's journal. It was picked up and published in several other journals.
The download is the final version,
written for the Australian Community Health Association. Apart from the general
discussion of contracting it also includes a sample based on a real contract. I
think the article has stood the test of time, although I'd probably make a
better job if it today. I recently heard that some organisations still use this
contracting approach ten years on.
A SURVIVORS GUIDE TO SELF EMPLOYMENT
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I've been self employed for over a decade now, and I've often wondered how I've done it. Actually quite a lot of people wonder the same thing, and regularly phone me up to find out. So this is what I send them these days. My thanks to Mike Sherry who added a few more tips.
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OTHER PEOPLE'S WRITINGS
As promised here is a space for things written by other people that are not exactly "tools" but worth a place in anyone's brain. As always please acknolwedge the original source if you ever get to use them.
TOOLS FOR ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE AND LEADERSHIP - THE CULTURAL FACTOR
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The organizational development consultant Dick Axelrod (http://www.axelrodgroup.com) and I were talking one day about national cultural archetypes and the implications for organisational development. Dick told me of a conversation with the Japanese manager of a Japanese automobile assembly plant located in the southern USA. The manager mentioned to Dick that when he set a tolerance range in Japan - indicating the range by spreading apart his finger and thumb - Japanese workers would hit right in the middle, whereas in the States the engineers would give him anything within the tolerance range. "So what do you do ?" asked Dick. "Oh that's easy" replied the manager smiling. And with that he reduced the gap between his finger and thumb until they almost met.
The relationship between culture, motivation and
change has always interested me. As a migrant who has worked in several
countries I'm acutely aware that what motivates people in one country doesn't
do the same in another. Even words have different meaning. I'm far from the
only one to make that observation. In the mid 80's the US based AT&T were
puzzled why Quality Assurance measures imported from Japan didn't seem to work
in the US. As the previous paragraph suggests it wasn't because US workers
couldn't produce quality work. So they wondered whether US workers engaged
with the idea of "quality" differently from their Japanese colleagues. The
research they did on this basically said "you have no idea how profound that
difference is" and changed the way they promoted quality in their US
workplaces. Australian consultant Colin Pidd (and his one-time colleague John
Evans) took these ideas and generalised them beyond "quality" into a series of
tools that could be used in Australian and New Zealand workplaces to help with
strategy, motivation, change processes and leadership development. Their ideas are some of the
most valuable on this website, and have got me out of no end of difficult
situation
INTRODUCTION
TO THE WORK OF ARGYRIS AND SCHON
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Chris Argyris and Don Schon's work has been enormously influential on my thinking and practice (eg the Values in Action workshop above). Here is Bob Dick and Tim Dalmau's elegant attempt to explain their work and it's significance.
This takes you to original resource. You
can save it in the normal way.
ACCOUNTABILITY, RESPONSIBILITY AND CORRUPTION: MANAGING THE 'PUBLIC PRODUCTION
PROCESS' ROBERT GREGORY
from The State Under Contract ed Jonathan Boston, Bridget
Williams Books, 1995.
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This is not a piece of my own writing but a chapter by New Zealand academic Bob Gregory. It was one of the first critiques of "New Public Management" that really pressed home the theoretical impossibility as well as the practical impossibility of some of the "accountability" assumptions that underpin NSM. Based on a framework by public sector management academic James Wilson, Bob postulates that "accountability" can only be guaranteed under certain conditions; conditions that are rarely present in much public sector activity. The public sector essentially depends on practitioners having a sense of responsibility for their actions rather than accountability to someone for their actions. Furthermore he claims - and cites case studies to show - that attempts to force public sector activity from "responsibility for" into "accountability to" frameworks actually corrupts the public sector process. This is an extremely important but oddly overlooked contribution to the NPM and performance management debate. Bob gave me permission to copy and circulate this chapter.GENUINE LEADERSHIP WITHIN CONTEXT
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A few years ago a large package appeared unannounced in my mailbox. It was the complete draft manuscript of a book being developed by Robert (Bob) Terry on how do decide what kind of leadership fits which kinds of situations. I'd met Bob at a conference in Texas for about five minutes and emailed him once a few months later for some clarification. His response to my request was to send me the entire draft manuscript of a book. Now there is someone who understands what leadership is all about. Here's my summary of what he said in his talk at the conference. The book that eventually emerged shortly before his untimely death is called ""Seven Zones for Leadership: Acting Authentically in Stability and Chaos" (2001). He was not a single model snake oil man flogging off his particular take on leadership. He believed passionately that nearly all models of leadership are relevent somewhere. The trick is to pick where and most importantly when. In the manuscript and in the book he examines the major leadership models and shows how each fits a particular situation (zone) and then offers his own model, "authentic leadership," as the integrating approach. [My thanks to Michael Patton for telling me about the final publication]
You can get an excellent and more detailed explanation from here in Bob Terry's own words (and thanks to Gene Shackman for hunting this reference out)
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This is where you come in.
The idea behind "works in progress" is quite simple. The documents below are musings still being developed. Some are relatively new, and others have been put aside to mature. Or perhaps for me to mature.
Please feel free to
respond to the ideas, and help develop them.
ASSESSING ACTION RESEARCH POTENTIAL
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Over the past few years I've been
involved in several action research based projects. Some have worked well, and
others ... well let's say not so well. So a colleague, Robyn Bailey, and I
started to think about the kinds of conditions that helped and hindered action
research. Could we ask some questions before we started that were good predictors of eventual success. We
reflected on our experiences and read the literature.
We came to the conclusion that there were two critical aspects of the action
research process - what makes it different from other kinds of inquiry. The
first is about the ability of those involved to act on the basis of critical
reflection, the second is the ability
of those involved to reflect critically on action. We also decided that there were three aspects of
the situation worth asking questions about; the peoplelikely to be involved, the actual task
or situation, and the
environmentwithin which the people
and task reside.
This table, which is still in its early stages of development, is our attempt
to structure some questions that will help us decide whether a particular
situation is suitable for an action research approach. We welcome feedback on
what you agree with, what you disagree with, what isn't clear, and what we have
missed out.
BUILDING EVALUATION CAPABILITY
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Evaluation capacity building is
very high profile at the moment. Just howdo you get busy people in busy organisations to undertake high
quality evaluations of their programs and activities ? Most of the focus is on
skill development and (for want of a better word) promoting evaluation as A
Good Thing. I'm less convinced by that, and wonder whether there is a
difference between evaluation capacity and evaluation capability. Anyway here
is a short paper I presented to a conference recently. There's still work to be
done.
EVALUATION AND LARGE GROUP
PROCESSES
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I've long been interested in the use of large group processes in evaluation. By large group processes, I mean processes that involve 50 or more people in one place at one time.
I've been involved in large group processes that exceed 500 people, all involved in some form of evaluative activity. But is it realevaluation ? Some large group thinkers say that no it isn't and never can be, since large groups tend to be poor at processing and analysing data rigorously and accurately. In any case, they say, large group processes are primarily about developing commitment.
I'm not quite convinced by that
argument, and still seeking some answers. Here's where I've got to so
far.
STRATEGY AND STRATEGY
DEVELOPMENT
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As I've indicated elsewhere, I'm no lover of strategic planning. Unfortunately, that's what many people think isstrategy. Indeed the confusion that surrounds what exactly strategy is, and what relevance it has, fascinates me. Here is an attempt to come to grips with the implications of some of my reading in this enormously diverse area.
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