5. Conclusions
Self discovery is a powerful way to
assimilate and appreciate new knowledge. Working groups
from industry that explored the early concepts of change
proficiency at the Agility Forum sent people back to
their companies with new visions of possibilities and new
ideas on how to realize them. Many of them are making
something happen in their companies as a result. Not
because they heard a seminar. Not because they read a
book. And not because they sat around a table and kicked
around a few ideas. But because they tried to make sense
of something that little was known about, and did it in
the company of others with different backgrounds who also
wanted a new knowledge and sense of understanding.
At this point the author suspects that
the change issue-focus and RRS principles-base can be
fruitfully employed as the basic analysis and application
structure for any Realsearch application focused on
business practices. This suspicion arises after seeing
many different types of business practices
comprehensively described as responding to a set of
change issues. The change-issue structure is a tool that
can fit almost any problem. Likewise, the RRS principles
provide a reasonable general structure that appears to
have broad applicability. Both are tools to make you
think about the problem and the solution in broader
terms.
Every workshop ended with a postmortem
on the process. Suggestions for improvements as well as
confirmation of good procedures were made each time, and
many of the improvement suggestions were implemented
immediately in the following workshop. Comments heard
frequently focused on the high quality of the review
articles, the desire to see new participants brought up
to speed quicker (perhaps with off-line pre-tutoring or
simply more in-depth basics at the workshop opening), and
the desire for more specific break-out instructions and
procedures.
Important things we learned in
the first five workshops:
- Limit the analysis activity to a
single practice so that all tools can be
exercised by the entire group. Our attempts to
analyze two practices, in two half-day sessions,
never produced a complete analysis of any one
practice. There just wasn't enough time. An
entire day can be devoted to a single analysis.
This requires, however, a more careful subject
selection to ensure it provides a rich learning
experience.
- Drive the analysis activity to
produce, and leave behind, a complete strawman
iconic model (one-page structured synopsis - see
Appendix). Complete in the sense that both the
iconic diagram and the observed RRS principles
for a specific practice are developed and
organized as a single-sheet hand-out. Strawman in
the sense that quiet minds can later refine and
augment what is necessarily the one-day
blitzkrieg output of a committee.
- Be very careful about mixing
participants from different companies that are
doing business with each other. If there are
unresolved issues between them, the group
chemistry can defocus the Realsearch activity.
- Single-time participation should
be discouraged. Wrestling with new knowledge in
the Realsearch process cannot produce comfort,
let alone insight, in a single exposure. By
necessity a workshop host may have more
participants present at the workshop they host
than they field to other workshops in the same
series. But hosting a workshop without fielding
participants to other workshops diminishes
greatly the value of the hosting experience. For
one: the locally-specific knowledge generated
during the workshop remains raw and unfinished as
there is no follow-through. For another: though
the host participants generally get good
actionable ideas during their workshop, the
Realsearch knowledge-focus remains confusing and
provides no leverage.
- Initially we devoted a single day
to the application exercise, with a
day-and-a-half spent on the analysis activity of
two practices. Once an experience base was
developed participants, and especially workshop
hosts, wanted more time spent on the application
exercise. The day-and-a-half we now spend on the
application exercise seems satisfactory. Having
cut back on the time available for analysis,
however, has resulted in a need to focus the
analysis on a single subject rather than two.
Comments
from participants.
Some were unsolicited spontaneous email
messages collected during the course of the workshop
series, others were solicited as feedback on the
Realsearch process specifically for this paper. We are
still learning how to improve the process, but the
written and verbal feedback indicates that something
useful already exists.
John Bricklemeyer, Eastman
Kodak (two weeks after his first workshop at GM):
"I thought that the session at
GM was excellent. It was very timely for me as I have
been able to utilize many of our learnings around
guiding principles, particularly as they relate to a
flexible manufacturing environment. I think that this
site was an excellent example of how to use "out
of the box" thinking to solve problems without
spending huge sums of money to develop
technologically complex solutions. The types of
innovation that I saw at GM has caused me to approach
many of our activities in a different manner in order
to more fully utilize the assets that we already have
in unique ways.
Jack Ring, working with Miles
Burke Technologies:
"The Change Drivers and RRS
principles are key features of a new methodology for
the engineering of businesses as complex, adaptive
systems. This methodology will be tested [in a
product to be introduced by Miles Burke Technologies]
in 1998 to determine whether it overcomes the
deficiencies of current practices in BPR and
Management of Change in commercial businesses and
virtual enterprises such as Value Chains.
"Heretofore, learning
environments have been largely limited to the
teaching paradigm -- lectures, case studies and
laboratories. This paradigm does not create a
community with consistent intents, objectives, mental
models and tenacity. The Realsearch approach
facilitates not only analogical reasoning but also
gets participants to the level of principle-centered
reasoning.
"Industry, government and
academia are facing an era of complex, adaptive
systems. It is essential that we learn how to design
and operate such systems. Musicians can learn at
Julliard. Architects can learn at the Bauhaus.
Physicians can learn at Mayo or Menninger. Systems
practitioners have had nowhere to go that can immerse
them in the Problem and help them experiment with
Solutions. Realsearch creates an environment and
provides the co-facilitation that maximizes adult
learning.
"In every workshop,
participants have come to realizations and conceived
candidate solutions that surprised themselves. This
is applied creativity -- innovation.
"The Underlying Principles, to
paraphrase a Chinese Proverb: tell me and I forget,
show me and I misunderstand, let me try it and I
remember, help me have a success and I will apply it.
Dan Henke with Pratt &
Whitney:
"The workshop forum provides a
method to assess a number of management systems with
a common set of rules and semantics. The review
process is not intended to provide an immediate
"flash of light" leading to perfect
solutions, but rather to gain a deeper knowledge of
how management systems work to provide adaptability
in the business arena.
"....the forum [workshop] gave
me the tools to look at the various systems I have
worked in and apply a structured method of assessment
about what made them effective and vice versa. We are
in the midst of reorganizing the PW Space Propulsion
Business Unit and I have consistently attempted to
infuse the knowledge gained from attending the forum
[workshop].
Pete Holmes with Pratt &
Whitney:
"Even at this early stage,
there is a change initiative that can be related to
our workshop findings: Empowered IPD (Integrated
Product Development) teams. I think we will begin to
see action plans take form over the next few months.
Nicole Deblieck of Rockwell
Avionics and Communications:
"The groups have done a good
job looking at relations, interfaces, and systems
which are generic to all organizations, but with
enough detail to be useful to the host company. Many
times during the workshop I have noted ideas about my
projects, which have been generated during either the
presentations or the breakout groups. I was pleased
to see you working to generate a graphic to capture
the key ideas. The workshop structure works well with
the pre-reading, whole group presentations, and
break-out sessions. The first two examples give
enough time for group dynamics to be sorted out and
some understanding for new participants on the
concepts.
"I am currently working and
planning ways to implement these new concepts on my
current projects. I do find myself looking at all
sorts of systems, work and non work, as frameworks
and modules and evaluating how well they work. It has
definitely affected the way I think of organizing
interfaces, and systems.
Lisa Bogusz of Rockwell
Avionics and Communications:
"I'm having a very interesting
time with the development of a new product set to
launch in 1998. We planned to release a sort of
half-step of what the ultimate product will be, and
follow that up the following year with the actual
product. It took me about a half second to call forth
my Agile principles and realize that we will get
nothing reusable, scaleable, or reconfigurable out of
this. Much to my surprise, after some discussion we
agreed that it wasn't the right approach. We see this
as an opportunity to implement some agile practices
not seen here before.
Howard Kuhn of Concurrent
Technologies Corporation: (Immediately following their
workshop which explored new positioning strategy.)
"The most immediate impact of
our workshop was to recognize the need to emphasize
the role of our Fundamental Knowledge Base as a
distinguishing feature of our capabilities. This will
be a key ingredient in future marketing activities.
In addition, we recognize that the ability to nurture
this capability will be a major success factor in the
future as knowledge workers, knowledge management,
and knowledge exploitation take a more prominent
role.
Patrick Kraus of Procter &
Gamble:
"The workshops have been quite
useful in generating thoughts related to my situation
without necessarily trying to generate these
thoughts. For me, this occurs for 2 reasons. First, I
am physically disconnected from my problem because I
am not in my office. Second, the workshops create a
learning and question-asking environment that allows
a participant to question things that he or she
otherwise would not question.
"As a participant, the
workshop environment (Realsearch) is the initial
'proving ground' for new skills that might not
otherwise be taken out for a test drive. The workshop
offers an intensive, but relaxed atmosphere to test
out these new concepts and tools without risking
judgement from your parent company before you are
ready for it.
"I would prefer working only
one 'Analysis' exercise so that we can carry it
through the entire process (change issues, 10
principles, system definition, module definition,
strawman diagram). I would like to see more focus on
how the 10 principles manifest themselves in a known
system. I think focusing on one 'Analysis' exercise
will accomplish this.
"I would like to see the
output of the 'Analysis' to be a strawman diagram
[local metaphor model]. This would help focus the
effort toward a concrete deliverable as well as
summarize the findings of each break-out group so
that a participant has some documented examples of
using process before he/she returns home.
In Summary
Does the Realsearch process work? Does
it produce a facility with new knowledge that has the
depth of insight? How long does that take?
My observations are that little is
evident after a single workshop, the light goes on during
the second workshop, and something approaching insight
occurs for some in the third and for many in the fourth
exposure. At three days per workshop that's something
like 9-12 days invested in high-leverage business-related
learning with immediate application. Our sampling
experience at this point is too small to make any strong
claims, however.
Realsearch is not a recipe driven
concept by design: 1) we need ways to differentiate our
businesses, not conformity that eliminates competition,
2) the nature of the complexity we deal with requires
complexity-compatible response, 3) though people are
generally uncomfortable in the hard work of deep
thinking/learning activity, that is what produces
insight.
The future will continue to evolve the
strategic themes of Realsearch and refine the process. We
want to find effective ways to expand to larger groups
and IntraNet delivery. We are still learning, but common
ground revolves around a focus on real and interesting
problems, mixed participants, running parallel teams,
building local metaphors, issue-focus/principle-base, and
making people think and create new insight patterns.
References
[1] Rick Dove, "Integrating People
and Technology - A Consortia Point of View",
Delivered at the 1991 NCMS Annual Meeting, 5/91. National
Center for Manufacturing Sciences, Ann Arbor, MI.
[2] S. Goldman and K. Preisse
(Editors), R. Nagel and R. Dove (Principle
Investigators), "21st Century Manufacturing
Enterprise Strategy", Volumes 1 and 2, Iacocca
Institute, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA., 1991.
[3] Rick Dove, Steve Benson, and Sue
Hartman, "A Structured Assessment System for Groups
Analyzing Agility", 5th Annual Agility Conf.,
Agility Forum, Mar '96.
[4] Dan Seligman, "Brains in the
Office", Fortune, Jan 13, 1997, page 38.
[5] Robert Kelley and Janet Caplan,
"How Bell Labs Creates Star Performers",
Harvard Business Review, Jul-Aug '93.
[6] Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation,
Doubleday, 1986.
[7] Jack Stack, The Great Game of
Business, Doubleday, 1992.
[8] John Case, Open Book Management,
HarperCollins, 1995.
[9] Rick Dove, Essay Collection:
"Agile and Otherwise", published monthly in
Automotive Manufacturing and Production, Gardner
Publications, November 1994 through December 1997 (and
continuing). Collection available at www.parshift.com.
[10] Michael Porter, "What is
Strategy?" Harvard Business Review, Nov/Dec 1996.
[11] Rick Dove, Sue Hartman, and Steve
Benson, "An Agile Enterprise Reference Model, With a
Case Study of Remmele Engineering", Agility Forum
Report, Dec '96.
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