Building Connections

[Bart van Loon]

SOL 2009 will be all about Connections with areas to be developed, (re-)discovered or harvested.
I was thrilled to hear so many good ideas in Cologne: SF Leadership, agility, complexity and many more.

I'd like to open up here to all sorts of input:
- what approach or line of thought has something for SF to learn from?
- what area or work field might be interesting to explore?
- suppose we would connect ..... what would be different?
- how could this be hosted on next year's conference?
- what else?

Contributions can be made here of by email to [e-mail]

[Hans-Peter Korn]

I suggest (and also will support it) to keep on the track of "SF and Agility for Projects".
"Agility" is not restricted to IT-Projects only, it can be generalized for all kinds of projects. And it is not only a question how to manage projects... it adresses all functions which are necessary to produce results in a project.
I am very interested in any contact with persons working especially in larger "hybrid" projects. This are projects which on one hand deal with "mechanical" or "precictable" systems (like IT-systems and all kind of technicalsystems) and on the other hand with social systems (stakeholder of the project, users of the prduced technical solutions).

[Bart van Loon]

interesting also is that the notion of agility has entered HR and that there are studies linking the agility of employees and the results that companies produce, more precisely: an 'agile model of production' is vital to achieving long-term viability (Paauwe).

[Hans-Peter Korn]

interesting.... do you have some references (articles, books, websites...) to such studies?

[Carole Waskett]

I'm intrigued by the idea of SF connections and am finding it hard to articulate my ideas too! I've always felt that SF thinking is like a joker card, or low-level architecture in IT, or a universal tool.
I love your rope photo, and it makes me think that the SF approach is like the whole structure of netting, while each application (therapy, leadership, teaching etc) might be seen as just one of the squares. There is an infinite number of squares and SF thinking holds them all, it's just that a relatively small section of the net might be visible to us at present . . .

[Ramu Iyer]

I am an avid reader of management articles that appear in Harvard Business Review. Seldom have I seen a "solution focus" in many of the case analysis or best practice recommendations. Most of the thinking favors a problem focus (or a non-SF approach) and the change management agenda is often described in large, macro or gigantic ("non-baby") steps. It would be great to reframe the thinking in some of these articles in an SF way so that we can uncover the complexity (if any), engage in crucial conversations to achieve shared understanding while enacting the baby steps, and then "compile" the patterns of change to taste the desired results.

[Bart van Loon]

Interesting Ramu, do you know of any approaches that have done the same thing (debunk the HBR-models) to some extend and with some succes, that we might be able to learn from?

[Hans-Peter Korn]

Yes, also for mee it seems so...

Yesterday - as an example - I found this:

http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/hamel/management_20/

WELL: I am not really surprised to read in this page this deficit-oriented things:

((all this very important persons will be)) focused on the following four questions:

1. What are the deep-seated impediments, or “design flaws,” that limit the capacity of organizations to adapt (to change without trauma); to innovate (to mobilize the imagination of everyone, every day); and to engage (to create environments that inspire extraordinary contributions).

2. Given these systemic impediments, and the new demands that will confront organizations in the years ahead, what should be the agenda for 21st century management innovators? That is, what are the “moonshot challenges” that must be addressed if we are to create organizations that are truly fit for the future?

3. Can we imagine, even in outline form, some potential solutions to these challenges, and if so, what sorts of experiments might be useful in helping us to test these ideas in real world settings?

4. More generally, what could be done to help accelerate the evolution of management in the years to come, that is, what is it that limits the pace of management innovation and how might these limits by overcome?


Oh God.... we have to do a long and exhausting journey up to that point, where those very important persons will start to understand "solutions" in a way how to make use of this what's working instead of finding "solutions" how to overcome impediments...

[Bart van Loon]

I'm not an expert on in the HR-field, but I think the pioneers are:
Lee Dyer. Dyer is known for 'The Agile Enterprise': Studies of way...
In the Netherlands there is a professor of HR who received aknowledgement with his book HRM and Performance: Achieving long-term viability. (Paauwe, J. (2004). Oxford: Oxford University Press)

[Hans-Peter Korn]

Good references, indeed! I will have a closer look to Lee Dyer.

In those pages I can read online in the book: HRM and Performance: Achieving long-term viability I found much about "analysing and explaining" and nothing what I would see as "agile" or "SF"....
Have seen more SF-like things in this book?

[Bart van Loon]

Here's a reference list and I will upload another literature list that is in part dutch, but mostly international.
I read an interview quoting Paauwe saying: "More important than to look at shareholder value or short-term profitability it is to look at long-term viability. This organisational vitality requires adjustability from its employees, this is known as the 'agile model of production'. So you have to work on an employee-attitude that is flexible, resourceful, employable, willing to change, willing to learn. Such an attitude is only possible when the organisation provides basic trust."

[Hans-Peter Korn]

Thank you, I referenenced it here:
http://solworld.ning.com/group/karlstadgroup/forum/topic/show?id=21...