Continuing to work through Overcoming Organizational Defenses to find links with the TOC approach it struck me that creating a CRT was in itself a form of Cognitive Mapping.
In other words by extracting the key concepts from the book into a CRT it should be possible to graphically display and test the book’s argument at the same time as comprehending it.
In the first chapter Argyris gives some strong clues about the sort of Undesirable Effects (UDEs) we might see in the real world…
Matt Mower has some good summary posts ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) from the Gurteen Knowledge conference. Also on his site Matt has a fledgling wiki dedicated to the subject of eXtreme Knowledge Management (XKM) “a lightweight KM methodology”
Ton has added photos to his blogroll. I wondered if he was doing it by searching people’s FOAF files but apparently not (it was pure coincidence that he added my photo about a day after I linked it from my FOAF file)
The Periodic Table of Dessert – not just fun, has some logical structure too! [via Apothecary’s Drawer via Dave Pollard]
As noted in an earlier article I’ve started re-reading Overcoming Organizational Defenses with the intent of seeing how to integrate Argyris’s approach with TOC. Confirmation that my intuition may have taken me down a fruitful path comes from Chapter 1 “Puzzles”: “The players in these studies also take for granted policies and practices that are contrary to their managerial stewardship. They bypass root causes. They equate being realistic with being simplistic.
Another piece of the jigsaw I started in the previous article – Coaching: Dealing with subliminal �Theories in Use” from Neuro-Semanticist Armand Kruger [via OnePine ]
I’ve been reading ideas from Mitch Ratcliffe and Frank Patrick on how the technology deployed in a business both embodies and is constrained by the hidden, unspoken mental models held by the sponsors, specifiers, implementers and users of the technology.
Reading this I was reminded of the work of Chris Argyris, particularly the “theory in use”/”espoused theory” difference and organisational defensive routines. I wonder how we might usefully combine insights and tools from those different perspectives?
Phil Wolff is wondering Can you apply Theory of Constraints to Human Capital?. Interesting questions – although the term “Human Capital” makes me cringe slightly… (Update – David Gurteen seems to have the same reaction to these labels too!) However in the context of workforce planning one of his questions seems to go to a pretty core issue “How can we […] spend more time spent in meaningful conversation and less on paperwork?
Further to the last article here are a few blogs that make frequent reference to Theory of Constraints together with a few sample posts (some of which they wrote in parallel): Focused Performance (Frank Patrick): Down ‘n Dirty with TOC and Project Management 1 2 3 4 5 Reforming Project Management (Hal Macomber) : Down ‘n Dirty with the Theory of Constraints 1 2 3 4 5 Customers, Promises and TOC
Real life processes are messy and complex – changing them can be risky. With this in mind I’ve started a project in the organisation where I work looking at how we can understand better the problems in our area of the business and find out where to focus our improvement efforts.
We’re using an approach based on the Theory of Constraints. Lots of people have written more eleoquently than I on the details of TOC (See links at end of article) but although labelled “theory” this is a very practical approach that helps you answer three ‘Big Questions’:
How are we going to do the change?
When you used to ask me why something didn’t work I could only say “well it’s everything” – now we understand things much better. I don’t think anyone has ever looked at these processes in this way.
That comment illustrates the double appeal to me of these methods – the diagrams and hard logic please the analytical part of my mind but beyond that there is the human benefit from working with a team to help them understand and express their issues in a systemic and systematic way. OK some of that might just be Hawthorne effect but I also believe there is something fundamentally empowering in helping people improve things that matter to them and express their issues in logical ways that can be used to influence others