Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Appreciative Inquiry
After spending 2 months doing research into what the Environment Agency needed to boost its project management performance, I realised that it wasn't just the project managers that needed help. It was also their bosses, the project executives.
Helping project managers is quite easy, the majority realise they could improve their skills and they are keen to learn. Offers of training are taken up quite readily. Project executives, on the other hand are a very different kettle of fish. The typical profile of a project executive is someone who has been in the post for at least 5 years and is often the head of a small department or at the very least a senior manager. They are regarded as senior people with a lot of expertise and experience. You don't just walk into the post of a project executive. I realised it wasn't going to be easy to teach these old dogs new tricks, so a careful approach was needed. I wanted to challenge these managers into thinking about what they were doing and to see how they could improve. I had been given one and half hours at their monthly meeting and was looking into how I could make the most of such precious time.
The idea of Appreciative Inquiry came up. I was told it was a way to inspire change amongst a large group of people. So I looked into it and liked what I saw. To cut to the chase, I used AI and developed a workshop. I delivered it in 1.5 hours with the help of my boss. Any boy o boy, did it go down well. It achieved everything we hoped for and started off the momentum of change.
So what is AI and how does it work? AI is a different take on problem solving, it focuses on the positives of situations. It asks what is working well, what can we see more of? It doesn't ask people to think about the problems. It is very clever in that throughout an AI session you influence the way people think, by asking them to think about successes and how that made them feel. By tapping into those past emotions and feelings participants find themselves looking at things in different way and finding solutions that didn't present themselves before.
AI comprises of a 4-D structure. The 4 D's are:
We then asked them to think about what their role would look like in an ideal world, without constraints and real-world barriers. This is the 'dream' section. We devised an activity which got them thinking and discussing their ideas. Firstly they worked in pairs, then in groups of four and then we shared the best ideas across the whole room. People were already reevaluating the way they perceived their job and were seeing ways to change.
'Designing' is about reigning in those free thoughts and coming back to reality. How can you make those ideals happen in the real world? Why shouldn't you be able to achieve the ideals? Because the mind is thinking in a different way new ideas come to light. Again we got them doing activities in pairs and shared the best answers around the whole group. We asked them to prioritise their ideals. Which things were the most important to them to change?
The last part is the easy part. All of the session leads towards the 'destiny'. AI creates self-organising innovation rather than some engineered answer. It relies on people to go away and make the changes for themselves in the ways they see fit. This allows everyone to do things in a way which is right for them. Everyone is different and AI makes use of that. It means that at the end of the session we had a loose list of what the priorities were and a lot of very happy looking, enthusiastic project executives who were empowered to go away and make the changes for themselves.
The feedback from the session was fantastic. Our group of executives hadn't experienced a session like this before. We brought in a fresh approach which made their day a change from the norm. Even at a senior level something fresh is welcomed and needed. Consequently, they took our messages on board and identified all the problems with their roles that I had in my initial report. They had worked the answers and solutions out for themselves and had ideas on what to do which were relevant to themselves and their situations. I didn't need to tell them very much at all, my job was just to create the right environment and the thinking space.
The momentum AI creates is somewhat akin to a snowball effect. With change spiraling about all over the place. For me personally, AI is a great discovery. I love the way it taps into a positive psyche and makes change seems natural and also personal. I will certainly experiment with AI in the future when I am running my own projects. I can really see how AI will make all the difference to teams of developers who often need carefully handling. I'll be posting about my experiments with AI in time to come, but in the time being for more info, check out the home of AI, http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu.
In my mind, AI is the future of bringing about organisational change.
Helping project managers is quite easy, the majority realise they could improve their skills and they are keen to learn. Offers of training are taken up quite readily. Project executives, on the other hand are a very different kettle of fish. The typical profile of a project executive is someone who has been in the post for at least 5 years and is often the head of a small department or at the very least a senior manager. They are regarded as senior people with a lot of expertise and experience. You don't just walk into the post of a project executive. I realised it wasn't going to be easy to teach these old dogs new tricks, so a careful approach was needed. I wanted to challenge these managers into thinking about what they were doing and to see how they could improve. I had been given one and half hours at their monthly meeting and was looking into how I could make the most of such precious time.
The idea of Appreciative Inquiry came up. I was told it was a way to inspire change amongst a large group of people. So I looked into it and liked what I saw. To cut to the chase, I used AI and developed a workshop. I delivered it in 1.5 hours with the help of my boss. Any boy o boy, did it go down well. It achieved everything we hoped for and started off the momentum of change.
So what is AI and how does it work? AI is a different take on problem solving, it focuses on the positives of situations. It asks what is working well, what can we see more of? It doesn't ask people to think about the problems. It is very clever in that throughout an AI session you influence the way people think, by asking them to think about successes and how that made them feel. By tapping into those past emotions and feelings participants find themselves looking at things in different way and finding solutions that didn't present themselves before.
AI comprises of a 4-D structure. The 4 D's are:
- Discovery - what is working well, what is successful?
- Dream - how could things be in an ideal world?
- Design - what should the future look like?
- Destiny - how will you be the change you want to see?
We then asked them to think about what their role would look like in an ideal world, without constraints and real-world barriers. This is the 'dream' section. We devised an activity which got them thinking and discussing their ideas. Firstly they worked in pairs, then in groups of four and then we shared the best ideas across the whole room. People were already reevaluating the way they perceived their job and were seeing ways to change.
'Designing' is about reigning in those free thoughts and coming back to reality. How can you make those ideals happen in the real world? Why shouldn't you be able to achieve the ideals? Because the mind is thinking in a different way new ideas come to light. Again we got them doing activities in pairs and shared the best answers around the whole group. We asked them to prioritise their ideals. Which things were the most important to them to change?
The last part is the easy part. All of the session leads towards the 'destiny'. AI creates self-organising innovation rather than some engineered answer. It relies on people to go away and make the changes for themselves in the ways they see fit. This allows everyone to do things in a way which is right for them. Everyone is different and AI makes use of that. It means that at the end of the session we had a loose list of what the priorities were and a lot of very happy looking, enthusiastic project executives who were empowered to go away and make the changes for themselves.
The feedback from the session was fantastic. Our group of executives hadn't experienced a session like this before. We brought in a fresh approach which made their day a change from the norm. Even at a senior level something fresh is welcomed and needed. Consequently, they took our messages on board and identified all the problems with their roles that I had in my initial report. They had worked the answers and solutions out for themselves and had ideas on what to do which were relevant to themselves and their situations. I didn't need to tell them very much at all, my job was just to create the right environment and the thinking space.
The momentum AI creates is somewhat akin to a snowball effect. With change spiraling about all over the place. For me personally, AI is a great discovery. I love the way it taps into a positive psyche and makes change seems natural and also personal. I will certainly experiment with AI in the future when I am running my own projects. I can really see how AI will make all the difference to teams of developers who often need carefully handling. I'll be posting about my experiments with AI in time to come, but in the time being for more info, check out the home of AI, http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu.
In my mind, AI is the future of bringing about organisational change.
Labels: appreciative inquiry, communication, environment agency, project executive
posted by Hannah @ 4:53 PM
0 Comments
Links to this post
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home