A KM approach to guiding Change Management

storytelling — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:29:26 -0600

When engaged in Change Management project, we often use a KM framework to guide and share elements of the system's functionality with client. This simultaneously engages Systems Theory, Logical Framework Analysis (LFA), Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Dialogic approaches in project work. The novelty of this approach is that is both analytical and analogical simultaneously and creates a multidisciplinary framework for engaging complex information. It has proved particularly helpful in working with African government and NGOs. The process is generally completed within 3 days as an organisational ritual and outputs form inputs to the change process. The enquiry framework asks the following key questions when we assess organisational culture and the nature of a system:

What are the roles and the relationships that make up the complex social system under investigation?
What official criteria are used to measure the success of these roles? What unofficial criteria are used to measure the success of these roles?
How does information flow between these roles and in these relationships?
What skills sets are represented in each role? What are the sources of these skills? Which skills and skills sets are capable of dealing with what challenges?
What values and beliefs inform the behaviours of each of the roles in the system?
What symbols, metaphors and stories inform the different roles with regards to their experience of the challenge? What is the source of these symbols, metaphors and stories? How are they currently succeeding in meeting the challenge?
What messages and stories that relate to this challenge are currently being produced and by whom?
What are the kinds of data that are already being collected with regards to the system? Who is collecting this data? With what intent? How is this data then represented? Who has access to it? In what form?
What feedback mechanisms are functioning in this system? What is the information that is being relayed through these feedback loops? What are these feedback loops capable of changing?
What does each role have the power to change? What is each role unable to change?
What are the natural processes of social and behavioural change in the system? Can these natural processes of change be harnessed in any way?
What are the unofficial and spontaneous forms of governance that arise in this system?

The approach evaluates every value, belief and behaviour is by asking the following questions:

Who benefits from this value / belief / behaviour?
What feedback mechanisms sustain this value/belief/behaviour?
What alternative values, beliefs and behaviours can be imagined? Are these alternatives actualised or experimented with?
How do these values/beliefs/behaviours determine changes in the whole system?

Overview provided by Steve Banhegyi & Associates trans4mation blog

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