QUERY "Flawless Consulting" and SD (SD6623)

[SDMAIL Bill Harris]

Posted by  Bill Harris <bill_harris at facilitatedsystems.com>

[ OD Organizational Development
  SSM Soft Systems Modeling
  SD System Dynamics ]

I've been thinking about this for a while, but recent threads (perhaps
especially comments from Fred, for he and I and perhaps others of you
are on an OD mailing list, too) have prompted me to see what others
think.

Classic OD interventions, as typified by the process in Peter Block's
_Flawless Consulting_, suggest one start with contracting and then move
to data collection.  Data collection usually consists of interviewing
people to get raw data and then providing it back to the people who were
interviewed to ask them to interpret it, to make sense of it.  Out of
that data feedback and interpretation meeting comes a decision by the
client as to what action to take and how to do it.

I've used that approach, and it can be powerful.  I am curious, though,
how people blend that, if they do, with SD.  

One can conceive of SD being a potential tool to be applied in the
action phase of that consulting process.  That gives ownership to the
group for deciding to move forward with SD as part of the path to a
solution.  In a way, I think SSM sometimes adopts that sort of approach;
as I understand it, SD can be used as a natural adjunct to SSM somewhat
late in the process.

Yet SD has a role to play in understanding data, too.  As an example,
Barry's strategic forum seems to start with data collection and then
proceeds to feed back processed information to the group in the form of
a sequence of models.  I've done that sort of thing, too.

I very much like the power of the message one sends when one gives the
group the responsibility to interpret their data.  Except in rare cases,
I suspect groups don't have the ability to apply SD as part of the
interpretative process, though, so bringing SD in early risks sending
the message that they don't really own the interpretation given to the
data -- it has to be done with the help of an expert.  Yet waiting until
late risks people getting stuck on certain interpretations an SD model
might show to be naive.

How do you handle that issue?  Or do you ignore it or bypass it (those
might be different approaches)?  If you consider yourself more of a
client in this regard, how have people handled it when they've worked
with you?

Bill
- -- 
Bill Harris
Posted by  Bill Harris <bill_harris at facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date  Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:13:16 -0700