Collaborative Processes: How do you communicate the phases of collaboration to your stakeholders?
— Transforming Organizations, Revitalizing Communities and Developing Human Potential
How do you structure your processes? How do you communicate the steps in your engagements to clients and stakeholders? Does it sometimes feel like you are re-inventing the wheel when you’re detailing a phased approach?
When I attended the baccalaureate mass for our eldest a few years back I was both touched and sort of taken aback that the message felt like it related to NEXUS4change’s work with a client at the time. The Jesuit giving the message reminisced about how he had taught several of the graduating seniors when they were 6th and 7th graders and recalled specifically an activity in his Theology class where the young men had planted flowers in early March to gift to their mothers on Mother’s Day. The metaphor throughout the message was that as people, just like flowers, they must go through a process of Plant – Grow – Blossom.
I was struck instantly by the beauty of that metaphor – and the reality that there are parts of this process that can not be rushed. We can plant – actively, and we can help grow, fertilize, water, ensure proper shade or sunshine - but the plant or person has to do all its own growing and blossoming. I also couldn’t help but think that Plant – Grow – Blossom, is very much the same as the process NEXUS4change follows as a model for many of our collaborative process engagements: Design – Develop – Deliver.
I remembered graduate school, wrestling with change models like Lewin’s “Unfreeze – Change – Refreeze” and Project Management frameworks like the Waterfall model, as well as design processes.
I also remember distinctly an assignment in an Organization Development class. We were to review 5 large scale change methodologies and analyze their commonalities and identify how they differentiate one from one another. As a musician, I was drawn to jazz lab and Drum Cafe, but the nurse’s son and pastor’s kid in me also resonated strongly with World Café and Appreciative Inquiry with its 4D or 5D process. I also decided to dig into approaches from my motherland like Gemeinsinn Werkstatt und Power of Imagination Studio. One of the things I really focused on and wanted to understand was – how do these methods compare in terms of their process? What is the sequential experience for the participant?
More recently I have worked to learn about Design Thinking and prototyping. The IDEO process can be described in three steps as: Ideate – iterate – implement. I also wanted to better understand Agile processes and agile software development processes. Adobe Kickbox is one process I became much more familiar with – it merges in some ways design thinking with software development and has six steps.
Furthermore, my main focus working here at NEXUS has been on the collaborative change library and the hybrid digital platform we are developing for it. In editing chapters, I get to revisit some of the processes I learned about in graduate school, like SOAR.
Then one of my colleagues, who is working on app development with me, introduced me to User Experience and User Interface design processes. By the way – just about all the processes and approaches mentioned are represented in the Change Library.
With all of these steps and phases and processes – the challenge always seems to be: How do I share the processes that I am using or looking to leverage with a client, a colleague, or a stakeholder in a simple and tangible manner? In a recent thought leader webinar, Warner Burke talked about how in his experience client’s eyes will often glaze over when consultants start talking about process and procedure. They want to hear about results – but they also want to understand how you will get them there.
What we have found is that one way to communicate the complexities of these processes is in three core phases that exist in the vast majority of these model, frameworks:
1. Design - 2. Develop - 3. Deliver
In the Design phase a group creates the P.L.A.N. for their effort with a focus on Purpose;
In the Develop phase they engage their system and instantiate designs, trials, and prototypes;
The Deliver phase then focuses on implementation of the effort.
Let’s take a strategic engagement, for example, where an organization is looking to establish its Mission, Vision, Goals, and Objectives:
They first DESIGN:
- They develop a comprehensive Plan.
- They might create a Leadership Roadmap, planning templates, and a draft version 1 of the strategic plan.
Then they DEVELOP:
- A design team might create an agenda for system-wide planning and engagement event.
- To then engage the whole organization in Developing version 2 of the strategic plan.
In DELIVER:
- Create and Align Unit/ or department level Strategic Plans.
- Implement Evaluation, Training, and Supports.
You may favor the specific Design-Develop-Deliver labels for these three phases, but in my experience, when I have explained the procedure at hand in these three phases – it seems to make sense. Now it does appear that there are common before and afters, if you will, to these 3-phases.
Before you Design, there before might be a discovery phase of pre-planning, or a proposal process, investigating the background and history, doing Research into Theory, & Best Practices, establishing Need, and identifying possibilities and opportunity.
After the Deliver phase you might have a “Post-”phase that include debriefings, evaluation, possibly scaling and more broadly sharing the products or services created. Often there is also a need for refinement and redesign at this point.
The idea of redesigning then implies that these change processes, especially when they are focused on collaboration are never just linear or top-down. They are cyclical. Deming may have identified that first with his plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle, as Al Blixt pointed out during our webinar. I have had a chance to talk to Jackie Stavros recently about her chapter in the Change Library, and she shared that the new graphic she is using to share her SOAR approach - is also cyclical.
EXAMPLES of the three phases in use include this training development timeline. It shows a linear process - because that’s what made sense to this client. You see the ‘pre-phase,’ ANALYZE on the left, then the three phases: Design – Develop – Deliver and the “after” - EVALUATE on the right.
I shared the story about our client that was working hard to clarify their approach for community building. A second example was our collaboration with eXtension designing the Impact Collaborative Process. To clarify our work with them we used this graphic:
I think of the first three steps from the bottom up as the three phases: 1. Design - identify your methodology; 2.Develop - formalize the approach; 3. Deliver - deploy the method.
A final example is the method eXtension developed: the Impact Collaborative: This methodology now has 6 steps, that, when I started to think of them and explain them as six steps in three phases - started to make sense: 1. Design: Commit & Catalyze; Develop: Engage and Collaborate; 3. Deliver: Empower and Impact.
During 30 min. change tool webinar on this subject, Carol Gorelick, Associate Editor of the Change Library, pointed out that there is an important parallel learning process or cycle that has to occur. Al Blixt suggested we consider the Action Learning Framework. He further contends that the models and frameworks are very much a variation on the same theme intending to lead a group, organization or community “to see a fully realized potential.” And as “there are plenty of people who think linear - you don’t have to convince them to think cyclical, but the fact is that every linear process ends with renewal.” Al also identified another important question to ask at every step/phase regardless of the framework, and that is “What’s the right team at every step, and how do I make sure they function as a team and they feel like they are working together?” John Perkins reminded us that you will find the right metaphor - the right model, by listening to the client.
So what phased approaches do you use, and how do you label the phases?
Check out NEXUS4change’s webinar series of 30-min. high-impact change tool talks. Check our events page [www.NEXUS4change.com/events] for more on the power of Design Teams, the Change Formula, Collaborative Roadmaps, Appreciative Benchmarking and more.