Since 1993
The Foresightful Modeling Initiative
The most challenging problems are usually systemic in nature, and they are deeply intertwined and sustained by norms, policies, cultures, and practices. Large enterprises and their challenges are also systemic. In order to overcome our challenges and move forward, we must shift the systems that are sustaining the problems. However, achieving systemic change in large social and business enterprises is quite difficult. When the transformation of an existing enterprise occurs, it makes current business and social processes obsolete, changes stakeholder relationships, adjust roles and associated jobs, and shifts stakeholder perspectives on value in the enterprise. As such, the people that are in the enterprise will both embrace and oppose change in ways that maximize their individual values. However, it is difficult to predict how these complex interactions among stakeholders will affect short- and long-term enterprise change strategy.
We help large social and business enterprise map their systemic change strategies, much like hikers map the best trails through the forest – tree by tree. There is no single method or process that is sufficient to address truly complex challenges, just as there is no single approach to create an enterprise change strategy. Systems mapping techniques are diverse and varied, all attempting to gain a more holistic understanding of the system, and in many cases, track emergence within it. By applying a series of tools derived from systems theory, we produce a holistic model of what we refer to as enterprise transformation outcomes, which is in effect, a model of the future. When exploring this space, leaders of change must address three questions: what are the desired change outcomes, who will lead/oppose the change and how will they interact to affect it, and what are the enablers and barriers to the change process? We help enterprises understand the answers to these questions. Our Foresightful Modeling strategy is threefold: Seeing Systemic Issues & Changing Systemic Outcomes; Engaging a New Conversation; and Informing Enterprise Change Strategies.
We utilize a customizable toolset that assesses the impact innovation can deliver in an enterprise to tackle particularly complex problems or change strategies. We base our approach on structured interviews and live facilitations, and use storytelling and mapping tools to describe this model of the future as a conceptual model of the system. This model is generated via a series of narratives collected in the interview or facilitation process and refined in design workshops with key stakeholders in the enterprise. The process identifies critical stakeholder groups, informs a change strategy with quantifiable measures of change, and helps to determine innovation strategies that might accomplish desired change in novel ways. We produce a change strategy that is literally written in the words of the participants. We use the resultant strategy to define near-term change measures and action plans for change leaders targeted at the long-term change outcomes desired by enterprise leadership.
Since 1993
Foresightful Modeling: Seeing Systemic Issues, Changing Systemic Outcomes
Systemic change is difficult for enterprises. They contain many different stakeholders and business structures that become ingrained in an organizational culture which resists change. The transformation of an existing enterprise often makes current business processes obsolete, changes stakeholder relationships, adjust roles and associated jobs, and shifts stakeholder perspectives on value in the enterprise. One should expect that the people in an enterprise will both embrace and oppose change in ways that maximize their individual values. How these complex interactions among stakeholders will affect short- and long-term enterprise change strategy is difficult to predict.
Enterprise change strategy must focus on the value of strategic outcomes and the leading indicators of change that would reflect progress toward those outcomes. Change leaders must address three questions: what are the desired change outcomes, who will lead/oppose the change and how will they interact to affect it, and what are the enablers and barriers to the change process? We help enterprises understand the answers to these questions using a series of tools derived from systems theory.
We base our approach on structured interviews which we use to derive a holistic model of your enterprise transformation outcomes – in effect a model of the future. We use storytelling and mapping tools to describe this future as a conceptual model - generated via a series of narratives collected in the interview process and refined in design workshops with key stakeholders in the enterprise. The process informs a change strategy, quantifiable measures of change, critical stakeholders and their values for change management, and innovation strategies that create change.
It is a change strategy that is literally written in the words of the participants.
We use the resultant strategy to define near-term action plans for change leaders targeted at the long-term change outcomes desired by enterprise leadership.
Our methods were developed in a partnership between the Global Knowledge Initiative and the Georgia Institute of Technology for the Rockefeller Foundation* and have been tested in projects for a number of commercial and government enterprises. Our methods engage a forward-looking process that provides decision makers with greater insight and confidence in their sponsorship of innovation to impact a problem or change strategy. We bring a customizable toolset that assesses the impact innovation can deliver in an enterprise to tackle particularly complex problems or change strategies.
Foresightful Modeling: Engaging a New Conversation
Well-structured narratives are critical to the understanding of emergence which is the desired outcome of enterprise change. Purposeful development of this narrative provides the context needed to engage stakeholders in a discussion of change strategy. The narrative serves as an expression of different events, phenomena, or observations that have meaning to stakeholders.
We use a structured interview process to build a database of anecdotes or “narrative fragments.” We then create a new narrative and associated map of these anecdotes to create a contextually meaningful course of action or strategy. The anecdotes that people relate to a larger story, when queried, become like components in a human centered design process. They are used to create explanatory models that conceptualize the whole of the system, allowing participants to see well beyond their parts of the enterprise. To explain emergence, we collect anecdotes that discuss the present enterprise and possible emergent changes in the future. These are collected into a formal model of the enterprise strategy.
The framework uses four human centered design tools: stakeholder interviews, narrative mapping, futures mapping, and systems mapping. These are used in a facilitated process to derive a new type of enterprise change strategy - one that sees change as a purposeful innovation process that builds over time to create true transformative change. As innovation can come from anywhere, we engage a new conversation with stakeholders internal and external to the enterprise. The initial engagement is a 3-4-month process that creates a set of immediately usable artifacts.
Foresightful Modeling: Informing Enterprise Change Strategies
The foundations of a strategy – a narrative and metrics – is our primary deliverable.
We start with a discussion with the change leadership that produces a set of questions to be answered by a new strategy. This bounds the process to a context defined by our sponsor, not us. Contrary to many external consultations, this one is “in your own words.” The result is 4-5 long term change outcomes that are critical to the success of the future enterprise. From here we proceed to define and map the desired future enterprise using a series of interviews, design workshops, and external market research.
We use a unique interview method developed from theory of innovation to elicit narratives from key stakeholders who are familiar with the enterprise and its wider market drivers. The interview protocol is structured around discussions of possible emergent futures arising from the change outcomes.
If there is a significant external change component to the strategy, a futures map is used to focus on the innovation pathways that will enable the enterprise transformation. This is created in a facilitated workshop setting and enhanced with anecdotes captured in the interview process.
Once the data collection is complete, a map of the future enterprise is created from the various perspectives and anecdotes collected in the interviews, futures map, and additional market-driven research. The system maps are developed as a combination of written change narrative and diagram. The maps allow change leadership to see the change enablers and barriers that exist across multiple layers of a complex enterprise.
Validation of the system maps is completed in a design workshop with key stakeholders where we discuss and update their “story” using the diagrams. A natural outcome of the narrative process is a common terminology to describe the future enterprise, a key to stakeholder agreement. The workshop produces a set of modeling artifacts that inform quantifiable actions for enterprise change strategies. These are used to identify a set of metrics that will serve as leading and long-term indicators of enterprise change.
To start the change process, we identify two additional artifacts: key change actors in the system (stakeholders for and against) and their primary values or stakes in the outcomes, and the key enablers and barriers to change present in the enterprise. These are used to produce the second deliverable - a change action plan.
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