Value Networks | ValueNetworks.com

Strategic Mapping for Networks

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:52:56 -0500

Steve Waddell of Networking Action

Excerpts from an excellent blog from ValueNetworks.com colleague and customer, Steve Waddell of Networking Action

We can easily be overwhelmed by the complexity of large networks where there are many different organizations and people involved. Clearly “seeing” relationships between organizations, people, and key concepts is important for successful network strategies.

To vastly enhance and speed understanding of these relationships, I’ve worked with various forms of “mapping”. Network maps are diagrams of lines or arrows (representing connections) and nodes (representing individuals, organizations, ideas) that can visually communicate tremendous amounts of information much more easily than volumes of text. Here are some approaches I’ve found useful:

Web crawls

This approach maps and analyzes relationships between URLs. This gives a picture of how organizations and issues are connected virtually that is increasingly important in any strategy. Since URLs are usually associated with organizations, crawls quickly identify organizations working in a particular issue system. The crawls maps links on one web-site to another webs-site.

Example: Working with a tool developed at the University of Amsterdam, we did crawls to identify networks in the global finance system for the Global Finance Initiative in order to identify key organizations and people to develop a change strategy. Map 1 is of NGOs engaged in the global finance debate; it suggests that surprisingly they do not have well defined relationships with perhaps the most influential players in global finance, including the Bank for International Settlements and the Financial Stability Board.

Map 1: Web Crawl

Social/Organizational/Inter-Organizational network analysis (SNA/ONA/IONA)

This is classic social network analysis applied specifically to understanding relationships within and between organizations. The existence and relative importance of relationship, connections or communication flows between individuals and organizations is described by these approaches.

Example: When the Global Reporting Initiative considered its strategy for developing a South African network, we used social network analysis. This produced Map 2, which shows distinct groups of organizations. This emphasizes the importance of weaving the groups together, and the value of working with organizations that are well-connected in the groups. Another product was a guide on how to initiate a network.

Map 2: Inter-Organizational Social Network Analysis

(Click on map to enlarge view.)

Value Network Analysis (VNA)

Key roles and value outputs in an issue system are defined through VNA, helping to shift stakeholder mindset toward a network perspective beyond their usual organizational or institutional focus. This approach has been developed by Verna Allee.

Example: When the European Commission wanted to understand how to enhance the process of innovation, we applied VNA using the ValueNetworks.com application to produce a report with four archetypes (models) for moving from an academic idea to a product for a consumer, with important policy implications. Verna emphasizes the importance of including both contracted tangible exchanges such as money, and intangible ones such as information. This is illustrated in Map 3

Map 3: VNA map of innovation

(Dashed lines are intangibles, solid lines are tangibles.)

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Change in Complex Systems with Dennis O'Donoghue, VP Boeing Test & Evaluation

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:50:25 -0500

A Pegasus Webinar March 10, 2010

Adapt and Perform: What Boeing Can Teach You about Change in Complex Systems with Dennis O’Donoghue, VP Boeing Test & Evaluation, a 90-minute live webinar for leaders and managers grappling with large-scale change Wednesday, March 10 at 2:00–3:30 pm EST.

Description: Large organizations often demonstrate characteristics consistent with complex adaptive systems. Like living organisms, these networked systems have identity, intelligence, cognition, and unpredictable responses to changing conditions. Critically important to any leader seeking meaningful results is the principle that complex adaptive systems cannot be directed; they can only be influenced. To be successful, leaders must first understand how the underlying structure of their work system compels the system to act in certain ways—intended and unintended.

In this live session, Dennis O’Donoghue will explain how Boeing’s Flight Validation and Test Organization has employed the principles of living systems to effect profound, rapid change. Attend this webinar to learn more about:

- Using system dynamics modeling and value network analysis to reveal the structure of a work system

- Building a system’s self-awareness and its capacity to adapt and evolve to a desirable future state

- The role of ambiguity in realizing profound change in a complex environment

Pricing: This 90-minute interactive session is $129.00 per site (a single phone line). You can use a speakerphone so that a group of people can participate. You will also have unlimited access to the recorded version following the event. Date and Time: The live webinar is being held on Wednesday, March 10, from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. EST. When you register, you will receive detailed information about how to call in and participate. Presenter: Dennis O’Donoghue is vice president of Boeing Test & Evaluation. In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of laboratory and flight test operations in support of the development and certification of commercial and military aircraft, space and defense products. Dennis leads an organization of approximately 7,300 engineers, pilots, mechanics, machinists and technicians. Prior to his Boeing career, Dennis was a NASA research test pilot.

CoLABoration MashUp

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:56:50 -0500

Program for the future 2010 Conference

This event will be March 3, 2010, at the Tech Museum in San Jose. Complete details are here.

The goal is to launch a collaborative community that will become an international neural network for global problem solving. It is bringing together technology leaders with experts in human facilitation and representatives of many disciplines.

The agenda is here. There are many speakers and workshop leaders. Participants are listed here, including brief bios. Verna Allee is a facilitator and speaker.

You can follow and participate live online with Google Wave, Twitter, and Second Life.

Enriching Context for Business Processes with Value Network Interactions

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:20:37 -0500

Reveal the larger story of productivity behind the processes

Instead of plugging people into processes, why not wrap processes around people? Companies such as the Boeing Company use value network modeling extensively to support process improvements, realizing that human interactions are the key to successful execution. In a recent blog, The Winds of Change, Gartner's Jim Sinur suggests:

"Processes need to wrap themselves around people in way that seems unthinkable today. This will only happen when the processes are context enriched. The process knows who, where and when to be involved with a person or persons in a collaborative and social way in context of conditions, conflicting goals and physical device that happens to be the closest and desired.

Yes savings are good, but a positive moving economy needs a multiplier affect on revenue generation and organizational productivity that works smart; not just hard. We need Context Enriched Business Processes and they will become the minimum price of admission for the changed economic realities. Let’s not let this one blow away."

Carol Rozell picks up the theme with Context Enriched Processes add a Social Dimension to Work, commenting "Applying context awareness to processes is a natural extension of technology to collaborative work activities. Today’s gadgets can tell us where the nearest restaurant is based on our current physical location. So why shouldn’t context information help us find a expert in, say molecular biology, who works for the same company I do, has an office in the same building and is currently available for a call?"

Value Network modeling is a fast and effective way to capture the context behind business processes. Our Enterprise Edition can bring together data from workflow and process tools along with HR staffing tools to predict exactly where your work packages or processes are most likely to break down - and show how to more effectively deploy people for top process performance.

Value Networks | ValueNetworks.com

Strategic Mapping for Networks

See Also

Change in Complex Systems with Dennis O'Donoghue, VP Boeing Test & Evaluation

See Also

CoLABoration MashUp

Enriching Context for Business Processes with Value Network Interactions

See Also