Rob I have an example of using OS in combination with Search technology. This is in the construction industry in the UK. I will send you a case study off list.
The methodology is simple. Before large projects get on site, we run a one and half day workshop with a half day OS for action planning. A building we treated this way last year has just been completed on time in budget and without an end of contract claim. A reasonably significant result in the construction industry. One of the key outcomes from the OS was that directors from the construction company and from the client organisation agreed to sort out variations as they arose rather than leave them to be fought about at the end of the project. Significantly they stood together and announced this strategic solution to operational problems to the community at large. Two days later I held a review meeting with the project team and the PM announced that he had been invited to attend design team meetings as a team member rather than attending when something was going wrong. In twenty years he had not heard of this happening before. that's not to say it hasn't, but indicates its rarity. The OS session itself is usually 3 hours with two rounds. Often the groups remain substantially the same in the two sessions. Enormous energy and involvement following the power of the Search process. I currently am exploring the same kind of process in a large corporation in Melbourne. There is high level resistance to spending time and money at the front end. Slowly (over two years) the resistance has begun to soften. I may now have a lead into the organisation to offer one workshop. I think this would make a significant difference in projects of any size - there seem to be two key problems. Firstly this may be hard to justify (on cost grounds) for small projects. Secondly not all the system may be identified at the initiation stage. We have also run these workshops after projects get going. The response has invariably been "We should have done this at the beginning". Nevertheless the results are beneficial. Regards John Moore -- "The world is moving from experts solving problems for people towards everybody, experts included, improving the whole system." Marvin R Weisbord Discovering Common Ground Open Futures Pty Ltd PO Box 123 Cockatoo Victoria 3781 Australia phone +61 3 5968 8457 facsimile +61 3 5968 9925 mobile 0412 702 652 * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html