Collective Intelligence
through Structured Dialogue
A methodology for tackling complex
challenges with multiple stakeholders
INCOSE UK Bristol Local Group, 11th March 2019
1
Overview
Systems Engineers often need to engage with
Collective Intelligence
through
Structured
Dialogue
stakeholders and address complex or wicked problems. Structured Dialogic Design is a methodology that evolved from the field of Interactive Management in the US, starting in the 1980s. In its various forms (and under different names) it has been widely applied across the globe in enabling groups to tackle wicked problems and complex challenges, but is not well known in the UK, despite applications in MoD, Rolls Royce and the NHS. This presentation will outline the methodology, it’s
provenance, and the current state of practice.
2
Applications
In today’s world many of the problems are not complicated, they are complex and wicked.
The methodology delivers consulting redesigned specifically for these situations.
Complex and wicked
problems can only be
resolved by bringing together people with the necessary variety of
perspectives and expertise
in a collaborative setting where their ideas are freed, protected, and equally
considered with all others.
Wicked Problems and
Complex Challenges
Forecasting an Unknown
Future and Strategic Planning
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The Demosophia Methodology
Discover
Discover
required diversity of perspectives
Diagnose
Diagnose the
system at work
Design
Design the
path forward
Define
Define strategic
priorities and develop plans
Do
Implement
adaptively
Colabs
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Colabs
A Colab is a gathering of stakeholders who together share,
learn, and create a deep understanding of a complex problem
using the Structured Democratic Dialogue (SDD) process. • A unique and powerful type of facilitated meeting • Specifically designed to address wicked problems • Efficiently tapping into the collective wisdom of a wide
variety of stakeholders
• Harnessing cognitive diversity (knowledge, experience,
worldview etc.)
• Enabled and supported by technology
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Colab Principles
1. A diversity of viewpoints is essential when engaging stakeholders in a dialogue for defining and resolving a
complex issue.
2. Dialogue must be structured so that participants can think clearly by ensuring they are not overloaded with too much information.
3. Each idea must be protected so that its independence and genuineness remain.
4. Participants will understand the relative importance of their ideas only when their ideas are compared with
others.
5. Through understanding how different people’s ideas
relate, participants become wiser about the meaning of
their own ideas.
6. The whole group learns and evolves as each participant sees how their ideas influence those of others.
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Factor 85: More Positive Programs
At my school we only have two positive programs – Gear Up and Bridges. We need
more programs like that. The Gear up club helps
expose kids to college at a very young age. At the age of 14, for instance, if they are in the
Gear up program, they learn about college.
The Bridges program teaches kids how to have a strong homework ethic. These kids go right to
the cafeteria and do their homework as soon as
possible. Adults assist them with homework.
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Capital School
District
Five-year strategic planning
Shaping the future for tomorrow’s Senators
A few months after hiring a new Superintendent, a new five-year strategic plan was needed for the Capital School District. The Board of Education placed a significant emphasis on the importance of truly engaging a wide-variety of stakeholders in the process of creating a vision, determining strategic priorities, and implementing the plan.
“The Capital School District has made tremendous strides in bridging gaps
between the district and community during its strategic planning process with the help of Demosophia and Structured Democratic Dialogue. We focused on the ideas that would have the greatest impact on students and families and
create positive changes that will ultimately improve our students’ performance, health and positive impact on our community.”
Dan Shelton, Ed.D., Superintendent/Chief School Officer
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Air Force Research
Laboratory
Collaborative Strategic Planning
The Air Force Research Laboratory plans technology investments in the context of a 20-year strategic R&D horizon. This study evaluated collaborative, bottom-up strategic
planning as a complement to the traditional top-down process.
A structured dialogue approach was applied as the bottom-up methodology, enabling a greater number and variety of stakeholders and technical experts to participate in ideation, reasoning and structured planning. The process visualizes planning outputs in a structural influence map revealing systemic relationships, supporting a list of planning priorities.
“Comparison with a parallel strategic planning and foresight initiative validated that the
SDD methodology achieved a superior planning product with wider organizational
consensus.”
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Chronic Kidney Disease Initiative
Enabling major systemic change over
more than a decade
The Council of American Kidney Societies (CAKS), composed of the president and
president-elect of six major renal organizations, determined a need to coordinate and more
rapidly advance numerous programs pertinent to chronic kidney disease (CKD). An initiative was formed (the CKDI), with a nine-member Steering Committee. A workshop for CKDI
“stakeholders” using Structured Democratic Dialogue was held in February 2003 to clarify
the issues to improve outcomes for patients and create an action plan. In 2017, these recommendations are now a reality as CKD identification and evidence-based care is now delivered at scale across the country. Today there is acceptance of the importance of treating CKD in the medical community; a universal definition for CKD; appropriate screening measures; evidence-based care guidelines; and a change in the workforce, allowing many more of the 11 to 30 million people with some stage of the disease to receive quality care.
“When I gather with colleagues who led the work over the years we mention how effective
the process was, and that despite the shifting leadership, we are really pleased with how it
turned out.”
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Dr. Thomas Parker III
The process in
more detail
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Structured Democratic Dialogue
• A rigorously validated collaborative design methodology
• Integrates tacit knowledge from diversified perspectives
• A diverse group co-creates a shared understanding of:
• A vision
• A problem • An action plan
• Designed to tackle wicked problems
• People learning together to develop a common language
• People co-developing a ‘systems view’
• People collectively owning the problem and the solution
• A process supported by an enabling software toolset
• Specialised facilitators focused on the process
• Technology supporting clear thinking and preventing overload
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Colabs - Types
• Visioning Co-Lab:
• This is an opportunity for the group to DREAM, free of constraints
(including time and money). If nothing existed and you could design
anything to address the issue, what would it include?
• Challenge/Barrier Co-Lab:
• This phase identifies and prioritise the Barriers to achieving the vision
• Action Co-Lab:
• This Co-Lab focuses on identifying Actions to overcome the identified
barriers and get as close to the ideal as possible
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Demosophia Colabs - Stages
1) Statement Generation
• Participants will silently and independently generate very concise
responses (think newspaper HEADLINE) to a triggering question,
with each statement containing only one idea
• These statements should capture the essence of what you mean
2) Statement Clarification
• Each author clarifies what is meant by his/her statement and these
statements are recorded to ensure the intent of the author is
maintained
• The goal is ensuring everyone understands the intent of the author • The process does not allow for disagreement (or agreement) at this
stage
• Participants can request additional clarification if they do not
understand the author’s intent
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Demosophia Colabs - Stages
3) Classification
• Ideas will be categorised according to similarity of meaning (based on
author’s intent)
• Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the meaning based on
similarities. The name of the category will be based on the meaning of
the ideas in the category
• (vs. having pre-determined categories that you fit ideas into)
• Participants will have opportunity to review and amend the categories
4) Prioritisation
• Each participant will be provided 5 dots to vote on what they perceive to
be the most important ideas (what resonates in the context of the
Triggering Question)
• Votes will be for individual ideas (vs. categories or clusters of ideas) • A subset of ideas, based on number of votes, will be included in the
influence mapping
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Demosophia Colabs - Stages
5) Influence Mapping
• Participants look at two ideas and make a judgment regarding the influence relationship of the ideas
• Participants have an opportunity to persuade the group
by sharing their rationale for how they voted. During this stage, participants engage in deeper dialogue, agreeing
and disagreeing with one-another, and often re-voting to determine the level of consensus
• A lot of learning occurs but, as with every other stage, the authenticity of the author is protected
• A “Yes” vote requires a super majority (typically 75%)
consensus
• Ultimately an “Influence Map” will be generated based on
the consensus voting of the group. The influence map
will identify deep drivers – ideas that are likely to have significant influence on the overall system - and helps to determine where effort should be focused
6) Develop Narratives
• Groups of participants sharing a common perspective
(e.g. organisational function) develop their own specific
narratives based on the Influence Map
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A Real Project
Reimagining the Michigan School for the Deaf
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Provenance
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Provenance
• ‘The Systems Approach’
• C. West Churchman, 1968
• The Club Of Rome, ‘The Predicament of Mankind’
• Hasan Ozbekhan, 1970
• Interpretive Structural Modelling
• John Warfield, 1974
• Interactive Management
• Warfield & Christakis, 1980s
• Process variants developed and widely applied
• Structured Dialogic Design, Synplex etc., 1990s, 2000s
• Dialogic Design Science
• Alexander Christakis, 2011
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The Club of Rome
• In 1968 the Club or Rome was created, by Aurelio Peccei, an
Italian industrialist, and Alexander King, a Scottish scientist, to
address “the tidal wave of global problems”
• Hasan Ozbekhan published the Club or Rome prospectus in
1970 with the title ‘The Predicament of Mankind: A Quest for
Structural Responses to Growing World-wide Complexities and
Uncertainties”
• It lists “49 continuous critical problems” spanning poverty,
warfare, education, environment and prejudices
• At that time, the systems science required to tackle these problems was in its infancy. Ozbekhan proposed the
development of a systems model, but this was rejected.
• Jay Forrester proposed System Dynamics,which was was
adopted (the ‘World3 Model), but subsequently only addressed a
few of the original 49 critical problems
• Ozbekhan eventually joined the Social Systems Sciences
program at the University of Pennsylvania with other leaders in
the development of systems thinking
• e.g. Russell Ackoff, C. West Churchman
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John Warfield
• 1966 joined Battelle Memorial Institute, an early member of the Club or Rome
• 1973-4 developed Interpretive Structural
Modelling (ISM)
• Algorithms to efficiently compare ideas and then visually
map their influence on one another
• Uses a software tool to augment human capability and
avoid cognitive overload
• 1980s developed Interactive Management
• With Aleco Christakis
• President of the Systems, Man, and Cybernetics
Society of the IEEE
• President of the International Society for the
Systems Sciences
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Interactive Management
• ‘Sigma-5’ methodology
• Facilitator
• Computer
• Participant Group
• Consensus methodologies
• Demosophia (the ‘situation room’)
• Combining a number of consensus methods:
• Nominal Group Technique
• DELPHI
• Interpretive Structural Modelling
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Alexander (Aleco) Christakis joins Warfield
• 1972 – Aleco Christakis joined Warfield at the
Academy for Contemporary Problems
• Ohio State + Battelle
• 1981 – they set up the Center for Interactive
Management at the University of Virginia (UVA)
• 1984 – they transferred the Center to George
Mason University
• Together they worked with many clients, including
• US Department of Defense
• Ford Motor Company
• Tata Consulting
• IBM
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Alexander (Aleco) Christakis
• Set up CWA Ltd as a commercial channel
• Tackled a wide range of challenges around the world during the
1990’s and 2000’s
• Evolved the Interactive Management methodology into
Structured Dialogic Design
• Emphasising social aspects such as the emancipation of stakeholders
and importance of equitable power relations
• In 2002 set up the Institute for 21st Century Agoras
• “a globally networked non -profit organization dedicated to the democratic
transformation of society and culture”
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Bill Rodger
• Developed ‘Synergistic Solutions’
methodology, based on Interactive
Management
• 1990s set up Desyma Decision Technologies
Inc, based in Ottawa
• Multiple projects, primarily US-based clients
• 2000s set up Complexity Solutions Ltd with
Peter Miles in UK, renamed methodology as
Synplex
• Projects with the MoD, Rolls-Royce, NHS
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‘Synplex’ applications
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Further information on ‘Synplex’ applications, including case studies
‘Synplex’ Client Feedback
• Ann Barnes, Deputy Chief Executive, Stockport Foundation
Trust
“I found both the process and the delivery of the workshops, high
quality with tangible outcomes. I would, and have, recommended
the methodology to colleagues faced with resolving complex
problems with multiple stakeholders.”
• Sue Assar, Project Director, NHS North West
“The process works so well as it is immediately engaging and
involving. Collectively we quickly gained insight into the significant issues that we needed to resolve to ensure successful
implementation of a major service change”
• Charles Cuddington, Chief Commercial Officer - Large Engines,
Rolls-Royce plc
"It would have been difficult to achieve a successful outcome without
such a highly focused and expertly facilitated process."
• Rear Admiral Ian Tibbitt, Royal Navy
“… allowed us to effectively turn an aspirational concept into a deliverable process and organisational construct in just a few days…
for deciding what the process and structure are to be when only an
idea existed before we found the methodology powerful.”
• UK MoD internal assessment report
“The process appears to be sufficiently flexible to deal with a myriad of
complex issues and problem types…It appears ideally suited to support any future … restructuring work.”
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