Collective Intelligence

through Structured Dialogue

A methodology for tackling complex

challenges with multiple stakeholders

INCOSE UK Bristol Local Group, 11^th March 2019

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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.

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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.

Case Study

“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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