Building Leadership in Project and Network Management A Facilitator’s Tool Set Hans-Werner Franz • Ruggiera Sarcina Building Leadership in Project and Network Management A Facilitator’s Tool Set With Contribution by: Andrea Díaz and Gabriel Rissola Dr Hans-Werner Franz Ruggiera Sarcina Technische Universität Dortmund Via dei Girasoli Sozialforschungsstelle Dortmund I-61100 Pesaro Evinger Platz 17 Italy D-44339 Dortmund [email protected] Germany [email protected] ISBN 978-3-540-93955-9 e-ISBN 978-3-540-93956-6 DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-93956-6 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009927242 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. 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Cover design: WMXDesign GmbH, Heidelberg Printed on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Springer is part of Springer Science + Business Media (www.springer.com) Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................... 1 2 Messages for facilitators and lateral leaders ...................... 7 2M1 The functions and roles of network facilitators ......... 9 2M2 Moderation as a role .................................................. 11 2M3 Visualisation – why and how it helps you to understand and remember ..................................... 19 2M4 Basic concepts of perception and communication ................................................... 25 2M5 Basic concepts of learning and competence .............. 31 2M6 The concept of responsibility .................................... 39 2M7 Basic concepts of organisation and co-operation ...... 41 2M8 Basic concepts of management and leadership ......... 45 2M9 Communities of practice and self-organisation ......... 49 2M10 Basic concepts of knowledge and knowledge management............................................................... 53 2M11 Project work as a work style...................................... 57 2M12 The nature of quality: continuous improvement, continuous learning ................................................... 59 2M13 Basic concepts of small and medium sized enter prises (SMEs) .......................................... 65 2M14 Basic concepts of networks and clusters ................... 67 2M15 Learning networks - constructing social capital ........ 71 2M16 Reminder – Konrad Lorenz dixit............................... 91 3 Didactics and curriculum ..................................................... 93 3.1 Making learning easy – facilitation and the didactics of action learning ........................... 95 3.2 A curriculum of action learning - the modules.......... 113 Module 1: Facilitators - why and what for? .............. 114 Module 2: Communication for co-operation ............. 118 vi Contents Module 3: Moderating, visualising, problem-solving ........................................................ 122 Module 4: Project and quality management .............. 127 Module 5: Other creative techniques......................... 133 4 Tools ........................................................................................ 137 4.1 Introduction ............................................................... 139 4A Improving communication ........................................ 143 4A.1 To-do form .................................................... 143 4A.2 Contract with myself .................................... 145 4A.3 Chairing vs. moderating ............................... 145 4A.4 The setting of workshops.............................. 147 4A.5 The planning of workshops and learnshops . 149 4A.6 Learnshops or learning laboratories ............. 152 4A.7 The start-up tool ........................................... 153 4A.8 Warming up or ice-breaking methods .......... 154 4A.9 Angles and corners ....................................... 157 4A.10 Brainstorming ............................................... 158 4A.11 Brainwriting .................................................. 160 4A.12 World Café .................................................... 161 4A.13 Open Space ................................................... 163 4A.14 Learner satisfaction analysis......................... 167 4A.15 Learnshop evaluation annex: Learnshop reporting scheme......................... 170 4A.16 Preparing a meeting as a chairperson ........... 171 4B Collecting information .............................................. 177 4B.1 Personal Action Learning dossier of interview partner and/or future facilitator ............................................ 177 4B.2 Semi-standardised in-depth interviews......... 182 4B.3 Case studies - methodological guidelines of a context analysis ..................................... 184 4B.4 Focus groups ................................................. 186 4B.5 Yellow pages ................................................. 190 4C Planning and managing projects................................ 191 4C.1 SMART Five basic rules of planning a feasible project ........................................... 191 4C.2 Countdown planning .................................... 193 4C.3 STEPP – Specific Tool for excel-based project planning ............................................ 194 4C.4 GOPP – Goal-oriented project planning....... 195 4C.5 Flow chart ..................................................... 198 4C.6 Gantt diagram ............................................... 199 Contents vii 4D Analysing problems and preparing decision making ......................................................... 201 4D.1 Mind mapping .............................................. 201 4D.2 The five satisfactions (stakeholder analysis) ................................... 203 4D.3 Customer and supplier needs analysis and planning ................................................. 206 4D.4 Flow analysis and planning .......................... 208 4D.5 Skill needs analysis and planning ................. 210 4D.6 SWOT analysis strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats .................................... 212 4D.7 PEST analysis - picturing the political, economic, socio-cultural and technical environment .................................................. 213 4D.8 Cause effect diagrams ................................... 215 4D.9 Force field analysis ....................................... 216 4D.10 The Five Whys ............................................. 218 4D.11 3C – Case consultation with colleagues ....... 219 4D.12 Six thinking hats ........................................... 221 4D.13 Pen portrait ................................................... 223 5 Growing experience - from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence .......................... 225 5.1 The SME ACTor project experience .............................. 229 5.1.1 Becoming a facilitator: an empowerment process ............................. 229 5.1.2 Starting a networking project: the context analysis....................................... 235 5.1.3 Planning a learnshop..................................... 239 5.1.4 Moderating a learnshop ................................ 242 5.2 e-Facilitating networking in distance co-operation contexts ...................................................................... 249 (by Andrea Díaz and Gabriel Rissola) 5.2.1 Facilitation of networks and communities in times of Web 2.0 .......... 249 5.2.2 What does (e-) facilitation mean?................. 252 5.2.3 The ten commandments of VLE facilitation: a set of practical recommendations .......................................... 254 5.2.4 Lessons learned from the SME ACTor experience: the Collaborative Virtual Learning Community (CVLC) ......... 261 viii Contents 5.2.4.1 The SME ACTor Collaborative Virtual Learning Community (CVLC) .......................................... 262 5.2.4.2 Self-Evaluation: the use of electronic resources by the main target group (1st tier facilitators) ........................ 264 References .................................................................................... 269 Glossary ....................................................................................... 275 Authors ......................................................................................... 283 1 1 Introduction 1.1 The book The book in your hand is not a scientific book, although it is based just as much on science as on my own experience in consultancy and management. As its title suggests, we want to build a bridge between the leadership that is typical of facilitation techniques and that of proj- ect and network management. Therefore this book does more than pro- vide you with insights into the mainly methodical Messages we want to transmit. It will also make suggestions for how to train facilitators, and in the centre of the book you will find a wealth of 40 carefully selected and reality-proof Tools, many of which have never been previ- ously published in English, and in some case have never been published at all. With all of these you will find a presentation of our way of using them. Our sole objective is to offer our views and experience in improv- ing communication for effective co-operation, i.e. we want people who collaborate in some way to find and decide on the best courses of action, then share and implement these decisions better. We want to promote learning by doing, just as well as doing by learning. So this book is for people who in some way are responsible for suc- cessful co-operation in projects, in and across organisations or networks of organisations. Action Learning has many fathers (but few mothers) and roots. Just to name a few: Kurt Lewin (1951) was the one who introduced the concept of Action Research; and many social researchers after him have worked in this tradition. Scientists like Peter Reason and Hilary Bradbury (2002) or Bjørn Gustavsen (1992) were interested in the relevance of social sciences in society; the methods used by them were frequently also applied in what was called emancipatory 2 1 Introduction research (Fricke 1975) and in development policies in what used to be called the Third World (Pretty et al. 1995). Others, such as Argyris and Schön (1974) and later Peter Senge (1996) and Mike Pedler, John Burgoyne and Tom Boydell (1994) have been looking into the learn- ing organisation or learning company and better management (Pedler 2008). It was Reg Revans (1979, 1998) who introduced the concept of Action Learning back in the 1940s; and Joseph Raelin (1997) tried to bridge the gap between the emancipatory and the management lines. We have not bothered to situate ourselves in any of these lines or to position ourselves with respect to any of these traditions. If anything, we would see ourselves as closest to Argyris and Schön with their reflection- in-action and reflection-on-action approaches. But what you find in this book are our views and concepts, our methods and tools. They have passed through our heads, hearts and hands and if they refer to concepts originally presented by others we only reproduce them because we have made them ours by reflective practice and practical reflection. We want to enhance the co-operative reflectivity - or was it reflec- tive co-operativity? - of all those who (must) work together in some purposeful joint endeavour, whether it is in projects and programmes, networks and clusters, or innovation and improvement. In our view, at their core, organisations are purposefully structured co-operations of people, just as networks and clusters are purposefully structured co- operations of organisations. In order to shape successful co-operation, a few fundamental things are necessary although they are still frequently and easily forgotten or ignored: · Co-operation needs careful communication in order to be successful. · Careful communication needs diligent preparation in terms of the aim(s) of working and learning, deciding the content, how it is to be tackled, which tools and materials might be helpful as a support, and who will play what role in such a process. · Communication and sharing meaning is greatly enhanced by meth- ods of visualisation. In our context, visualisation does not mean pre- senting PowerPoint charts. It means making thinking and working processes visible with the aim of sharing the results as a basis for common work. · Sharing meaning builds on active participation and agreements about what and how to do things. · Successful communication for successful co-operation is a manage- ment task. If managers need an outsider to support them in this task they should contract a facilitator. · Managers perform better if they are good facilitators. This is par- ticularly true for managers of projects and networks who have no 1.1 The book 3 power and whose authority only resides in shaping successful co- operation. · Facilitating means leading people to actively shared decisions and practice. Six basic principles of successful organisational learning and develop- ment (Message 2M15) are at the heart of these fundamentals. 1. Stakeholder and/or customer orientation Identify objectives; analyse for whom you want to do what. 2. Improvement process Build on experience for progress. Only the problems and questions are new. 3. Learning process Invite people to join you in learning how to do things better. This includes learning how to learn better. 4. Participation process Make people who are affected by change participate actively in shaping it. 5. Decision-making process Make sure that people can understand why a decision has been taken, especially if it is not a decision they have taken themselves as par- ticipators. 6. Appropriation process Only then will people actively make decisions their own, i.e. learn, for practice and accept responsibilities. The decision to write this book was prompted by many factors, but the main impetus came from my many experiences of success and frustration in international projects and from the very simple observation that outside Germany and German speaking countries the moderation (or facilitation) method developed by Metaplan (www.metaplan.com) in the early seven- ties of the last century is hardly known, let alone practiced by anybody. However, it is not only moderated visualisation which is not known. More significantly, the combination of visualised thinking and working with structuring tools of analysis, decision making, planning and check- ing is largely unknown, even in German speaking countries. The collection of tools presented here is a selection from the many that are available. We have chosen tools from a large range of areas such as creative thinking, organisation development, quality manage- ment, project management, human resources development, coaching, evaluation, qualitative empirical research etc. Our focus was not action learning in general, but facilitating networking on an action learning basis as we understand it, to make co-operation easier and enhance reflective co-operativity.