facilitation using causal layered analysis - incose · slide 12 post-structuralism •we see what...

Facilitation usingCausal Layered Analysis

Duarte Gonçalves

Systems Engineer

DPSS, CSIR

© CSIR 2012 www.csir.co.za

Overview

• The problem• How I got to there:

• Dialogue• Capability Based Planning as Enterprise Strategy

• Post-structuralism• Causal Layered Analysis• Conclusions

The Problem

…truth is discovered in the dialogue persons have

with one another and that change comes through

group action rather than individual insight.

(Malony 1983, p.189)


The Problem

• Organizations face increasing rate of change in the

environment, an increasing need for rapid learning.

• Organizations have a tendency to break down into

sub-units of various sorts, based on technology,

products, markets, geographies, occupational

communities, and other factors.


E. Schein, 1993, On Dialogue, Culture, and Organizational Learning, Organisational Dynamics.

The Problem

• Sub-units of organizations are more and more likely

to develop their own sub-cultures (implying different

languages and different assumptions about reality,

i.e., different mental models) because of their shared

core technologies and their different learning

experiences.



The Problem

• Organizational effectiveness is therefore increasingly

dependent on communication across sub-cultural

boundaries. Integration across subcultures (the

essential coordination problem) will increasingly

hinge on the ability to develop an overarching

common language and mental model.



The Problem

• Any form of organizational learning, therefore, will

require the evolution of shared mental models that

cut across the subcultures of the organization.



How I got there…


Dialogue

• Where the evolution of new shared mental models is

inhibited by current cultural rules about interaction

and communication, dialogue is a necessary first step

in learning.



Dialogue


E. Schein, 1993, On Dialogue, Culture,

and Organizational Learning,

Organisational Dynamics.

•

Capability Based Planning as Enterprise Strategy

Strategic Thinking

Generating Options

What might happen?

Options

Strategic Decision Making

Making Choices

What will we do?

Decisions

Strategic Planning

Taking Action

How will we do it?

Action

(Conway)

Capability Based Planning

Scenarios

Operating

Concepts

Capability

Goals

Post-Structuralism

• We see what we are taught to see in the concepts we

learn.

• The concepts we learn are shaped by the stream of

reality of which we are elements.

• Discourse (and for that matter, theory) can produce

sight of fictitious objects, such as race (as in white

race), or deny sight of real social relationships/

objects, such as class.


https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabriel/post_structuralism.htm

Post-Structuralism

• “…language is not symbolic; it is constitutive of

reality.”

• The goal: to disturb present power relations through

challenging our categories and evoking other places

or scenarios of the future.

Inayatullah (2004)


Post-Structuralism as “Method”

• Deconstruction• Who is privileged at the level of knowledge?

• Who gains at economic, social and other levels?

• Who is silenced?

• What are the politics of truth?

• Genealogy• Which discourses have been victorious in constituting the

present? How have they travelled through history?

• What have been the points in which the issue has become

important or contentious?

• What might be the genealogies of the future?

Inayatullah (2004)



• Distance• Which scenarios make the present remarkable?

• Make it unfamiliar? Strange? Denaturalise it?

• Are these scenarios in historical space (the futures that

could have been) or in present or future space?

• Alternative Pasts and Futures• Which interpretation of past is valorised?

• What histories make the present problematic?

• Which vision of the future is used to maintain the present?

• Which undo the unity of the present?

Inayatullah (2004)



• Reordering Knowledge• How does the ordering of knowledge differ across

civilization, gender and episteme?

• What or Who is “othered”?

• How does it denaturalise current orderings, making them

peculiar instead of universal?

Inayatullah (2004)


Causal Layered Analysis

• Futures (where some of CBP scenarios lie) is

concerned with scenarios (horizontal).

• CLA is concerned with deepening the understanding

(vertical) so that more effective, deeper, inclusive,

longer term transformation can occur.

• Once a deeper level of understanding has been

achieved it is also possible that the scenarios and

operating concepts would be revised based on new

insights.


Causal Layered Analysis: Described


• Problems and trends

• Usually exaggerated and used for political purposes

• Passage talk and newspaper headlinesLitany

• Social, economic, cultural, political, historical factors

• Technical explanations, analysis and integrative thinkingSystemic Causes

• Structure and discourse/worldview that supports legitimates above

• Discourse we use in understanding is complicit in our framing of the issue

Worldview/

Discourse

• Stories, and unspoken dimensions of the problem

• Organisational culture, gives voice to gut feelings and instincts behind the worldviews

Myth/Metaphors

CLA: Example – Medical mistakes


• High rate of medical mistakes

• Solution: more GP trainingLitany

• Audit on causes of mistakes: communication, new technologies, administration

• Solution: more efficient, smarter systemsSystemic Causes

• Reductionist modern medical paradigm creates hierarchy

• Solution: enhance power of patients and/or move to different health systems

Worldview/

Discourse

• „„Doctor knows best‟‟

• Solution: „„Take charge of your health‟‟Myth/Metaphors

CLA: Case Study

• Question from Research Group in DPSS, CSIRHow to allocate responsibility for Systems engineering/Project

management?

• Context• Group builds specialised test equipment which is sold

internationally.• Nine engineers in the SE and PM role at the session, with

noticeable tension in the room.

• Facilitation Question:• What is the value to the stakeholders?

• Feedback after the session extremely positive.


CLA: Case Study


• Client does not know what he wants

• Projects not usually delivered on time.

• Projects are overspent (sometimes by 100%).Litany

• Lack of proper Requirements Analysis - No operational concept.

• Communication is a challenge in a large Group, with Bus dev, and the client

• Taking on too much risk on some projects

• Don‟t have to perform SE

Systemic Causes

• Leadership creates order

• Our clients think of us as strategic partners

• Supply chain does not change

Worldview/

Discourse

• There is not enough time and money to do SE

• “Project management versus Systems engineering”

• SE Title implies skill

• I can take risks at the beginning of the project

• Because we have the contract (or want the contract), the solution will follow.

Myth/Metaphors

Conclusions

• CLA leads to:• Expanding the range and richness of scenarios;

• Leads to the inclusion of different ways of knowing;

• Layers participant‟s positions (conflicting and harmonious);

• Moves the debate/discussion beyond the superficial and obvious to

the deeper and marginal;

• Allows for a range of transformative actions;

• Actions that can be informed by alternative layers of analysis;

• Counters the argument that SE/EE are apolitical.


CLA References

• Inayatullah, S.Inayatullah, S., ed., (2004), The Causal Layered Analysis Reader, Tamkang University Press, Tamsui.

• Inayatullah, S. (2008), 'Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming', Foresight 10(1), 4-21.

• Inayatullah, S. (2002), 'Reductionism or layered complexity?The futures of futures studies', Futures 34, 295-302.


facilitation using causal layered analysis - incose · slide 12 post-structuralism •we see what...

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