Facilitated Systems: Other Tools

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Other Tools

Action Research

You need to get some challenging work done. You also want to approach such situations more effectively in the future. Action research and its relative, action learning, are iterative approaches to gaining understanding ("research," "learning") while simultaneously getting work done ("action").

Learning logs are one action learning tool. Events we experienced yesterday may seem more real to us than those of two weeks ago. Learning logs can give us a better view of patterns in our experiences and help make fundamental, sustainable change. Facilitated Systems can coach you in their use.

Discrete Event Simulation

When one has to understand or improve the performance of a static process, discrete event simulation may help. Some simulators have a graphical notation that may match the way you'd diagram your process anyway. Others, such as Colored Petri Nets and their relatives, are more general but perhaps less visually intuitive for a business audience. Petri Nets are especially well suited to addressing problems with concurrency.

Process Design & Improvement

Process design and improvement integrates many techniques to create processes that serve an organization's purpose at a cost it can afford. Experience has taught that sustainable process improvement starts with a focus on the business need. It may benefit from a strategic level system dynamics model to evaluate how a particular process improvement might contribute to the real goals of the organization.

It uses a variety of proven process and quality improvement tools to make effective changes in support of that need. It must also deal with the people in the system. They (we) are vital to any organizational system, with ideas to contribute and concerns to resolve.

Sometimes we forget to devote equal attention to the business, the process, and the people. Sociotechnical systems design and other, related techniques integrate the business, the technical (or process), and the people (or social) aspects in solutions.

Writing

It's not sufficient to do the job—you need to communicate your results to others. Facilitated Systems' Bill Harris has written business articles, high-tech catalog material, marketing brochures and letters, and technical documentation, and he's coached people in the development and delivery of their presentations. While content is crucial, layout and organization count, too. He has produced documents using LaTeX, DocBook, Word, and OpenOffice.org's Write. He even finds that plain text, carefully laid out, can convey a message quite well.

If you'd like help telling a complex business, social, or technical message with integrity and clarity, check out some of Bill's writing, and then contact him to learn more.