5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How the Structured Design Process Rescued Our Community, April 4, 2006
This review is from: How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom And Power to Construct the Future (Research in Public Management (Unnumbered).) (Paperback)
I am a 15 year member of Bryn Gweled Homesteads, founded in 1940. We are the intentional community discussed in Chapter 13 of Mr. Christakis's new book. There are currently 74 families living in owner built homes who share the ownership of 240 acres of woods. The sole intention of our community is to be good neighbors to one another.
A schism developed in our traditionally harmonious nature when it became evident that our over abundance of deer has caused over 70% of our members to be infected with Lyme's Disease. The deer have also destroyed the under story of our woods and caused multiple car accidents.
When there is an emotionally charged issue like the culling of deer, we require a super-majority written vote of 2/3rds or better to initiate action. Mr. Christakai is a member and resident of our community. He graciously volunteered to engage the community in a Structured Design Process workshop. The results were so enlightening and revealing that some time later our community hired him to host a second SDP workshop.
These two SDP workshops were pivotal in resolving this deeply emotional issue. Our community subsequently created a three part strategic plan that won an 80% super majority vote. Our plan is now being implemented successfully. The SDP workshops also fathered an ongoing ad hoc committee to help us all improve our decision making abilities. This in turn has encouraged less active members to participate anew.
Our community harmony is now greatly improved and getting so much better all the time! Thank you Aleco!!
Thomas Fetterman
Vice President
Bryn Gweled Homesteads
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Practitioner's Perspective, January 11, 2007
This review is from: How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom And Power to Construct the Future (Research in Public Management (Unnumbered).) (Paperback)
Others have reviewed this book's scientific basis, its historical context, and the hopeful message it delivers for the future of democracy in the world. I can give you another perspective, that from a practitioner of the Structured Design Process (SDP) as described in the book.
I have applied SDP in literally dozens of fishery, oceanographic, and marine mammal research and management applications over the final 17 years of my career, from 1982 through 1998, and I can attest to the method's effectiveness. My only regret was that I didn't have the the SDP methodology available to me in the first 22 years of my career!
Starting in 1982, Dr. Christakis, as a contractor, began to guide me towards in the installation and practice of SDP (we called it Interactive Management) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California. I was at the time recently appointed as the Planning Officer for the Center and given the assignment to develop the lab's strategic plans that would mesh with the overall National Marine Fisheries Service's strategic plan. I suppose my education and experience as a fishery biologist and statistician and my practice of systems analysis were thought qualifications for the job. However, my reaction after about two weeks of reading background materials and investigating possible ways to proceed was, "What kind of MESS did I get myself into?
I had left the world of simple problems and entered the world of complex problematiques - though I had no idea I had done so until somewhat later.
Fortunately, I remembered a training class I had taken some years before, taught by a colleague of Dr. Christakis, wherein complexity arising from interacting problems was defined and Interpretive Structural Modeling was explained and demonstrated by Christakis. I placed a phone call to Dr. Christakis for HELP! He came to our rescue and helped me install the processes and to train the staff that ultimately led to our success in many research and management programs over the next 17 years.
Since that beginning in 1982, SDP was applied to define problems and develop strategic and operational plans for programs as wide-ranging as the International Antarctic Research Program, marine mammal research, Northwest Hawaiian Islands fishery resource surveys, endangered species research and management, tuna fisheries and resource research and management, architectural requirements for a new laboratory based on the strategic plan for research, management of the salmon resources of Northern California, State-Federal fishery research programs and many many more.
Three interacting characteristics that remained constant throughout all of the problematiques to which SDP was applied were 1) involvement of a wide-range of stakeholder interests, 2) a multi-disciplined approach was required to define the problems yet alone to resolve them, and 3) no one or two people had sufficient expertise to understand all the interactions among problems yet alone the expertise to develop possible solutions that would be successful. In other words the problem complexes needed the attention and work of many people who do not necessarily speak the same technical language. Facilitation, at the very least was needed but a full blown Structured Design Process(SDP) was the ultimate answer. Why this was so for my problem and a wide-range of complex situations (problematiques) facing our human endeavors, is explained very well in the book.
Without getting into those reasons here, let's look at the situation you are in that might be similar to mine in 1982. Got a mess on your hands? Do you face a complex socio-economic-technical situation requiring many, often disparate, stakeholders, academic disciplines, or technical specialties just to define the problem yet alone resolve it? If so, this book is for you.
Have you ever been involved in (or worse, in charge of ) an enterprise or project that starts with wild enthusiasm (usually with uncritical acceptance), proceeds quickly to disillusionment, followed by total confusion, leading to a search for the guilty and the punishment of the innocent and ending with the promotion of the non-participants? (Iraq?) If so, this book is for you.
Do you know the difference between ordinary problems and a complex interacting set of them - a problematique? Do you know that the methods of solving ordinary problems DO NOT WORK when applied to complex problems? If not, this book is for you.
Suppose you feel that you do face a complex problem requiring, for example, the integrated knowledge of biologists, sociologists, economists, and engineers, or one crying out for the integration of computer science, anthropology, herpetology, hydrology, geology, architecture, and the law, but you do not know how to bring these disparate disciplines together efficiently and effectively to avoid the dreaded disillusionment and confusion? If so, this book is for you.
Perhaps you cringe at the mere idea of bringing a diverse group of stakeholders or subject matter experts together in one room to produce a plan. Does the thought of dealing with the prima donnas, the loudmouths, the politically connected, the meek, the officious, the gate keeper, the humble, the know-it-alls, and the smart Alecs in a planning meeting give you heartburn? If so, this book will be worth at least 10 bottles of Mylanta to you.
In short, if you face any of the situations I've just outlined and you're serious about your job, you MUST LEARN and APPLY the scientifically-based STRUCTURED DESIGN PROCESS (SDP) as explained by Christakis to be successful. Good Luck!
David J. Mackett
Las Vegas, NV
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
