Interactive Strategic Change (ISC)
Moves your organization from “Problem-solving” to “Solution-finding”

ISC combines a series of models, activities and tools to achieve the highest outcomes for our clients. The underpinning of all of our work is Appreciative Inquiry(AI) which promotes a philosophical shift in thinking from one that looks at “What’s wrong” with this situation to one that looks at “What’s right” with this situation. We apply this strength-based approach in all aspects of our work and see it as the underlying “operating system” for our Interactive Strategic Change (ISC) methodology.

Seven Steps to Alignment and Action

We get the “whole system” in the room to engage in a lively, creative and innovative cross-organizational conversation that is both structured and organic. We take the organization through a series of four workshops leading to a strategic plan that is widely accepted and is ready for implementation because everyone has had a hand in creating it. It represents a tangible and dynamic product that aligns all organizational activities and guides everyone to an agreed-upon desired future. The figure illustrates our seven steps to alignment and how we accomplish this work in four sessions.

The Seven Step Process is Repeatable at Each Level of the Organization
DFM Consulting enhances the leadership skills of all levels of the organization with a strength-based approach that replicates the seven steps at each level of the organization including:

• Strategic Level: Executives make investment management decisions; create the criteria for selecting investments (projects) that align with the vision and mission of the organization, provide policy guidance and maintain overall accountability.

• Operational Level: Mid-Level executives provide program guidance, ensure projects are functioning, track expenditures, and report to the highest level of the organization

• Operational/Tactical: Managers interface with the mid-level managers and project managers and provide project guidance to project teams.

• Tactical: Project Managers and teams implement the day-to-day work of the organization in the form of projects.

Strategic Alignment Through-out the Organization
For example when a project is launched the team will need to agree on the vision for how the project aligns and supports the larger organization, how the team will work together, the roles everyone will play, timelines, and deliverables. The illustration below indicates how each level in the organization aligns to each other and how each level will need its own Interactive Strategic Change Plan.

Interactive Strategic Change Occurs at All Levels

The Results:

• Cost-effective solutions; Aligned plans that lead to coordinated actions, synergies, innovations, cross-organizational collaborations and cutting edge solutions.

• Get the big picture; everyone will have a clear understanding of the importance of their contribution to the larger whole.

• Common way of working; everyone will have a straight-forward and consistent way of working where communication is improved and resistance to change is reduced. This enables the organization to more quickly respond to changing conditions.

• Engaged and productive staff; when people feel part of something bigger than themselves they know that their contribution counts and they are more productive.

Our Approach:

We work a leadership team to identify current challenges facing the organization and continue to work with this team throughout the seven step process.

We transfer knowledge to our clients so that they can repeat the process. Not only do we come prepared to work with a cadre of a cross functional representatives but we transfer knowledge and skills so that our clients have an internal capacity to promote positive change on their own using our Interactive Strategic Change (ISC) methodology

We provide clear and actionable outcomes, our seven steps are accomplished in a series of four workshops and this produces an Interactive Strategic Change Plan which guides the alignment of all activities for the entire organization. The ISC Plan is used to guide the organization in selecting projects (investments), improving key business processes, and enhancing the organizational structure.

We make ISC scalable; we can work in very large groups where the entire system is represented or in small groups dealing with particular issues.
 

Organizational Development

A strategic plan is just a plan until people take steps to implement the recommendations. We continue to work with our clients when it comes to making plans real. Based on the outcome of the Interactive Strategic Change Plans, we work with teams so that they can define and develop improved business processes. These new and improved processes are driven by the organizational goals and the action agenda in the ISC. We offer business process re-engineering services based on best practice methodologies and use these redesigned processes to better define the groupings of functions within the organization.

Organizational Infrastructure

The Results:

• Improved accountability when the processes are clear, roles and responsibilities can be clearly defined

• Improved position descriptions; the work performed and position descriptions become aligned

• Improved performance people have a clear understanding of what is expected in terms of organizational behavior, tasks, skill levels and reporting structures

• Improved morale when a structure and clear processes are in place, people know what is expected of them , they have a certain comfort level and they begin attaining higher and higher levels of achievement.

Our Approach:

We work with teams to re-design business processes that will have the biggest impact on improving the way the organization runs.

We develop quantitative measures so performance improvements can be base-lined and documented.

We help organizations enhance functional groupings guided by process improvements,

We analyze the pros and cons of various organizational configurations and work with leadership teams to help them gain agreement on the best organizational configurations to meet the stated strategic goals.

We assist in implementation of all aspects of project management, program management and investment management.
 

Project Management

DFM Consulting Inc. offers strength-based project management practices to project managers and teams. Our approach brings out the strength of each member and creates optimally performing teams. The infrastructure put in place with an overall strategic plan, improved processes with clear roles and responsibilities sets the stage for project teams that can perform at their best.

Project Management Processes

Typical Project Management Processes; the degree of rigor determined by the complexity of the project

The Results:

• Improved accountability; when the processes are clear, roles and responsibilities can be clearly defined

• Improved position descriptions; the work performed and position descriptions become aligned

• Improved performance; people have a clear understanding of what is expected in terms of organizational behavior, tasks, skill levels and reporting structures

• Improved morale; when a structure and clear processes are in place, people know what is expected from them , they have a certain comfort level and they begin attaining higher and higher levels of achievement.

Our Approach:

We provide one-on-one project coaching to create strength-based project teams

We offer proven templates and sample work products to help guide team members in their day-to-day work

We provide tailored project management workshops to enhance skills that managers and teams already have.
 

Appreciative Inquiry (AI)

DFM Consulting Inc. uses Appreciative Inquiry, created by Dr. David Cooperrider from Case Western University, as the underpinning for all of our work. We use AI to help organizations make a SHIFT from a “what’s broken-lets-fix-it model” to a “what’s working-how-can –we-do more-of-it model” This is critical in transforming an organization into a highly productive, highly motivated enterprise where everyone feels that they have a meaningful role to play.

It is positive and powerful

Dr. David Cooperrider, Case Western University

DFM Consulting employs Appreciative Inquiry as the fundamental underpinning of all of our work. It can be viewed as the “operating system” with any number of applications running on it including; Interactive Strategic Change, organizational development, business process improvement and project management

The Appreciative Inquiry Methodology:
A simple description of the process does not do it justice, because one must be part of the energy in the room to actually experience how people change as they get to know each other and discover what they have in common. New ideas and concepts surface that would not have been possible if the conversations had not happened. The key is in posing solution-finding questions that explicitly value the best of what is and seeks to imagine what might be.

The methodology is comprised of four stages, each building on the last. It can be used for whole-system summits with more than 500 participants and up to and exceeding 2,500 participants or it can be used in small group discussions. The key element is to have conversations where participants discover their strengths and create collective images of the future so that plans can be designed and the preferred future can be brought to life.

Appreciative Inquiry Stages

Discovery: identifying what is working; what it is that enlivens the organization

Dream: creating a vision for what the organization can become

Design: creating plans for realizing the dream

Destiny: implementing the plans to achieve the dream and constantly discovering ways to improve the organization so that the organization continues to evolve to meet ever-changing needs.

Appreciative Inquiry Methodology

Dr. David Cooperrider, Case Western University

Examples of Organizations Using Appreciative Inquiry:

• Weston Solutions, Inc

• US Navy

• Environmental Protection Agency

• United Nations

• Hewlett Packard

• NASA

• Department of Justice

• Roadway Express

• Cleveland Clinic

• Green Mountain Coffee

• Fairmount Minerals

The Results:

• Engaged and enlivened work environment people take an active part in creating an improved environment

• Sustained change; it is more than a one-time only event, outcomes are long-lasting and self-perpetuating

• Improved communications; new working relationships are formed because people have discovered things they didn’t know before about others in the organization

• Innovative ideas that move the organization forward the process engages the best thinking in the room and people devise solutions that would have otherwise been impossible

• Multiplier effects of the AI philosophy and methodology can have a far reaching ripple effect because when one element changes it can begin to change the entire system.