Month: March 2014

'Digital transformation' has been a recurring phrase in conversations I've been having during the past week. What does it mean? Well apparently there's no real consensus. MIT I think has a good general definition 'the use of new digital technologies (social media, mobile, analytics or embedded devices) to enable major business improvements (such as enhancing customer experience, streamlining operations or creating new business models)'

Howard King writing in The Guardian has a well-reasoned piece on the subject with a definition of digital transformation as 'a visible wholesale restructure to avoid a tipping point caused by digital technologies and downstream market effects.'

Accenture neatly avoids defining 'digital transformation' instead saying that each organization's digital journey will be different but that broadly the journey requires five elements: integrated services to allow personalization of customer experience, analytics and intelligence, data management, content management, and omni-channel experience. These five strands built on a platform of an ecosystem that addresses organisation structure, culture and partners.

There's merit in having an organization specific definition if it clarifies the design focus and direction. For example, depending on the organizational definition, all resources could be put into the 'digital' aspect – converting customer interaction channels from face to face to online. Or effort could focus on a business 'transformation' where the digital was simply one of many delivery channels and the transformation lay in say, outsourcing services and/or acting as a commissioning body or holding company, or the definition could facilitate something that combined a very high focus on digital 'digital' with an obvious 'transformation'.

Each of the three possibilities mentioned above (and there will be others depending on the definition arrived at) demands different resourcing, organizational and individual capability, measurement and so on. Different definitions mean different strategies and thus organization designs that take the concept of 'digital transformation' to different end-points.

Defining the terms carefully, with the end-game or ideal state in mind, set expectations that make reaching the desired outcome more likely. Further, identifying measures or objectives against the agreed definition provides the necessary tracking towards target. A job I once had asked that I 'convert one third of the organization's face to face training to high quality computer based training (CBT) within 18 months.' This sounds clear-cut but we had some discussion around what we meant by CBT – for example, were accompanying texts allowed, or telephone coaching, or occasional participant meetings or was it specifically only computer based?

We ended up with a definition of CBT that we all subscribed to. Simultaneously we explored why the decision had been made to convert training from face to face to CBT: was it to save travel or other costs, improve quality, decrease the amount of time off the job, offer flexibility, reach more trainees, provide consistency etc?

Getting a level of specificity on the definitions, expectations and intended outcomes steered the design direction. Working within the definition and the outcome criteria we were able to come up with an innovative approach that, among other things, supported and tracked the trainees, converted CBT sceptics, and allowed for a proportion of employees who could not handle CBT for various reasons, for example, lack of access to equipment, visual impairment, or whatever.

That was one of my early learnings that defining terms, agreeing expectations, setting the design scope and criteria, and determining outcome measures are not wasting time when we could be acting but valuable discussions in progressing the right actions to take. (Another learning was remembering to take stock at points to check that the ground hasn't shifted as the work is done).

Back to the digital transformation: if we go for the notion (from Accenture) that 'Becoming a digital business is no longer simply about how we incorporate technology into our organizations; it's about how we use technology to reinvent [i.e. transform] those organizations to get out in front of the dramatic changes that technology is creating' then what is the path for doing that?

MIT Sloan Management Review, bucking the traditional 5 or 7 steps to success, comes up with 8 steps to digital transformation and accompanies these with a 44 minute video discussion . I recommend listening to it – it's worth the 44 minutes.

For organization designers four themes emerge from it that complement the 8 steps:

It's not the technology that is king it's the way it's used.
There's a common talking point amongst the four panelists (and other stuff that I've come across) that digital transformation is less about the technology and more about the business, its customers, and its employees with a strong focus on using technologies to transform processes in order to improve the customer experience.
Customers are the drivers of digital transformation
Mark Norman of Avis (rental cars) for example, talks about digital technology in relation to the customer experience asking what is it that we're trying to solve? He gives some examples around making the driving experience easier. He illustrates the use that can be made of it to improve customer experiences and solve their perhaps unrecognized 'problem' or 'need' asking first 'what do we need to accomplish here?' Others note that often what is driving changes in organizations like Avis is the fact that customers are putting pressure on organizations to change – social media amplifies the customer voice.
Hierarchies work against digital transformation
Hierarchical structures and competitive cultures are not going to work in digital transformations. Panelists talk about swarm work – coming together for a work project and then disbanding, experimentation, social collaboration in real time (less email), having a transformation leader in each business area, adjusting performance and reward systems to reduce 'silo mentality', and making physical space changes to change the established hierarchical patterns/behaviours. The view is that changing the way people work changes the culture.
Technology innovations are going to keep piling on
The other common point is that this is not going to stop – the technologies are going to keep on rolling and big project approaches need to give way to experimentation, having people scanning the horizon for new technologies, avoiding 'moonshots' instead using data, scenario planning and quick turnaround analysis to make swift decisions and keep the organization transforming.

All this might seem scary. Talk of 'transformation' to employees and you can see the eye-rolling and then the anxiety. But couch it in a different way. I came across a graphic that shows that the digital transformation has been going on since the 1950s which puts the whole thing into context. People have coped with the evolution and have integrated it into doing work differently.

Our organization design challenge I think is three fold. We have to act to

• Speed up/change our own design processes for example, keeping the pace on redesigning constantly as the technologies evolve
• Present 'digital transformation' as less about technology and more about changing the customer experiences for the better with technology,
• Dismantle established infrastructure elements – policies, reward systems, etc – that interfere with the digital transformation direction

What's your view on designing for digital transformation? Let me know.

Imagine interacting simultaneously with utility/telecoms companies, realtors (estate agents), airlines, hotels, and cleaning companies. It's not a difficult thing to imagine if you've relocated across continents as I just have. In the last few weeks I've shut down accounts with Comcast (US telecoms), T-mobile US (ditto), Pepco (utilities), O2 (UK), and opened accounts with Spark Energy, and T-mobile UK. Simultaneously I've rented out one apartment (US) and rented another (UK) – with all the interactions with agents that entails, including the cleaning companies. I've crossed the Atlantic 3 times in one week and that same week stayed in 3 different hotels. I've also notified numerous organizations about a change of address, ordered stuff online for delivery, and (now) completed the first week at work in the new place –including getting equipped with swipe card, laptop, etc.

During this exercise I've run the gamut of communication channels from the organizations I've been interacting with: email, face-to-face, telephone without any live person just push button, telephone ultimately getting through to a live person, online, on-line chat box, text messages, and twitter.

When I'm not feeling frazzled about the whole thing I'm noting the 'customer journeys' I'm going through. Some of these are not exactly 'journeys' more like colossal on-going obstacle courses with absolutely no inkling of when/where the finish line is. The top designer of such a course is Comcast . If you take a look at their website you'll find that there is no way of closing an account with them on-line. You have to call a phone number.

It took me 3 days and 8 different agents – each promising they would put me through to the right department – to get the account closed. The department dealing with the account closing did not handle the return of the router box – which took another process to book a collection for it. The collector did not turn up and finally a kind neighbor took it to the local depot. This neighbor was the one who found out my account had in fact been closed as I'd got no confirmation of this. The reason for the three days was the length of time it took for getting through the phone system entering the same details each time and then being assured that 'an agent will be with you momentarily', one time I waited 34 minutes before hanging up – other times I hung up sooner.

T-mobile UK's journey started off very well. I went into one of their shops and was attended to instantly, talked through the various options, filled in the paperwork, and left with the immediate kit to get me interacting in the UK and a date for broadband connection – this is the bit that hasn't happened yet. However, I have had several text messages about it and a live agent ringing to explain the delay and give a 50% discount on the connection fee.

The router box for the broadband was delivered to my new address but as I hadn't arrived it was sent back but I have not heard from T-mobile that it will be redelivered. (I had to email the courier company to find out where the package was). I'm expecting that the engineer will arrive to hook everything up but because there's no router he/she won't be able to. I'm going to call tomorrow and attempt to find out the process for redelivering. The downside is I can't track order process on-line, and the whole thing is through EE which adds a layer of confusion.

John Lewis, a UK retailer, has given the best journey so far. And it will meet my expectations for customer experience if they turn up at the stated time next week as promised. They are quick off the mark on responding to queries and have multiple channels – face to face in shop, on-line, email, phone – to interact with fairly easily. They have a good reputation for customer service and I'd go along with that. I hope it works as well when Capita take over their contact centres.

Over the past few weeks on these literal (airline) and metaphorical (services and product acquiring) journeys my approach to keep sane is to repeat a wonderful Alice Walker phrase from a poem of hers 'Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise'. Some of the surprise is great – like a delightful and attentive flight attendant on United Airlines, and a similarly excellent receptionist at the Premier Inn, Heathrow. Other surprises are a little more disconcerting – like the Comcast router not being collected as scheduled, and the maze of screens to get through on the T-mobile website before finding out that I can't see where my order is. (As I said, I'll have to call tomorrow and find out progress).

Thinking about these experiences I'm in line with the points made in a McKinsey quarterly article The Truth About Customer Experience, by Alex Rawson, Ewan Duncan, and Conor Jones. They suggest that good customer service/experience means that organizations stop thinking in discrete 'touchpoints' but instead, design the end to end journey 'into their operating models in four ways: They must identify the journeys in which they need to excel, understand how they are currently performing in each, build cross-functional processes to redesign and support those journeys, and institute cultural change and continuous improvement to sustain the initiatives at scale.' They recommend a top down and bottom up approach to the design process that involves a lot of data and data analysis as well as qualitative and reflective consideration of what an ideal experience feels like for different types of customers. Additionally they advocate involving customers and front line staff in the design process.

Developing these ideas in a slightly different way an Accenture report Remaking customer markets: unlocking growth with digital is focused on the impact of digital technologies on business models and customer needs. They make the point that ' Successfully navigating this journey [of pursuit of digital innovation opportunities] requires new strategies and capabilities that, for many companies, represent a departure from the norm.'

All of the companies I have interacted with in the last couple of weeks have been what Accenture terms 'incumbents' – those well-established in the space. Those incumbents capable of rapidly redesigning their customer experiences by recognizing the power of digital may survive – those that are not able to will be displaced. (Look at how Airbnb is taking on the hotel industry). Comcast may be big but it's not invulnerable or invincible.

What customer journeys have you been part of recently? How did they measure up? Let me know.

See also my related blogs: Extraordinary customer service, Designing customer value, Designing for customer satisfaction, Customer service issues

During last week someone alerted me to the report from the IES The Palace: Perspectives on Organization Design. Having read it I now have a bunch of questions which, I guess is the intention of the authors as they specifically state that it is not a 'how to' guide but rather seeks to promote useful conversations among practitioners and line managers. Three of the many questions that came up for me and that I will talk with colleagues about are:

1. Is the language of organization development (OD) and organization design (ODS) hampering our ways of working with the concepts?
2. Are the long-established ramshackle palaces – the metaphor that the report hinges on doomed and we would be doing a better service in demolishing them than trying to redesign/redevelop them?
3. Are the social and analytical technologies we are now embroiled in way beyond our current scope of reference, mental models and toolkits? (And if so, how do we retrain and retool ourselves?)
I'll look briefly at each of them

Is the language of organization development (OD) and organization design (ODS) hampering our ways of working with the concepts?
The report opens with some definitions which position the arguments. The authors consider 'organization design (ODS) as a type of organization development (OD) work which includes a specific focus on structures and/or processes. This, idea is taken up again in section 3.4 but with a slightly different emphasis – here OD and ODS are discussed rather than two distinct strands of work as two sides of a coin that cannot be picked apart. The authors do not mention a new model that illustrates this which I now tend to use. It's from How to Design a Winning Company and shows the eight formal and informal elements of organization design. I think this came out after the report was published otherwise it might have been included.

However, rather than seeing organizations in this bisected way (art and science, formal and informal, opposite sides of a coin) another approach is to see them enmeshed which gives rise to what Alex Pentland, author of Social Physics terms 'social structures'. He asks 'How can we create social structures that are co-operative, productive, and creative'?

Thinking in a different language e.g. of 'social physics' or 'antifragile' (from the Nicolas Taleb book) may, perhaps, start to open a door to radical new ideas of organization as Dee Hock, quoted in the IES report, argued for and long before social media/social organization.

Are the long-established ramshackle palaces – the metaphor that the report hinges on doomed and we would be doing a better service in demolishing them than trying to redesign/redevelop them?
The report opens with the metaphor of a long-established ramshackle palace which is an entertaining read and presents an all too familiar scenario. Each of the chapters 3 – 10 then takes a paragraph from the opening story and develops the chapter from this. It's a good idea in one way but I'm wondering if all the organizations we deal with are ramshackle old palaces? What about start-ups that reach a point of trying to impose some form of order? And where do other organizational forms – for example co-operatives fit into this metaphor?

Hotly following these questions and as I was reading what came to mind were the names of various well-established organizations that have floundered or are floundering. The most recent one – earlier this week was Radio Shack which is about to close 1,100 stores . And an article in today's Huffington Post lists 9 retailers closing the most stores with various reasons given for doing so. I wrote a piece last year on organizational death where I suggested that organizations have a lifecycle and a good death is not necessarily a bad thing. In this vein consider the idea that some palaces are only fit for razing and what we need are people skilled at designing a good organizational deaths. (At the 'birth' end of an organization I was talking to someone recently whose niche is around helping start ups who reach a certain size – around 150 people – develop some organizing principles).

Are the social and analytical technologies we are now embroiled in way beyond our current scope of reference, mental models and toolkits? (And if so, how do we retrain and retool ourselves?)
Reading the report I found several well-used notions (and I use them myself) – for example that for organization re-design setting clear TORs is useful, as is a map, a methodology, and strong project management expertise. But in the context of reading Social Physics and so much else about 'social organization' I wonder if that kind of advice holds true. Pentland points out that 'Suddenly our society has become a combination of humans and technology that has powers and weaknesses different from any we have ever lived in before. Unfortunately we don't really know what to do about it. Our ways of understanding and managing the world were forged in a statelier less connected time. …. In today's light-speed, hyperconnected world, these [statelier times] assumptions are being stretched past the breaking point'.

Thus to read in the report, for example, that early discussion with senior sponsors should include 'where we want to be' seems to be an 'old speak' tool because how can 'where we want to be' be anything more than pie in the sky given the speed of change? But right now I can't offer a more viable 'new speak' tool. Similarly I wonder whether the Goold and Campbell Nine Tests of Organization Design (2002 – pre Twitter) are as valid now as they may have been then, and even PWC's (2009) ten principles against which to evaluate a design seem a little dated.

So a useful practitioner debate may be around what the technology means in terms of organization design. I'm fascinated by the Pentland book but a little alarmed by his enthusiasm for 'the computational theory of behavior, which focuses on the human generative processes', which in his view is 'what is required to build better social systems. Such a theory could tie together mechanisms of social interactions with our newly acquired massive amounts of behavior data in order to engineer better social systems.'

The report has left me with several other questions and I encourage you to read it and see what questions it raises for you. What are your views on the three I have raised here? Let me know.

During last week I traveled several times by bus from Oxford into Central London and back. It's a cheap, slow, way to go. One plus is the door to door – it's about 10 minute walk from my destination at each end. Going by train seems quicker although much more expensive but there's still the 20 minute walk to the station and when I get to Paddington there's the underground trip from the mainline station to where I need to be (Victoria). So there's a trade off between movement and progress. That's a phrase I heard in a meeting on Wednesday, 'Don't mistake movement for progress'. It feels like a good thing to bear in mind.

On the train ride it feels like constant movement but the door to door is about the same as the slow bus trip which makes painfully slow progress but gets there in the end, and on the bus I don't have to contend with no seats, standing in a crush, searching for my Oyster card, etc.

The bus ride takes 1.5 hours in late evening – after 9:00 p.m. and 2.75 hours in the morning, when I get on the 6:00 a.m. 'express'. I don't know how long the non-express takes. In my bid not to get impatient with incredible hold ups I think of it as a good time to get work done. Or I practice controlling my urge to leap off and get some quicker mode of transport (where/how?) by, in the words of the Zen Habits man, 'watching these urges, and finding them interesting. The best thing to do with urges is to be curious. I just watch my urges with curiosity. How did I get like this?' I haven't found that this helps much as yet but I haven't done 10,000 hours of practice, which is the much disputed but popular notion that it takes that length of time to get from beginner to expert in something.

What I found myself thinking (instead of observing with curiosity my urge to jump off the bus) was that traffic flows are much like work processes. Traffic hums along and then stops at identifiable points; traffic lights, broken down vehicles, and road works, for example. The stop points equate to things in a work process like waiting for someone to make a decision (and note we talk in organizations about getting the 'green light' on something) or to hanging around waiting for the 'computer system down' syndrome to be resolved.

Alternatively traffic hums along fast and then the speed slows to a frustrating jerky crawl with no obvious explanation. This phenomenon has been the subject of research in the world of traffic experts. For example: 'Scientists have been trying to bring order, or at least predictability, to motorway melees for decades. They assumed the familiar "stop-and-go" waves of congestion were due to the sheer volume of traffic. More recently, mathematical models have suggested they may actually be down to drivers' behaviour. With cars moving fluidly in a tight pack even a seemingly innocuous change of lanes may cause a tiny disruption which is propagated backwards for many miles.' This report goes on to note that the main culprit is timid and aggressive driver behaviour. The comments on this piece (34 of them) are worth a read too.

This stop and go progress due to timid/aggressive behaviour sounds all too familiar in an organizational setting. So we get the timid people who won't take the initiative 'It's not in my job description.' Or 'I'll have to ask my supervisor'. Or 'That's against the rules'. And on the other hand are the aggressive people who insist something happens now. Or pull rank. Or yell and scream till they get their way, and so on. Maybe we could promote or demote people on the number of points on their driving licence? Alternatively when we're thinking about capability in a work flow we could weed out the overly timid people and the aggressive people; but then we'd be contravening the diversity policy. Another possibility to keep work humming along is to take a leaf from the traffic planners/car manufacturers and develop and deploy some form of organizational adaptive cruise control – or is this there now but called performance management?

So what can we learn from the current state of traffic congestion research? I liked what I read about abandoning road construction (and thus road traffic) in favour of a drone network. This was for Africa. 'Why not build roads? Following the lead of road systems in the West is a nearly impossible task for the African continent. You're talking about a massive infrastructure investment and a huge ecological footprint. If you were to deliberately plan out an approach to transportation and logistics in Africa, would you do it in the same way? I'm convinced that the answer is no. Instead, I think you would use a few different modes of transportation; and one would be an aerial method like the drone network we're proposing.'

Good, now we have an innovative approach to work processes; we don't do them as logical flows or in the way we've always done it putting up with the timid and aggressive behaviour and the identifiable stop points. We instead have networks of drones; a notion that would be particularly attractive in some organizations as drones are apparently 'in the super low cost category'. But I must be careful here. We don't want people to think we think workers are drones and we don't want workers replaced by robots although we're fast heading down that route, and we can't pay under or even at the minimum wage to maintain the 'super low cost' because we've just found out that employers who pay above the minimum wage have a more engaged workforce whose members don't cause trouble.

So let's put the drone idea to one side and look at another traffic planner scheme. To reduce congestion, you cut out routes and roads. The idea is based on Braess' paradox which is very intriguing. 'One study identified six roads in Boston, 12 in Manhattan and seven in central London that could reduce average journey times if closed.' In another Braess Paradox based experiment scientists were looking at ways of stabilizing the power grid (power is delivered via networks which are not very stable). What they found was that an extra link in one or two positions destabilised the network, actually reducing its capacity, just as a new road or bridge can increase congestion. What can organization designers get from this rather well known finding that you can 'restore network function by cutting out parts of the network. Just as closing a road can sometimes improve the flow of traffic.' We learn we can just cut out bits of the existing network. Hmm this may be already well known in organizations as 'downsizing' or is it 'Lean'?

In more reading I find that apparently Braess Paradox has been negated because the paradox disappears in times of high traffic. But in another lovely paradox the conclusion from this research is that 'the negation of the paradox actually adds to the paradox's original conclusions: when designing transportation networks (and other kinds of networks), extreme caution should be used in adding new routes, since at worst the new routes will slow travelers down, and at best, the new routes won't even be used.' Oh we introduce something new and then people won't use it. Does this sound like 'resistance to change'?

But not so fast on the Braess Paradox. We might be better off going for recognizing the fact that in any network the 'paths between nodes can have different capacities, like a wide highway versus a small country road.' So we can develop 'a max flow algorithm' which has to consider both the volume of flow and the route it can take'. The article says that the algorithm 'identifies clusters and bottlenecks first, allowing the algorithm to focus on difficult areas and speed up the solution.' But it doesn't say whether it takes into account the timid/aggressive people or just the work? Regardless, I like the sound of an organizational 'max flow algorithm' perhaps it's going to be the latest tool for organizational design consultants?
In summary, during my commutes this week, I've found out:

• That closing roads can reduce congestion.
• That timid and aggressive drivers increase congestion.
• That introducing new routes doesn't mean people will use them.
• That networks of drones are a cheap alternative to getting things done and there is no congestion involved
• Deploying adaptive cruise control could help keep traffic flows humming along
• That the Braess Paradox and 'max flow algorithms' are terms ripe for adoption by organizational designers.

So it could be that organizational designers can learn from traffic planners and vice versa – what insights could you swap with traffic planners? Let me know.

The Organization Design Forum is holding its 25th anniversary conference in Charlotte, North Carolina from April 29 – May 1. The theme is Reframing Organization Design which is billed as 'a conversation and learning experience that explores the new ideas and practices that will influence how adaptive, innovative and sustainable organizations are designed in the future.'

As we well know, and are told again 'The forces impacting markets today are evolving at an increasing rate: global competition, diversity of customers and cultures, workforces spanning geopolitical boundaries, and technology. The top reasons for reframing organization design are:

• Organizations are continually pressed to make quicker iterations of strategic thinking and decision-making in response to market forces
• Workers must join together, often across great distances, to quickly create connections and produce quality work and results
• Organization design theories and practices of yesterday must be tested against the realities of today so we can build new theories and practices for tomorrow.'

There's a good line-up of presenters and ideas so it's unfortunate that I can't be there in person as I will just have moved back to the UK, with all the turmoil a move across continents entails, but I'm hoping that I can be there via Skype or other medium at least for the Advisory Board Roundtable that's planned and that I was invited to participate in.

From talking with various of the organizers I think it's going to be a worthwhile event – although I do wonder what makes conferences successful or unsuccessful in the eyes of the various stakeholders. One thing that 's already made it worthwhile for me is that it has it set me thinking about conferences generally:

Thought 1: A conference is essentially a pop-up organization design: a team forms to design and deliver the event. Most of the conferences I've been to have been traditionally organized in that there are speakers on pre-determined topics, with a timed agenda, there is a body of people managing the organization of the event, there are administrators, suppliers, and so on. This Organization Design Forum one follows that model.

Yet there are ways of 'reframing' conferences that more closely mirror current organization design discussions around self-organizing and emergence. 'Unconferences', are one example of this self- organizing – take a look at this recruitment one – but they have to be careful not to slip into the traditional mold as this blogger points out in 'The Death of the Unconference'. So what could we learn from both traditional and un conference design that could help with the design of a longer time-frame organization?

Thought 2: Many people would like to come to a conference but it is in a fixed place (usually) and at a fixed point in time. Are there ways of reframing conference design to include people who can't be there in its delivery and outcomes? Social media is the big disruptor of organization design so why aren't we thinking of designing conferences in a different way that make good and innovative use of social media? (Just tweeting comments while listening to a standard presentation isn't quite what I have in mind).

Look at the video, 'Why social network mess can benefit your business', from Euan Semple and you get an idea of how social media is changing organization design. Because a conference is short lived and has a potentially very widely dispersed interest group it would be a great forum to try out some experiments with social media that took conference design in new directions and in ways that could inform other organization design activity.

Thought 3: What is the value of a face to face conference over a virtual one? Many people say the best part about conferences is the networking i.e. meeting face to face. What can we learn about the value of face to face interaction at conferences that could help in designing mobile working and virtual teaming?

One of the ODF conference organizers has been thinking about how to involve people not in the actual room – see thought 2 above – but notes 'the need for human interaction much in the same way as we build any of our relationships. Skype and FaceTime just doesn't give enough of a realistic in the room feeling and also it's easy not to be paying attention to what's going on through these things. People like to see the whites of your eyes from time to time which I think relates to trust and understanding and developing shared meaning between people.'

Nevertheless building trusting and collaborative relationships with minimal face to face time is an increasing challenge for organizations. Reframing a conference design that could test out some methods of doing this that could then be trialled in organizations would be a useful conference outcome. There are some ideas on building trust virtually in this blog How to Build Trust in a Virtual Workplace.

Thought 4: How would we measure the value of conference attendance for participants? The ODF one has a registration fee of $1895 and there is an additional transportation and accommodation cost. How will attendees know that it is worth the investment they make? Could conference attendees be helped in thinking through how to measure this? (And would that make any difference to numbers of on-site participants?)

We know that another of the big issues for organizations is putting a value on knowledge work. e.g. How do we know that an investment in a one-hour meeting is worth the monetary value of the time spent? A conference that helped participants develop measures (qualitative or quantitative) of the value they are gaining from participation that they could take back to their organizations and try out in other meeting or knowlege work settings could help reframe aspects of organization design.

Thought 5: How do we measure the value of conference attendance for the organizers of the conference? I wonder if it's just about having 'paying bums on seats' as a fundraiser, or is it about reputation, being 'the place to go' (like Davos), enabling people to learn new things, a combination of these and/or other factors? For the Organization Design Forum it is about … involve yourself in the Organization Design Forum and/or the European Organization Design Forum – which now has chapters in several countries and you'll find out more on this thought.

Are you going to the Organization Design Forum Conference? Let me know why or why not.