Action planning

[Martin Leith]

Chris,

Regarding action planning, the default method we use is at
www.theinnovationagency.com/openspace/implementation.html

You may think there's nothing new here, but the method includes one special
feature: the co-ordination team.

One person from each project team volunteers to be the co-ordinator. The
purpose of the co-ordination group is to keep everyone updated on progress
of the projects. The co-ordinators meet in the middle of the room and do
four things: (1) agree who will be lead co-ordinator; (2) agree where and
when they will hold their co-ordination meetings, such as the first Friday
of the month in the staff canteen; (3) agree how they will report on
progress, such as a posting on the intranet; (4) invite a member of the
management team to join their group as an equal member.

In short, the co-ordination team creates a link between the project teams
and the resource allocation process and ensures that the projects get onto -
and stay on -  the mainstream management agenda.

Hope this is useful.

Martin

TECHNICAL FOOTNOTE

The co-ordination team concept is based on a principle from the world of
cybernetics (an early kind of systems theory), in particular Stafford Beer's
'viable systems model'. The co-ordination team is Beer's 'System Two' - the
wiring between all the different System Ones (the project teams in this
case), and the wiring between the System Ones and System Three ('management'
of inside-and-now) and System Four ('management' of outside-and-future).

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