Workshops and Training 

"The science and art of understanding." – Humberto Maturana

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Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory and purposive systems—their structures, constraints, and possibilities. The core concept of the discipline is circular causality or feedback—that is, where the outcomes of actions are taken as inputs for further action.

 

Cybernetics is concerned with such processes however they are embodied, including in environmental, technological, biological, cognitive, and social systems, and in the context of practical activities such as designing, learning, managing, and conversation.

 

Cybernetics has its origins in the intersection of the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, and psychology in the 1940s, often attributed to the Macy Conferences. Since then, cybernetics has become even broader in scope to include work in domains such as design, family therapy, management and organisation, pedagogy, sociology, and the creative arts. At the same time, questions arising from circular causality have been explored in relation to the philosophy of science, ethics, and constructivist approaches. Contemporary cybernetics thus varies widely in scope and focus, with cyberneticians variously adopting and combining technical, scientific, philosophical, creative, and critical approaches. (Source: Wikipedia)

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Training:

Introductory Cybernetics (2 Days)

Intermediate Cybernetics (3 Days)

Advanced Cybernetics (2 Days)

 

Workshop(s):

Application of Cybernetics (5 Days)

Focus on the Positive

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Appreciative inquiry (AI) is a model that seeks to engage stakeholders in self-determined change.

 

According to Gervase Bushe, Professor of Leadership and Organization Development at the Beedie School of Business and a researcher on the topic, "AI revolutionized the field of organization development and was a precursor to the rise of positive organization studies and the strengths based movement in American management." 

 

It was developed at Case Western Reserve University's department of organizational behavior, starting with a 1987 article by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva. They felt that the overuse of "problem solving" hampered any kind of social improvement, and what was needed were new methods of inquiry that would help generate new ideas and models for how to organize.

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Training:

Introductory Appreciative Inquiry (2 Days)

Intermediate Appreciative Inquiry  (2 Days)

Advanced Appreciative Inquiry  (3 Days)

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Workshop(s):

Application of Appreciative Inquiry  (3 Days)

Right Tools for the Right Job​

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Design Thinking 
Training/Workshop: “Bottom-ups” Application of Design Thinking (2-5 days)

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Systems Thinking 
Training/Workshop: “Top-down” Application of Systems Thinking (2-5 days)

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Business Value
Training/Workshop: Building a Business Case based on Business Value (2-5 days)

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Value Realization

Training/Workshop: Realizing the Business Value of a Project (2-3 days)

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Measuring ROI(nvestment) and ROE(ffort) 

Training/Workshop: Realizing the Business Value of a Project (2 days)

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Why Startups Fail

Training/Workshop: 16 Reasons Why Startups Fail (4 days)

Know Your Weaknesses 

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Red teaming is the practice of rigorously challenging plans, policies, systems and assumptions by adopting an adversarial approach. A red team may be a contracted external party or an internal group that uses strategies to encourage an outsider perspective.

The term red teaming is sometimes used to refer to the practice of trying to look at a given situation from the perspective of a disinterested or even adversarial party. As such, the practice can be adopted by individuals as well as organizations.

 

The purpose of red teaming is to overcome cognitive errors such as group-think and confirmation bias that impair the ability for critical thinking. Within an organization, the inability to be objective and incisive hampers planning, decision-making and problem-solving and inevitably affects sustainability.

 

Red teaming originated with the armed forces. Its earliest implementation in the enterprise was in security, where ethical hacking and pen testing are two common examples of red teaming. The practice has much wider applications within business, however.

 

Think-Write-Share is a process that can promote creativity and avoid group think. Members of a team are told to generate ideas, write them down and only then share with other group members. That tactic helps people retain their individual perspectives rather than being affected by those of others as they hear their ideas.

 

Devil's advocacy is the tactic of attempting to counter ideas and decisions, whether or not they seem correct, with alternative views. The team members have to come up with the most compelling arguments against the prevailing concepts as they can. The approach is similar to a debate team, in that the debaters don't have to believe their own arguments but just mount the strongest opposition possible.

 

Be your own worst enemy is an approach that involves taking an adversarial perspective and thinking like a competitor. The process makes it easier to see how a competitor might act to counter the efforts of the organization. 

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Training:

Introductory Red Teaming (3 Days)
Intermediate Red Teaming (2 Days)
Advanced Red Teaming  (2 Days)

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Workshop(s):

Application of Red Teaming  (3 Days)

Accelerating Human Performance

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Human performance technology (HPT), also known as human performance improvement (HPI), or human performance assessment (HPA), is a field of study related to process improvement methodologies such as lean management, Six Sigma, lean Six Sigma, organization development, motivation, instructional technology, human factors, learning, performance support systems, knowledge management, and training. It is focused on improving performance at the societal, organizational, process, and individual performer levels.

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HPT "uses a wide range of interventions that are drawn from many other disciplines, including total quality management, process improvement, behavioral psychology, instructional systems design, organizational development, and human resources management" (ISPI, 2007).

 

It stresses a rigorous analysis of requirements at the societal, organizational process and individual levels as appropriate to identify the causes for performance gaps, provide appropriate interventions to improve and sustain performance, and finally to evaluate the results against the requirements.

(Source: Wikipedia)

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Training:

Introductory Human Performance Technology (2 Days)

Intermediate Human Performance Technology (2 Days)

Advanced Human Performance Technology (3 Days)

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Workshop(s):

Application of Human Performance Technology (3 Days)