BEYOND EFFICIENCY: ANSWERS TO COMPLEXITY CHALLENGE

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BEYOND EFFICIENCY ANSWERS TO COMPLEXITY
CHALLENGE
New tools for new organizational challenges
The Hague, June 14, 2006
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Campus profile

• Campus is a a management consulting firm that
  belongs to Innova Group (www.innova-eu.net), the
  largest European private network of innovation
  services
• Within Innova Group, Campus is specialized in
  stimulating and supporting companies in order to
  valorize their knowledge as competitive lever
• Campus has always paid great attention to
  advanced management theories
• Campus focuses its action particularly on the
  study of techniques and tools for the concrete
  application of the theories in the business
  environment

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Complexity theory provocations from the middle
age
Midway upon the journey of our life I found
myself within a forest dark, For the
straightforward pathway had been lost. (Dante
Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, Inferno, 1306)
MIDWAY UPON THE JOURNEY OF OUR LIFE STORE OF
KNOWLEDGE
FOREST DARK COMPLEXITY
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Complexity theory which implications for our
companies?

• How can companies react to the increasing
  complexity and uncertainty of the business
  environment?
• How can companies be spiders and not preys in the
  spiders web of complexity?

• Campus is able to provide to its customers an
  effective and exclusive support in applying the
  advices that derive from the advanced research on
  complexity in the business organizations and
  environment

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Answers to complexity

• The tool designed by Campus companys network
  analysis (SNA Social Network Analysis)

• First rule opening out

• The tool designed by Campus dynamic scenario
  analysis (SD System Dynamics)

• Second rule the re-orientation

• The tool designed by Campus coaching for
  creativity (LTC Learning To Create)

• Third rule the equilibrium between order and
  disorder

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First rule opening out

• The real structure of a company is not
  represented by the organizational charts
• How can we discover the real networks that
  operate under the formal organizational structure
  and indicate therefore ways of improvement?

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First answer companys network analysis
Campus is able to map and visualize the informal
process within a company

• Interventions can be articulated on 3 levels

• Reorganization of the formal structure (eg.
  shifting of key resources, individuation of
  emerging leaders )
• Valorization and development of the informal
  relations among key actors (eg. settlement of
  periodic inter-functional meetings,)
• Integration of peripheral subjects to the
  informal network (eg. involvement of personnel
  and creation of heterogeneous groups,)

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Companys network analysis an example
Name N Centrality degree
Tizio 19 54
Caio 169 39
Sempronio 41 38
Achille 180 35
Ettore 184 31
Homogenous groups (clusters)
Opinion leader
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Companys network analysis an example
Collaboration degree among different companies of
an industrial group
HIGH COLLABORATION
Collaboration among different companies
Collaboration within the same companiy
Azienda A
LOW COLLABORATION
Azienda B
Azienda C
Azienda D
Azienda A
Azienda B
Azienda E
Azienda C
Azienda D
Azienda F
Azienda E
Azienda F
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Companys network analysis an example
Average centrality degree 5,769
Name N Centrality degree
Romolo 120 25
Numa Pompilio 126 11
Tullio Ostilio 128 11
Anco Marzio 104 10
Servo Tullio 114 8

1. Too much dependency on a single person
2. Bottle neck

Average density - 27,77
Four isolated people
Network centralization 80,00
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Second rule the re-orientation

• Predicting future is more and more difficult it
  is useful to build alternative scenarios
• To anticipate moves
• Strategic flexibility

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Second answer dynamic scenario analysis

• Managers must face different types of
  uncertainties
• Environmental (the environment is not
  predictable)
• Organizational (the impact of the changes is
  difficult to understand)
• Decisional (risk to mistake the forecast of the
  effects)

Campus applies simulation models based on System
Dynamics to understand the behaviors of complex
organizational systems and to build alternative
scenarios

• ?APPLICATION FIELDS
• Decision making process
• Modeling and test of scenarios
• Development and test of strategies
• Business Process Reengineering
• Organizational learning
• Check of variable systems behavior
• Making explicit tacit knowledge

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Third rule the equilibrium between order and
disorder
EDGE OF CHAOS
DISORDER
ORDER
DEVELOPMENT AREA

• It is not sufficient to increment company's
  efficiency
• We must accept a certain level of disorder
• Creative capacity as a lever for innovation

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Third answer Learning to Create
Campus developed Learning to Create, a modular
program to develop creativity in working groups

• APPLICATION FIELDS
• Strategic planning
• New product and service development

• Re-organization
• Marketing

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Learning to Create example of a creative
technique
Attributes / Values chain (external mapping)

• Examples of Attributes
• Shape
• Color
• Price

• Examples of Values
• Freedom
• Imagination
• Having fun

ATTRIBUTES/VALUES (A/V) MAP
EXTERNAL MAPPING
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Learning to Create succesfully applied in
several EU organizations
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Conclusions

• Organizations must learn to deal with increasing
  complexity
• Formal and informal
• Strategic flexibility
• Efficiency and creativity
• Campus proposes tools to face these challenges
• Understanding and valorization of informal
  knowledge and decision flows
• Creation of alternative scenarios
• Creativity development

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The risk is to go to war with the weapons of the
previous conflict
Michel Crozier
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Thanks
Mauro De Bona Campus - Innova Group 39 320
6130308 mauro.debona_at_campusconsulting.it skype
maurodebona