Client Articles: Vision-Based Diagnosis
A Case Study at the Farm Service Agency
With the enactment of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA; Public Law 103â??62) and subsequent executive branch directives (Bowsher, 1994; Clinton & Gore, 1994; Executive Order No. 12862, 1993; Gore, 1993, 1996; Rivlin, 1995), federal program managers have been directed to reinvent their organizations to be "customer driven" (Clinton, 1995). On January 9, 1995, the deputy director for systems development at the Farm Service Agency's (FSA) KCMO met with his senior managers to consider the management ramifications on the automated data processing (ADP) organization to become a customerâ??driven provider of ADP products and support services to a nationwide infrastructure of 2,800 FSA, state, and county offices. In the meeting with his senior managers, he, in Pascale's (1994) terms, "declared an organizational breakdown? and created a project to address the breakdown.
On January 25, 1995, the deputy director for systems development took the unusual step of convening a general meeting of all 450 systems development employees to address the organizational threat from the declared organizational breakdown. He emphasized the breakdown in terms of the following: (a) the emerging competitive environment within the federal ADP community that now threatened the continued existence of the ADP group in Kansas City and (b) the need to shorten the cycle time for software development and to vastly improve customer service if the KCMG ADP group members are to keep their jobs.
He concluded his presentation by introducing the two main responses to the declared organizational breakdown: (a) the modernization of software development processes through projects designed to apply the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model for Software (Paulk, Curtis, Chrissis, & Weber, 1993) and (b) the introduction of a fullâ??time organizational change agent, an NPR/GPRA project officer, appointed to direct the initiative.
The NPR/GPRA project officer had already made progress because he had facilitated a design team to draft a vision statement that conveyed the new context (Goss et al., 1993, p. 99) for a reinvented systems development organization (see appendix). While constructing the vision statement, other private corporations' statements were reviewed. By "standing in the future" as a customerâ??driven organization, the NPR/GPRA project officer crafted a statement to express the customerâ??driven core values present in the future organization. This vision statement become known as the Application Development Center Charter (ADCC). Having invented the languaging for the ADCC, he then had it reviewed by a cross section of systems managers and employees. During the review process, reviewers were asked to "wordsmith" the document until they could see themselves in it and it created a vision in their minds for an exciting place to work. This version was then presented to the broader employee community, and employees were encouraged to place their signatures on the document if they were standing for this future. After many employees signed the charter, it was presented to management with the request that it be fulfilled.
The social component described through assessing the organizational culture of the systems development function was presented to KCMG management on May 15,1995 (Elden & Fine, 1995). The final report distinguished eight characteristics that limited the current organization from realizing the ADCC, thereby illuminating the challenge of the cultural transformation to a customerâ??driven organization.
The Analysis and Implications section of the baseline report (Sanders & GPRA Team, 1995) tied together the social and process components of the software development environment. The resulting finding was that the commandâ??andâ??control management paradigm emphasized a single performance measurement for the culture as the criterion to determine success. A lot of pride of accomplishment was also found, but this was not without some human costs. The exclusively topâ??down control also stifled initiative and led to a highly uneven workload in which some people had too much to do and others complained about too little to do, whereas supervision saw itself unable to make a difference. Each level of the organization felt unduly constrained by the level above it (Elden & Fine, 1995).
The organizational measurements summarized in the baseline report (Sanders & GPRA Team, 1995) revealed that the organization at present was inconsistent with the future declared in the ADCC; therefore, recommendations were developed to intervene in the current organizational culture so that the intent of the ADCC could be realized. In the final analysis, reinventing the organization should focus on leaders inspiring commitment through flexible and responsive teams trained for innovation, creativity, and accountability throughout all levels of the organization. Reinvention, in its essence, would aim at establishing a learning organization.
The VBD itself led to a significant invention. We reached the decision to act on the recommendations of the baseline report (Sanders & GPRA Team, 1995) in an entirely new way for the organization. Systems development top management for the first time called together the entire management team (more than 25 people) to engage in an open discussion about whether the issues identified in the study were the correct issues to address within the culture. The meeting was historic because it demonstrated the first use of participatory management consistent with our vision and as recommended in the cultural assessment. The first context for the meeting was a discussion of the relevance of the issues in the cultural assessment. If someone thought issues were not correct, they were asked to state their reasoning and recommend what other or additional issues should be addressed to realize the charter.
The second context for the meeting was to generate alignment on whether to adopt the intervention strategy. The only boundary on the discussion was that taking no action was not a consideration. Given this boundary condition, managers voicing opinions of whether or not to adopt the strategy could not just say no without offering their own proposed strategies. In a nearly unanimous ballot, the proposed intervention strategy was adopted.
The intervention strategy is designed to have an organizational culture designed for results, productivity, and teamwork as the foundation for a reengineered technical infrastructure and reinvented business processes. This culture would have
After the KCMG management team agreed to execute the intervention strategy, formal presentations were delivered to topâ??level Farm Service Agency executives in Washington, D.C., to enroll these stakeholders into the initiative. Financing for the actual transformation projects could not be done without their support. We made a significant effort to inform key topâ??level policymakers about our vision and the resulting diagnosis and to get approval from stakeholders in the Capitol. We received the needed political and budgetary approval to proceed in fall 1995, just 9 months after crafting our vision in the ADCC.
During a routine visit, auditors from the General Accounting Office (GAO) were briefed on this initiative. In responding to the presentation, the GAO's only issues were about how the people component of the organization was going to be handled. From their own organizational experience, the GAO auditors noted that the process of changing procedures is simple; the process of changing the way people work is much more difficult. When the findings from the cultural analysis and the proactive steps being taken to involve the people in a participatory change process were reported, the auditors were pleased to hear that the organization was addressing the people issues up front.
Execution of the intervention strategy began in early February 1996. Currently, employee education is being completed so that employees committing themselves to stand for the future have the needed distinctions in communication and taking effective action.
The Meaning of a Vision-Based Diagnosis
Review of the Literature on Reengineering and Reinventing
Magma as a Model of VBD
A Case Study at the Farm Service Agency
Mobilizing for Transforming Change
Appendix and References
On January 25, 1995, the deputy director for systems development took the unusual step of convening a general meeting of all 450 systems development employees to address the organizational threat from the declared organizational breakdown. He emphasized the breakdown in terms of the following: (a) the emerging competitive environment within the federal ADP community that now threatened the continued existence of the ADP group in Kansas City and (b) the need to shorten the cycle time for software development and to vastly improve customer service if the KCMG ADP group members are to keep their jobs.
He concluded his presentation by introducing the two main responses to the declared organizational breakdown: (a) the modernization of software development processes through projects designed to apply the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model for Software (Paulk, Curtis, Chrissis, & Weber, 1993) and (b) the introduction of a fullâ??time organizational change agent, an NPR/GPRA project officer, appointed to direct the initiative.
The NPR/GPRA project officer had already made progress because he had facilitated a design team to draft a vision statement that conveyed the new context (Goss et al., 1993, p. 99) for a reinvented systems development organization (see appendix). While constructing the vision statement, other private corporations' statements were reviewed. By "standing in the future" as a customerâ??driven organization, the NPR/GPRA project officer crafted a statement to express the customerâ??driven core values present in the future organization. This vision statement become known as the Application Development Center Charter (ADCC). Having invented the languaging for the ADCC, he then had it reviewed by a cross section of systems managers and employees. During the review process, reviewers were asked to "wordsmith" the document until they could see themselves in it and it created a vision in their minds for an exciting place to work. This version was then presented to the broader employee community, and employees were encouraged to place their signatures on the document if they were standing for this future. After many employees signed the charter, it was presented to management with the request that it be fulfilled.
- We then undertook a VBD of the systems development organization, using the ADCC as the statement depicting the organizational future to be realized. We next initiated a baseline analysis of the present software development organization. The baseline analysis compared and contrasted the current state of the software development organization to that expressed by the ADCC. Three facets of the present organization were to be investigated: the social, technical infrastructure, and process components. By definition, the social component would be described through an analysis of the cultural phenomenon of the organization. The process component would be analyzed through the application of the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model for Software (Paulk et al., 1993). The technical infrastructure component was defined as the hardware platform available for software development, and because it is beyond the authority of local executives to purchase a different development platform, it was assumed for this analysis that the technical infrastructure must remain unchanged.
The social component described through assessing the organizational culture of the systems development function was presented to KCMG management on May 15,1995 (Elden & Fine, 1995). The final report distinguished eight characteristics that limited the current organization from realizing the ADCC, thereby illuminating the challenge of the cultural transformation to a customerâ??driven organization.
The Analysis and Implications section of the baseline report (Sanders & GPRA Team, 1995) tied together the social and process components of the software development environment. The resulting finding was that the commandâ??andâ??control management paradigm emphasized a single performance measurement for the culture as the criterion to determine success. A lot of pride of accomplishment was also found, but this was not without some human costs. The exclusively topâ??down control also stifled initiative and led to a highly uneven workload in which some people had too much to do and others complained about too little to do, whereas supervision saw itself unable to make a difference. Each level of the organization felt unduly constrained by the level above it (Elden & Fine, 1995).
The organizational measurements summarized in the baseline report (Sanders & GPRA Team, 1995) revealed that the organization at present was inconsistent with the future declared in the ADCC; therefore, recommendations were developed to intervene in the current organizational culture so that the intent of the ADCC could be realized. In the final analysis, reinventing the organization should focus on leaders inspiring commitment through flexible and responsive teams trained for innovation, creativity, and accountability throughout all levels of the organization. Reinvention, in its essence, would aim at establishing a learning organization.
The VBD itself led to a significant invention. We reached the decision to act on the recommendations of the baseline report (Sanders & GPRA Team, 1995) in an entirely new way for the organization. Systems development top management for the first time called together the entire management team (more than 25 people) to engage in an open discussion about whether the issues identified in the study were the correct issues to address within the culture. The meeting was historic because it demonstrated the first use of participatory management consistent with our vision and as recommended in the cultural assessment. The first context for the meeting was a discussion of the relevance of the issues in the cultural assessment. If someone thought issues were not correct, they were asked to state their reasoning and recommend what other or additional issues should be addressed to realize the charter.
The second context for the meeting was to generate alignment on whether to adopt the intervention strategy. The only boundary on the discussion was that taking no action was not a consideration. Given this boundary condition, managers voicing opinions of whether or not to adopt the strategy could not just say no without offering their own proposed strategies. In a nearly unanimous ballot, the proposed intervention strategy was adopted.
The intervention strategy is designed to have an organizational culture designed for results, productivity, and teamwork as the foundation for a reengineered technical infrastructure and reinvented business processes. This culture would have
- a customer driven organization;
- business processes designed to be flexible and responsive;
- performance measurement to support the GPRA needs;
- a disciplined software development approach using leading industry techniques and practices to reduce cycle time, improve product quality, and lower costs; and
- trained, in-house resources in the methods and techniques to sustain the cultural transformation.
After the KCMG management team agreed to execute the intervention strategy, formal presentations were delivered to topâ??level Farm Service Agency executives in Washington, D.C., to enroll these stakeholders into the initiative. Financing for the actual transformation projects could not be done without their support. We made a significant effort to inform key topâ??level policymakers about our vision and the resulting diagnosis and to get approval from stakeholders in the Capitol. We received the needed political and budgetary approval to proceed in fall 1995, just 9 months after crafting our vision in the ADCC.
During a routine visit, auditors from the General Accounting Office (GAO) were briefed on this initiative. In responding to the presentation, the GAO's only issues were about how the people component of the organization was going to be handled. From their own organizational experience, the GAO auditors noted that the process of changing procedures is simple; the process of changing the way people work is much more difficult. When the findings from the cultural analysis and the proactive steps being taken to involve the people in a participatory change process were reported, the auditors were pleased to hear that the organization was addressing the people issues up front.
Execution of the intervention strategy began in early February 1996. Currently, employee education is being completed so that employees committing themselves to stand for the future have the needed distinctions in communication and taking effective action.
The Meaning of a Vision-Based Diagnosis
Review of the Literature on Reengineering and Reinventing
Magma as a Model of VBD
A Case Study at the Farm Service Agency
Mobilizing for Transforming Change
Appendix and References