The Hint of a Fresh Breeze

It's been several months since the last blog, and the project appears to be pulling out of the slump. In effect, there have been a number of variables that have affected progress: a preponderance of personal interests that have swayed focus from the actual aim of the project, ineffectiveness of key committees because of changing personnel and temporary absences, and a lack of focus and concrete commitment/participation near the top, despite expressions of support. One additional factor might be the lack of a designated person in each institution to drive the issues up and down within each respective system.

Overall, the project has now matured to the point where real decisions need to be made about progress and governance, and a budget needs to be allocated to the work. I've been asked to continue by both institutions, but I need to see some real work on infrastructure in order to proceed properly. There would need to be one person in each institution who can make things happen. There would need to be a real budget to hire people as required to help out with specific tasks. There would need to be a strong decision-making body that can clarify the vision, begin to set policies, support the lead (me) and monitor progress.

What's been very effective is the use of grass-roots (emerging) projects to push the concepts. By doing the work as IF the larger vision already existed, people have been able to see what's possible. It makes the conceptual concrete. But the "concrete" is of course piecemeal until the larger infrastructure is put into place. That means that the institutions now need to commit before I show more grassroots initiatives.

Grinding Machinery

This blog will try to capture the ingredients of the current situation for a future case study.

There are now two concurrent tracks of activity. The first scurry of activity is related to a resolution of power dynamics which are affecting and hampering progress, and the second is related to program development which continues throughout the resolution of the power dynamics. The weaker of the two main players needs and wants the program to go forward; certain layers within the stronger player don't want it to go forward.

In effect, the forces that collided a few weeks ago (change agents and resisters/potential usurpers) have now been exposed to each other, and there is now an attempt to move forward with and despite each other. Ie., the power dynamics have not been resolved but the work on the program itself must continue because of other timelines. Subversive activities have started in an attempt to try and get the work done despite the dynamics. The hope is that the power dynamics will be resolved before the program needs to be marketed. Can this go well? Instead of finding a compromise, it's becoming a fight.

The problems arose in part because the timelines of secondary activities (publication deadlines of annual materials) necessitated decisions which seemed reasonable at the time, not knowing that the power dynamics would arise. A judgement call was made on how to honestly advertise an as-yet unapproved program. The risk was that NOT including it would limit marketing exposure.

Resistance became evident in the editing done to the information submitted for the promotional materials. The resistance was extremely confusing, as it seemed disconnected from the purpose of the project and because it came from a department that had nothing to do with the program (or so we thought). In retrospect, the resistance seems like it was an attempt to steer the power over the project towards a particular smaller player. It's unclear at this point whether this would have been a "push" to get something away from one department or a "pull" to get it towards the smaller player to make that player bigger. If the changes to the promotional text hadn't been discovered, it would have looked to the public as if the programming already belonged to the smaller player. Yup, just like in a sandbox.

It seems that one person is ultimately behind both the wiley change to the promotional materials and the other blockages to progress. This person has formal power equivalent to the person formally in charge of this project, but he ... the "power-hungry interloper" from the last entry ... comes from a very particular, closed, traditionally academic mind-set that has in fact stymied all sorts of program development throughout the one institution. His mind-set , however, contradicts his boss's, and it is his boss who has set the overall direction for the project. In other words, the interloper is refusing to do what his boss has said needs to happen, despite the fact that his boss is The Big Boss. The difficulty lies in the Big Boss not being respected by the Interloper, who is in charge of all the people who run various kinds of programs, and so THAT power struggle is being played out (probably among other things) on this new program. In the past, small programs simply died on his desk. This time, because an external stakeholder is involved, the Interloper cannot control the program development in the same way.

The difficulty comes from the fact that someone who supports the Interloper is on the advisory committee for this particular project. Ie., an insider actually supports "the other side". A sub committee has now been formed without the problematic Spy to figure out how to strengthen access to the Big Boss to allow the project to move forward. In the meantime, the Interloper and the Spy have requested a meeting with the Smaller Player - likely to see if THEY can swing some kind of side deal that excludes the other equally-powered smaller boss who is carrying out the wishes of the Big Boss. Got that?

The program development steps seem downright boring in comparison, don't they? Stay tuned ...

Rocks in the machinery

Ah, this will make for a fine lesson or case study some day. So, here I am, 7 months into the contract (or three months from its end, depending on how you calculate it), and I've just experienced something brand new: an intense political struggle over who will own the program I'm about to develop. The woman who hired me has quit over the struggle; the decision-makeer who started the contract abdicated to the new person who's forced himself into the equation, and the other women who's on my committee has openly shown that SHE wants to do the program development for which I've already been hired. In essence, the Steering Committee has now imploded, and a power-hungry interloper has taken over, although he's had nothing to do with the project until now. I'm going to call it the "13th Fairy" case study, after the 13th fairy who was not invited to Sleeping Beauty's christening, and therefore casts the evil spell. This stakeholder was avoided in the past because of his dreadful manner, but now he's the one putting a stick in the spokes. I guess I have a hundred years to wait until this project wakes up again! :)

Sand in the Machinery

Inevitably, sand gets into the machinery, and everything grinds a little more! Cervero and Wilson's readings on power are always at the forefront now, as we try to manoeuver the project through the gauntlet of competing interests at various levels of both institutions.

As I explained to someone recently, this is the stage of the project where vision meets reality. The vision was created by a group of people sitting in an office who had a "great idea", but were unfamiliar enough with the details of program planning that they didn't do certain kinds of necessary people prep, that strategic smoothing of the waves that can be done ahead of time to ensure the key stakeholders are on the same page. Nor did they allocate enough resources, as is so common.

So, it's "after the fact" planning, a kind of reactive working process that results in fits and starts in progress. The project is definitely moving forward, and the right people are being brought on board as necessary, but instead of being a gentle forward rolling motion, it's like stop signs on a race track: hurry up, screech to a halt, hurry up, screech ... people get anxious or upset, and THEN the necessary prep work gets done, instead of foreseeing some of the issues. Of course, some of the snags we've hit are the result of intentional exclusion by someone at some level, perhaps because they're power hungry or difficult to work with. This is where program planning becomes completely unpredictable and "manageable". This is where the power dynamics come in. You CAN only react and respond and solve the problems as they emerge (hence the idea of emergent program planning). Ie. there sometimes there is no planning, only responding.

What it means for the program planner is that the diplomatic function of the job comes out. The planner needs to connect people, build bridges, negotiate politics, feed information back and forth to make the end result happen, even when those elements wouldn't be able to connect on their own. in effect, it's the planner's job to remind everyone of the larger purpose, the development of the program, which presumably addresses a particular learning need.

I'm thankful I have such a great steering committee. The right people are on that committee, for sure. Only one person adds a competitive tone that's counter productive at times, but that seems to be managed reasonably well by the group as a whole. Likewise, her staff are fearful of losing something, and can't see the project as an opportunity to gain, when it really is a complete win-win program in the long term. That will require a better understanding of their history as a unit, and perhaps a better understanding of the individual psychologies that are reacting with fear instead of excitement.

In the meantime, the one person who completely trusts my work and is able to get things moving is the absolute magic ingredient in this. She and I work together extremely well, even though we're so different in working style and approach. Without her on this committee, my work would be difficult and at times impossible. She serves the function of a constant ice-breaker, moving ahead of me, clearing the way, getting funds, affirming the vision, aligning the power players so that I can just do my work and feed her the information she needs to make her part happen.

In a few days, I'll know whether we're going big or going home. It'll depend a lot on her meetings with her contacts. If we go big, we'll be launching into industry focus groups and developing a fascinating new program that will be the first of its kind in Canada. We'll see which way it goes.

Nothing Stays the Same Except for the Change!

A little more than a month since the last entry, and we're moving into the macro again. That's not to say that the micro has ended by any means. In fact, the micro is slowing us down at times: room bookings, finding instructors, deciding whether a C+ starts at 69% or 70%, figuring out which logos will go on which documents. Summer holidays have really been a detriment to steady progress, because not only have people been away, but decision-making has slowed ever ofr the people who were around. The first snap of cool air will remedy that, I suspect!

Yesterday, however, an interesting thing happened. The impact of organizational issues finally made itself known on the project level. One of the institutions is going through a major restructuring following a change at the helm. For a few weeks, change has been in the air, but nothing was finalized. Now, people have been formally moved into new positions and responsibilities, with a gradual shifting to occur from the old to the new. There's a fair bit of confusion about who will be doing what, as the idea is to let it "emerge". As a result, the working teams for the project have all been either disrupted or at least impacted.

My instinct tells me that this is not a good time to be pushing a major collaboration. The other, larger institution is a driving force, but the smaller one is critical to the collaboration. Once the dust settles, and new programs begin to get developed, they can incorporate new visions, but at the moment everyone is focused on their jobs, their colleagues, and trying to get their heads around their new jobs. More importantly, the smaller institution has not included any resources for the partnership in the next budget year, limiting its potential for involvement.

As a result, I think the best thing is to down-scale the expectations for the next few months. rather than coming up with a far-reaching system, I'm going to focus just on the most immediate tasks. That means that solutions to problems will be shorter-lasting, but more fitting to the immediate situation. For example, we don't need to have the grading rubrics from three faculties match up (which would be needed for a sustained initiative); we'll just match them up between whichever two most need to articulate courses at the moment.

It will be much easier, but it's disappointing because the lack of a larger vision and the associated lack of planning to leverage the necessary resources will reduce the quality of the initiative and make it much more difficult to move forward. I've experienced this a number of times: someone near the top of an institution has a great idea, but underestimates the working process, time and resources required. As a result, the vision cannot be fully carried out.

The solution: for every great idea, there needs to be a four to five month incubation period until the full depth of the project is known. I suspect this is a critical point in emergent program planning, when vision meets reality. At that point, a review of resources needs to be made, and the scope and depth of the project needs to be re-visited. Like the market "corrections" we're going through right now, there needs to be a "project correction", so that outcomes are again realistic and achievable.

In the months ahead, we'll be launching a number of partnership courses, and getting started on the planning of the new diploma programs. We'll be taking the planning process right down to the program level, instead of working at the much larger partnership level. It seems as if the project now has three elements: developing and sustaining the partnership systems (marketing, financial, administrative), launching individual courses (articulations, course outlines, teacher exchanges, logistics) and developing diploma programs.

The Nitty-Gritty Begins

We're moving from concepts into details now, and these details are affecting the concept. It's the cycle from the micro to the macro and back again. Room booking, registration processes, financial processes ... all of these must now be addressed, because we're moving into the launch of the first partnership program this fall. Because it's the first one, it will serve as the precedent-setter for a number of things. As such, the discussions are time-consuming and somewhat stressful. Both institutions are having to inspect and perhaps change what they're been doing for years (decades) in order for the partnership to thrive.

Communication is critical in everything. I've now formed a few cross-institutional committees in the hopes that information will flow more easily from place to place. Again, this feels like the macro connecting to the micro. The "doers" need to check in with the "deciders", and without trust and good communications we'd be hooped. Inevitably someone gets forgotten, and so we need to backtrack, inform and re-shape committees and lines of communication. The interpersonal politics are also making themselves felt now ... who wants to work with whom (or not).

At the same time, I'm having to keep the high-end decision-makers well-informed. They're the people that only need to come together every month or two to decide on the broad sweep of things. The upcoming meeting will be a really good check-in to make sure things are progressing as planned.

And things are going very well, in my estimation. We have three smaller partnerships programs and two large and exciting partnership programs being launched. The two bigger ones will take about a year to develop, but they'll be great to work on. The smaller programs are great opportunities for other areas who are more hesitant to experiment a little before committing to something significant.

End of Term, and a Breather

I've now been working on this project for 2-1/2 months now, and it's time for a review of realizations:

- In complex planning projects, so many things happen at once that linear and circular models of program planning are gross oversimplifications. My image of emerging, merging and transforming elements that happen in vague stages is far more accurate than I thought. It's about juggling any number of different balls at once, with different balls being dropped and/or added in at any given time. You may start with four of the same size and colour, but in no time you are given six more of varying sizes and colours, and you need to decide what to hang onto and what you can't. The skill and background of the planner clearly makes a difference in how many balls can stay in the air at a given time. But how can you build a model on that reality?

- Communication between stakeholders is absolutely the most important thing. You almost cannot communicate enough, because someone is bound to assume something and in no time you have the "assuming makes an ASS out of U and ME" situation.

- People outside the planning process have no idea what's involved, and so they consistently underestimate what it will take to launch a program, especially a complex one with multiple stakeholders, multiple programs, etc. The people who launch the idea in the first place also underestimate the need for their own involvement in the early stages. They have an idea, and like the conception and birth, but expect the idea to get a paper route right away.

Lest this sound like complaints, I have to say that I am loving this very challenging project, and things are going remarkably well. However, I'm aware that a less experienced program planner would be sunk in this situation. And I'm aware that someone following a simple program planning model would be side-swiped by the unpredictability of various stages and events.

I've now done the following:

- researched the big picture (environmental scan)

- interviewed most major stakeholders and gotten a sense of expectations

- mapped out a few processes

- started and met with three joint sub-committees

- identified six viable program areas

- gotten into the logistics and nitty-gritty of launching four courses

- done a DACUM brainstorming sessions with one program

- had meetings upon meetings upon meetings to keep everyone informed and engaged

- done tons of diplomacy work with the scared and/or overworked

- developed a program outline

- started to look down the road at formalities like COPSE funding grants, etc.

Thanks goodness for summer holidays. It'll slow down a little.