How to make an organisational map?

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• Make an organisational chart
• Develop representative data for risks
• Cognitive map making

Loosen up that brain tissue by adding human and cultural dimensions.

Make an organisational chart

Loosen up that brain tissue by adding human and cultural dimensions.

Build an organisational map together with a star, or from the perspective of a star, like a customer. A star is one of the workshop participants acting as “the main character”.

Position the star on a piece of paper, locate and position others who are significant according to their relationships with each other and the star. Ask which colours are to be used when. Name everybody on the map (aliases and pseudonyms allowed). Add symbols and little drawings for significant things mentioned, three adjectives for each person (at least one negative and one positive) and key phrases that seem to float in the air for this organisation or role. Check (with star) for completeness and ask for and add a title up top.

Develop representative data for risks

Develop representative data for identified risks by conceptualising and selecting attributes for measuring actual and goal-states. These attributes come in three categories:

• Attributes hypothesized to cause changes in actual states moving them toward or away from business goal states
• Attributes describing possible unintended side effects of actions activating causal attributes
• Other resulting attributes important for description

Some are measurable attributes, but many of these attributes will be interpretations, not defined by, but computable from measurables.

With the developed set of attributes we can develop diagrams of effects, also known as causal loop diagrams. We gather data or perform direct assessments to measure attributes that can be derived from measured data or that have no data. These are gathered from documents, surveys, or direct observation to arrive at a description of the actual state.

Cognitive map making

Identify potential interventions by selecting abstract attributes that are the focus of diagramming as target attributes for effects modeling. Group these into:

• Exogenous attributes, being at cause of while not being caused by any other attributes in the diagram
• Mutually Endogenous attributes, having effects on others and not being affected by attributes they have an effect on
• Endogenous attributes, affected by other attributes and only affecting other attributes without being affected by those same attributes

And brainstorm hypotheses expressing values of attributes as functions of each other, and more, in value stream mapping, and translate results.

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