Their work is about helping organizations problem-solve. They bring analysis on so many levels: individual, programmatic, organizational, and system-wide.
— Val Sheehan, former Organizational Development Program Manager, Center for Civic Partnerships
We function as learning partner and co-creator. We engage clients in dialogue to create a structure, process, and tools that support their decision making and integrates with other responsibilities and ongoing work.
This starts with an assessment of the client’s situation and often stage of organizational development. We create a safe space where clients can reflect on the challenges and issues facing the organization and explore assumptions and expectations.
Then together we set realistic objectives and determine a plan for the project, adapting our process of evaluative inquiry (EI) to each client’s situation. This model supports the framing and focusing of the engagement so that our collective data collection and analysis efforts (be they about strategy or evaluation) are designed to answer a set of strategic questions, the answers to which inform decisions about what next with regard to program, operations, organizational culture, sustainability.
We collaboratively design each process so that clients internalize it and make it their own, ensuring the client’s learning and development process continues after our engagement ends.
We draw on a wide array of frameworks and tools to ground and support work with our client partners. We incorporate and modify methods from group theory and development, communications, network analysis, leadership development, adult learning, data visualization and systems theory, among others. Our collaborative process draws heavily on each client’s knowledge, expertise and experience.
The tools we use include:
