Projects
These are summaries of some selected projects I've worked on over the years.
- A project for a pharmaceutical firm examined stories told by patients and doctors about medical care to examine issues related to control, decision making, information flow, trust, authority, and intent. Consideration of these patterns helped to identify opportunities for improving services to all affected groups.
- In a project on shoplifting for a police agency, some critical assumptions about criminal activity were tested and proved to be ill-founded, and some unexpected patterns of amateur and professional theft were identified. The client was able to use the results to come up with targeted preventative actions which might prove fruitful in disrupting the patterns observed.
- A project for a government education agency examined student and teacher attitudes toward learning in schools. Patterns were found that showed how certain beliefs among teachers about the causes underlying student difficulties damaged student confidence and learning ability and could be improved with training.
- A project for a large electronics firm helped senior leaders evaluate their leadership style and practices. Exposure to anonymously collected stories about corporate executives (including themselves) in the context of facilitated sensemaking sessions helped leaders to challenge their deeply held beliefs about what makes an effective leader as well as about their own behaviour and the perceptions of others around them.
- A project for a research institute examined the experiences and beliefs of people involved in large construction projects (on all sides, from planning to building to activism against). Patterns of intent, power, risk, vision, social benefit, and other factors revealed opportunities and risks involved in such projects and helped the client present conclusions about guidelines for planning such projects in future.
- A project for an environmental agency examined stories related to the future of forestry and looked at issues such as roles, responsibilities and collaboration in relation to future risks, threats and opportunities. The patterns that emerged were used by the client to consider plans for improving planning for future issues.
- A project for a pharmaceutical firm examined the case of a product used improperly and dangerously by uninformed customers. Patterns, beliefs and attitudes (of various groups) underlying such uses were examined, and opportunities to resolve the problem were discussed.
- A project for an environmental agency looked at the exchange of information between scientists and decision makers in government policy making. Barriers to effective communication related to culture, beliefs, time constraints, education, urban/rural differences, technology and other factors were considered in order to find opportunities for intervention.
- A project for a museum asked visitors to describe their experiences at the museum, including how the visit impacted their understanding of history and led them to re-evaluate their own beliefs and perspectives. Responses were examined to improve museum exhibits.
- A project for a consortium of government agencies and non-profits looked for ways in which organisations could improve how they solicit and work with volunteers to provide the most benefit to all parties involved. Patterns were found in how people perceived their volunteering experiences, and this helped the group to recommend ways organisations could think about how best to work with varying volunteers based on why they were volunteering, how long they had been volunteering, their age, and so on.
- A project for a government agency concerned with the use of information technology examined beliefs about utility, safety, equitability and trust concerning the future of information technology in the general public. The project revealed contradictory beliefs about the future of technology (needed but not helpful, both more and less productive), which helped the agency understand the challenges and opportunities in their work to help businesses and citizens use technology efficiently in the future.