Donna Colombo
Consulting
Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
Case Study
Nov 18-20, 2008
Client:
Cisco Systems, Inc., Worldwide Sales Enablement, Sales Force
Development, Learning Development Team, a newly formed team that formerly
operated as three separate organizations.
Teamwork, Communication
& Collaboration: Doing More with Less
When three
learning development groups were combined to form the Learning Development Team,
employees were confused about their roles, responsibilities and the identity of
the new group. At the same time, the
Company was facing broad sweeping budget and resource reductions causing some
fear that some jobs could be eliminated.
The
leadership team envisioned the new team coming together to develop a sense of We, develop
a shared vision for the new organization, develop ways to increase
communication and collaboration within the team as well as cross- functionally,
and to identify ways to achieve their goals with fewer resources. Due to the budget cuts to non-customer facing
travel, it was not possible to bring the entire team together in one
place.
The
leadership team met with the consultant in two separate two-hour meetings to
learn about AI and brainstorm topics for a “Virtual All Hands” Team meeting to
accomplish this vision.
Prior to the
Virtual All Hands, paired interviews were conducted to begin the team building
process, gather stories about each other and their experiences working at
Cisco, and collect data to be used in the inquiry.
As a kick off
for the three-day meeting, pairs introduced each other to the whole group
sharing stories from the interviews. Through the sharing of these stories, the
team collectively made meaning of the data, identified learnings about the
organization’s positive core and the conditions necessary to support moments of
high performance. Themes were identified
as a next step in creating a shared image of their preferred future in the new
team.
Through the
AI process, teams discovered what they do well, dreamed about what could be,
designed what would be using opportunities for “Doing More with Less”; and created
innovative ways to deliver the future.
Impact / Results:
Teamwork, Collaboration
& Communication:
Honoring team
commitments to work individually and “holistically” to communicate and to collaborate,
the team adopted WebEx Connect as a tool to communicate with each other about
their projects, share ideas and best practices, and documents. The WebEx Connect
space was set up and team members were invited to join the space by the last day
of the Virtual All Hands.
Doing More
with Less:
Facing broad
sweeping budget cuts during the economic down turn, the team made a conscious
effort to find opportunities to do things differently without sacrificing
quality. In process today:
- Use of internal talent for voice and
video recording
- Peer reviews for technical
editing
- Reduction in development time
through reuse of flash animations and media assets
Becoming an Appreciative Team:
The team meets
virtually on a monthly basis to review progress and share stories of success.
Donna Colombo Consulting
1547 Palos Verdes Mall #329
Walnut Creek, CA 94597
Phone: (925) 212-2383
Email: donna@donnacolombo.com
Content copyright 2009. Donna Colombo. All rights reserved.