Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Most Significant Change - Reflections

Shawn posts an excellent piece on the importance of story selection in Most Significant Change. One issue with MSC is that people focus on the stories only whereas MSC is properly understood as a narrative-based management technique - it's what you do with the stories that counts. MSC is used to monitor existing activities as well as evaluate completed ones. The selection process allows those involved to discuss the project using tangible examples rather than abstractions.

The third part of the process that is critical is feeding back the results to those on the ground: the story that was selected and more importantly the reasons why it was selected. Without that, they get no insight into the outcomes that are valued by sponsors & senior management and therefore little benefit from the exercise in terms of guidance or changed practice. This is especially important if MSC is being used for on-going monitoring purposes. Much of the writing I have seen on MSC indicates that it is best done as an iterative activity.

If the stories do not generate conversations throughout the organisation then the MSC activity will probably be counterproductive. It will be a mechanistic exercise in justification rather than a powerful management tool.

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