The Level Five Approach: Systems Thinking
July 16, 2009
As part of the current project we are working on with the Department of Defense, I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Ruth David last week. Dr. David was the former CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology from 1995 to 1998. She is now the president and chief executive officer of ANSER, an independent, not-for-profit, public service research institution that provides research and analytic support on national and trans-national issues.
Towards the end of the meeting, we started talking about tools and systems that are used to break down overwhelmingly complex problems. Causal loop diagrams and systemigrams were a couple of examples of the possible approaches when trying to understand the relationships between objects within a process.
What I found interesting was the fact that these approaches were very technical in nature and ultimately were a systems approach to thinking about process and communication issues. This type of systems thinking is something that the ANSER promotes through their ASysT Institute. This approach also resonates with Level Five because it is the same way we approach problems.
At our core, Level Five is a of group problem-solvers. We joke that we almost like problems more than we like clients. Creating an elegant solution to a problem is extremely rewarding for us, and we solve these problems through the use of technology. Level Five was founded in the software development field. Specifically, we develop software that has extremely high levels of rigor and quality to its functionality.
Since we focus so much on technology and a systems approach to development, it’s only natural that we apply that same approach to other types of problems — like communication or business processes.
Every one of our clients has communication and process problems. Often they attempt to solve these problems by implementing tools that promise to fix the issues, but they fail to understand the underlying problem. If you are experiencing pain and frustration trying to resolve communication and business process problems, it’s because you are not looking at the bigger picture.
At the end of the day, it’s most often a people problem. It is rarely a technology or tool problem. Understanding the end-to-end scope is absolutely necessary to fix the issue. What we have found at Level Five is that the level of detail, scope and understanding that is inherent in a systems approach to problem-solving provides a more effective path to success.
Components of Web Governance
July 2, 2009
One of the recurring themes we see across all our clients is the issue of managing the creation, distribution and implementation of assets throughout the entire web lifecycle.
The majority of the time, the “web group” is the one that carries the banner for being successful since the website has the most visibility to everyone in the organization. If the product mini-site didn’t launch on time, it’s glaringly obvious to everyone. And unfortunately, it’s easiest to point fingers at the web group for dropping the ball.
However, what we commonly find is that the problem lies much farther up stream. There a number of groups involved in any website implementation (i.e., product management, marketing, brand, legal, etc.) It’s just that the web group is in charge of putting it all together at the end and launching it at the last minute crossing their fingers that everything is correct and approved and on time.
In essence, all these groups tend to perform their role independent of each other and only collaborate when necessary to move to the next stage. In order to promote collaboration and transparency throughout all the various groups, we have developed a governance model that creates a framework for successfully managing the entire web lifecycle.
The goal is to gain visibility to all activity no matter the current status in an effort to proactively prepare ahead of time to eliminate the last minute scramble that so many web groups deal with on a daily basis.
There are three primary components to Level Five’s web governance model: people, process, and standards. These components are dependent on each other, and a successful model fully integrates all of them.
People:
Organizational structure of resources that have defined roles and responsibilities
It is the responsibility of the organization to make decisions regarding all levels of process and standards within the web governance model. A successful web governance model depends on roles and responsibilities being defined in order to ensure accountability.
Process:
Organizational methods and tactics for the creation, communication, and development of new web properties
The web governance process is the workflow of how web deliverables move through the organization from concept to implementation. The scope of the process must include all stages of the web lifecycle and must represent all parts of the organization.
Standards:
Creative and development guidelines for executing web deliverables
Brand guidelines, design style guides, and code standards are all part of web governance standards. Standards also help define the technology methods that are necessary to effectively execute the web governance process.
Learn more about Level Five’s web governance model
Phil
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Greg Stickley
