Work Culture Transformation Pamphlet
About the Authors
Ken Megill transforms organizations, business and people (http://www.nav.to/kenmegill)
He is the staff lead for the Work Culture Transformation Board and coordinated the Air Force Integrated Digital Environment Project.
Herb Schantz is an internationally acclaimed expert in data capture, document and knowledge management systems. He is the president of HLS Associates, International a professional consulting practice dedicated to these disciplines.
Transforming the Work
Culture of the United States Air Force
A Recommendation Prepared by
Dr. Kenneth A. Megill
Staff Lead
and
Herbert F. Schantz PE,ICP,CDP,CDM
Deputy Staff Lead
Work Culture Transformation Board
Anteon Corporation
For
Blaise Durante
Chairman
Work Culture Transformation Board
June 7, 2001
Haw was beginning to realize the difference
between activity and production.
Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese? p. 42
Terms and Definitions
Work: Production (not activity).
Work Culture: The environment in which Work is done¼the attitudes, beliefs and presuppositions that we have about how we do our Work.
Work Culture Transformation: A qualitative change in the way Work is done as evidenced by observed changes in behavior - in this case, from an information hoarding to an information-sharing environment.
Workflow: The sequence of tasks, or necessary steps, that comprise a business process. Two groups may perform the same Work, but use an entirely different work processes or workflow. Optimizing workflow removes non-value-added tasks from the work process in order to improve productivity.
Integrated Digital Environment: A digital work environment in which there is immediate access to information needed to conduct business (do work). Such an environment requires an information-sharing work culture, digital tools, connectivity, and a corporate memory.
Knowledge Management: A methodology for making comprehensive, relevant information (current or historical) available in a timely manner for users (knowledge workers) to make timely valid decisions that increase the productivity of a business application (where a business application is a set of work processes).
Table of Contents:
Recommendation
Background
The Environment
.
. 9
Work in Progress
..
10
The Air Force Work Culture
.. 11
Values in an Integrated Digital
.. 12
Changing
Leadership from Above
..
. 13
Change Comes from Below
..
. 14
One Leader's Approach to Change
... 15
Methodology
Communities
.
16
Business Architecture at the AF Level
.
17
Business Architecture for Acquistions and Sustainment
.. 18
Information Domains
19
The Unit to Transform Work
. 20
The Six Steps
.
. 21
Marshalling Knowledge
22
Aligning Policy and Practice
..
23
Examples
Depot Maintenance at Warner-Robins
. 24
ESC
.
25
Work Culture Transformation Board
An Information strategy
.
26
A Road Map
.. 27
Recommendation
That the Air Force undertake a corporate effort to transform its work culture.
This effort should be in coordination with and parallel to the newly revitalized Chief Information Office of the Air Force.
This effort should enable the Air Force to take full advantage of the e-revolution.
The effort should replace the existing information-hoarding work culture (based on an industrial model of work) with an information-sharing culture that takes advantage of the potential of an integrated digital environment.
This effort should be managed in a manner similar to the development of a major weapon's system and be championed by a senior executive.
Background: The Environment
The current administration says that fundamental transformation in the way work is done is coming. In his confirmation hearings, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld emphasized that The legacy of obsolete institutional structures and processes and organizations does not merely create unnecessary cost¼We are in a sense disarming or 'underarming' by our failure to reform the acquisition process and to shed unneeded organization and facilities.
A new leadership team is being put into place to carry out the transformation in work process.
On 13 October 2000, Dr. Lawrence J. Delaney, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Washington, D.C. established a Work Culture Transformation Board for the Air Force acquisition and sustainment community: This board will enable us to make use of the knowledge and experience gained by the Air Force integrated digital project as applied to the acquisition and sustainment community. Comprised of leaders from each of our product centers and air logistic centers, the Board will function in a manner similar to that of a private foundation.
On June 1, 2001, Mr. Terry Balven, Operating Director of the Work Culture Transformation Board, requested a recommendation for a work culture transformation effort for the Air Force as a whole based on the work and experience of the Air Force Integrated Digital Environment Project and the Work Culture Transformation Board. This recommendation proposes how the Air Force might proceed to change the way it does its Work.
Background: Work in Progress
Much work and reorganization is already underway to optimize the technical (cyber) environment of the Air Force. The establishment of the AF CIO office brings new focus and coordination to this effort.
Developing the infrastructure¼the public utilities¼for the new work culture is one necessary condition.
Transforming the work culture is the other.
Transforming the work culture goes beyond improving business processes.
It requires understanding the Work of the enterprise, its communities and the domains of the communities.
It also requires a technical infrastructure that makes connectivity ubiquitous.
This infrastructure, combined with work culture transformation, enables the benefits of the e-revolution to be realized.
There are many examples of successful cultural change in the Air Force. Of the most important tasks of the proposed Air Force-wide effort is to unleash the creative power of staff and organizations and spread them throughout the Air Force.
Background: The Air Force Work Culture
The existing Work culture of the Air Force was forged in the Industrial Age. Then industrial work was done in massive units¼tasks were divided, organized, supervised and carried out. Work was done by isolated individuals and organized and controlled by top-down management structures.
The current e-revolution enables a more productive approach and requires a new digital work culture.
In such a work culture:
Information sharing replaces information hoarding.
Horizontal relationships become more important than vertical relationships.
Every staff member - regardless of rank or position - knows the health of the fleet and the impact of his or her Work on it.
Cooperation and collaboration are essential for success in the Knowledge Age.
Marshalling
Background: Values in an Integrated Digital Environment
The characteristics of the work culture of an integrated digital environment are:
Trust
In a trusting work relationship work is done in a transparent work environment. The manager trusts that the information used by the subordinate (which is available to the manager at all times) is the latest and most accurate available. The subordinate trusts that his/her data/information are accepted as authoritative.
Cooperation
Immediate access to information needed to do Work requires cooperative relationships in which each person with a need to know has access to another's work without the owner having to post his/her work and without the seeker gaining access via special permissions.
Preservation of and Access to Essential Evidence
A corporate memory system preserves the evidence created in doing Work so that it can be re-used by others.
Developed by Dr. Evie Lotze, Ph.D., a psychologist on the staff of the Work Culture Transformation Board.
Changing: Leadership from Above
The experience of business and government shows that transforming a work culture requires supportive and fully committed leadership from above.
It requires the leadership, from the very top, to adopt new ways to do Work and to demand the same from those responsible to them.
It requires commitment by those in charge to make the change happen.
But commitment is not enough¼someone must be responsible for making the transformation.
In the Air Force, that person should be a senior executive dedicated to championing the transformation in work culture.
This person should have the full authority of the Air Force.
He or she must be
a champion ¼not a director
a leader ¼not a manager.
an example..not a demagog
Leadership enables change. People change.
Changing: Change Comes from Below
Although leadership is required to create an environment for work culture transformation, the change itself happens where Work is done.
Cultural change cannot be dictated. It must be made attractive.
Work culture changes as new assumptions develop about how work is done. As people cooperate and shed industrial ways of acting, they focus on the business and the Work rather than the activities they perform.
You will need thousands of projects to transform the work culture of the Air Force.
These cannot be managed from above¼not only because it is too big a task, but also because it will fail.
People change.
You cannot make them change.
You can enable them to change.
You can motivate them to change.
Changing: One Leadership Approach to Change
First, the leaders must be publicly and energetically committed to the envisioned change.
Second, the leaders must be eloquent. They must construct and convey a clear and appealing vision.
Third, the leaders must be positive. They must describe the change in such a way that the members will perceive that the journey through the change process will be exciting and even fun.
Fourth, they must provide a blueprint for the change. The leaders must define the path to change as well as leading the charge down its winding route.
Fifth, the leaders must demonstrate that this devotion to change is based on their own personal initiative.
Sixth, they should enlist the aid of either formal or informal leaders within the organization who share their commitment, vision, and enthusiasm.
Seventh, they must devote resources to the effort to achieve the change.
Eighth, they must establish accountability. The leaders must assign tasks to the members of the organization in accordance with the blueprint they have designed, and must hold those members accountable for completing those tasks.
And ninth, they must model the changes in their individual behavior.
(Written by Colonel Andy Nodine, one of the leaders in the Integrated Digital Environment Project)
Methodology: Communities
Change in work culture takes place within and through communities. Communities are places connected by life and work. Communities are a group of people who work for a common purpose. They may be within an organization or live and work across organizational boundaries. Communities are not restricted to a geographical area.
For example, the space community is recognized organizationally. Other communities, such as electrical engineers, earned value specialists, or acquisition professionals are not. The members of a community share thoughts, ideas and interests.
An individual knowledge worker is part of multiple communities.
In a digital world, communities of work are defined by the information they use to produce knowledge - which becomes information for others to do their work.
Work communities and their work processes need to be identified (defined) in the context of a business architecture. The selection of the appropriate business architecture is a business decision.
We can draw the picture that helps us understand the whole enterprise in many ways. Which vision of the work of the Air Force we hold is not as important as the fact that we hold a shared vision. That vision guides the transformation.
Methodology: Business Architecture at the Air Force Level
The Air Force CIO proposal for AF transformation uses the following construct to organize strategic thinking: Mission: Air Combat, Air Mobility, Space and Missiles, and Training.
These missions intersect with functions such as: Command and Control, Personnel, Finance, Maintenance/Repair, Acquisition/Procurement, Installations and Support.
This portrayal is a work in progress¼and, we believe, will remain a work in progress. What is important is that transformation be done with an understanding of the larger context in which it takes place.
Opportunities for transformation can be identified within this framework.
Appropriate leadership of transformation efforts can be assigned and recognized by using this framework.
The construct recognizes that there are interactions between and among missions and between and among functions.
Methodology: Business Architecture for Acquisition and Sustainment
The Work Culture Transformation Board has recognized the need for a business architecture if they are to successfully transform the work culture.
There have been many efforts, over the years, to identify the core processes of the acquisition and sustainment community.
One such example of the core processes of the community was developed by AFMC in 1994:
Explore
Provide
Support
In addition, the model identified strategic and enabling processes necessary to carry out the core processes.
An alternative view was developed by the Integrated Digital Environment Project in 1998 that attempts to relate (within the acquisition and sustainment community) functions, business areas and corporate activities portrayed as a cube.
Methodology: Information Domains
In a digital world where communities of work are defined by the information they use to produce knowledge, each community can have many information domains.
An information domain is a body of work-related knowledge or information.
Domains are determined by information needed to do Work and knowledge produced in doing that Work (which is information for others).
In order to transform its work culture each community needs to identify its information domains. For example, the acquisition and sustainment Community, through its Work Culture Transformation Board, identified the following core business activities in its community:
Science and Technology
Product Development
Test and Evaluation
Product Sustainment
Depot Maintenance
Supply Chain
There are information domains associated with each of these core business activities which intersect and overlap and relate to several communities.
Methodology: Related Business Applications --The Unit for Work Culture Transformation
A business application is a set of closely related business activities. (Some think that an application is a COTS software package. That is a different, and often confusing, way to use the term.)
An individual application might be the focus for business improvement. However, a transformation of a work culture requires the transformation of a set of applications.
A set of business activities (an application) may be contained primarily within a particular organizational unit. But business applications, by their very nature go beyond organizational units. They reach out and touch other communities. Finding the links¼the seams¼is one of the most important parts of the work of the Work Culture Transformation Board.
A set of business applications to be changed should be large enough to be significant, but small enough to be manageable.
Transforming a work process means making the information needed to do that work accessible and making the products of that work (knowledge) available as information to others.
Methodology: The Six Steps
The following six steps to change a business application are not necessarily done in order. However, each one of them must be done in order to successfully transform a work culture.
Step I: Determine the Work (the sets of business activities that make up that Work)
Step II: Identify what information is needed to do that Work. (Information is organized data -- which may be contained in documents, databases, reports, or someone's head.)
Step III: Identify what knowledge is created in the Work (Knowledge is the answer to a question such as: Is it a good idea to do x).
Step IV: Make the information you need to do your Work immediately accessible. (This requires developing relationships with those who have that information.)
Step V: Make the knowledge created (which is information for others) accessible to those who need it for their Work. (This requires reaching out to your customers -- those who depend on your Work.)
Step VI: Change the way Work is done. (Change is qualitative. Once information is accessible new, collaborative ways to do that Work become apparent.)
Methodology: Marshalling Knowledge
Knowledge is the primary product in effecting the business of the Air Force in the web-centric integrated digital environment.
Knowledge marshalling is akin to knowledge management¼with the added dimension of organizing knowledge for a purpose or aim.
Creating a knowledge marshalling capability is essential for the Air Force to transform its work culture so that it can take full advantage of the benefits of the e-revolution.
The Air Force is experienced in marshalling and mobilizing resources¼it needs to apply this experience to marshalling knowledge.
This knowledge marshalling capability needs to become ubiquitous in the Air Force. It requires leadership and example at the highest levels to build this new capability.
Methodology: Aligning Policy and Practice
For the past twenty years the federal government has been moving toward an information policy designed to implement the e-revolution.
The Defense Department, under the leadership of Paul Strassmann ( http://www.strassmann.com) at the end of the 80's and beginning of the 90's, set the basic policy that is still in place:
Information should be managed from a corporate point of view as a corporate asset.
Information should be used to improve the productivity of the business by transforming Work and the way work is done.
Integration at all levels and in all activities is the key to success.
The technology now makes it possible to align practice with the policy.
The alignment of practice is a transformation of the work culture and requires leadership from above to establish an environment that encourages changes in practice. Risk taking is not only allowed, but also actively encouraged, fostered, and rewarded.
An Example of Change: Depot Maintenance at Warner-Robins
The Warner-Robins Air Logistics Center successfully competed to be one of the surviving ALCs in the round of base closures in the 1990's.
In order to compete successfully, they needed to fundamentally transform the Work of Depot Maintenance. The leadership for this transformation effort was centered in an organization, reporting directly to the commander, to re-engineer business processes.
The work of the depot and the information needed to that work was identified. Then the work processes were transformed to dramatically increase productivity.
The key was to make the mechanic and the knowledge of the mechanic the driving force in the transformation. In the past the mechanic was a parts supplier, a scheduler, and an information retriever. Now the mechanic has the opportunity to do the work of providing trustworthy aircraft to our warfighters.
Steve Davis, the Work Culture Transformation Board member from Warner-Robins, sees the transformation in work culture continuing as fundamentally new relationships are being developed among contractors and the staff of the base.
The transformation of Work is just beginning as information sharing replaces information hoarding. Trust is being developed as information is shared¼to the benefit of the entire community.
An Example of Change: Program Review at ESC
The Electronic Systems Center is one place where coordinated change in work culture is underway. At ESC they are focusing on changing program reviews from briefings to discussions. It began in the middle of the last decade when Colonel Steve Henry was tasked to develop a new program office focusing on air traffic control (GATO).
He was told to focus on clearly identifying the business of the organization and building the leanest possible staff.
From the beginning he sought to do all business of the SPO on the web. He replaced reporting with access as a normal part of the work of the SPO and made the owner/creator of information its keeper.
GATO became the first innovation center for the Integrated Digital Environment Project. Two years later, the commanding general of ESC asked all other program offices to adopt the same way to do Work.
Dr. Jim Cunningham, the Executive Director of ESC and a member of the Work Culture Transformation Board described the change in culture as the development of a trusting relationship between the program offices and the command.
Program reviews are being transformed into a conversation with all parties referring to the same information being used by the program office on the web. The command accepts the information as the best available evidence and the program offices are beginning to encourage the command to go into their work place and conduct stealth reviews¼a process welcomed by all involved.
Work Culture Transformation Board: An Information Strategy
One of the most important tasks for a Work Culture Transformation Board is developing and maintaining the information strategy of a community.
An information strategy is a process, not an event -- a continuing process of setting and resetting direction.
An information strategy is not set forth in elaborate detail because we can't see the future in detail and because the strategy itself is a process.
An information strategy is done by business managers, assisted by technologists. It focuses on:
Information content (what information do we need to manage corporately)
Common information
What information should be common
How do we define common terms
How do we share information
Information processes
Information must be understood in the context of process
Work Culture Transformation Board: A Roadmap
In order to achieve the work culture change, each community needs to have a Leadership Panel responsible for the cultural change.
Road maps mean different things to different people¼and to the same people at different times. It might mean
A set of directions on how to get from one place to another
A suggestion of where you are within a bigger context
An indication of how you might get from one place to another
In this case a roadmap is a strategy to go from one way of doing Work (as if we were in a paper environment) to doing Work in an integrated digital environment.
Such a Board
Sees the whole picture
Has an information strategy
Encourages
Identifies seams
Coordinates
Divides up targets
Leads
Knows what transformation efforts are underway
Applies attention and resources
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