Partnering with Optimice by Optimice

Leverage Partner Support

Overview of Optimice’s Service Areas and Project Experience

www.optimice.com.au

Commercial in Conﬁdence

Business Model

CLIENTS Leverage Partners Application Domains Addressed to date

Core Competency Assurance

Market/Business Intelligence

Innovation Management

Benchmarking Trust Networks

Stakeholder Engagement

Event Management

Market Place Network Competitiveness

Organisational Performance

Alliance Management Outsourcing Supply Chain

Program Management

Competency Networks

Methods Optimice Intellectual Property

ONA Techniques Library

Technology ONA Surveys

ONA Training Guides

Visual Markets Methodology

Stakeholder Engagement Methodology

Proprietary ONA Web Maps

Partnership Scorecard

3 Es of Innovation Methodology

Accelerated Networking

Non-‐Proprietary Community Mapper

NetDraw

UCInet

NodeXL

NetMiner

Optimice Core Platform : Organisational Network Analysis www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Organisational Performance Core Competency Assurance Stakeholder Engagement Market/Business Intelligence Innovation Management Event Management Program Management

Water

Transport

Professional Services

Petroleum

Non-‐proﬁt & Community

Mining & Resources

Media

Manufacturing

IT&T

Health

Energy

Defence

Government

Banking and Finance

Optimice Experience: Services Areas and Industry Sectors

•  Optimice has a large portfolio of projects it has been involved in over the past decade or more. We are providing a listing of project brief descriptions which will help you qualify potential targets. •  Our web site www.optimice.com.au has many publications from which you can draw to spark the interest of prospective clients. •  We are happy to engage in Skype conferences to discuss with you your potential targets and how you might best engage with them around SNA/ONA.

Alliance Management, Outsourcing, Supply Chain

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

ONA/SNA Service Areas We anticipate that those partners at this stage are looking to qualify potential target clients. ONA/ SNA has found application across many industry sectors and domains. The most prospective areas – across any industry sector -‐ tend to be: AREA

DESCRIPTION

Analyse knowledge flows integral to core process areas. Where key issues are Organisational Performance efficiency and effectiveness of process execution. Ability to identify key brokers, ‘movers’ and ‘shakers’ who can drive change. Competency Assessments, talent management, ageing workforce, succession Core Competency Assurance planning, wherever the management of critical human resources are a major issue. Where an organisation is struggling with managing the diverse demands of Stakeholder Engagement multiple stakeholders. Analysing market and/or business intelligence with a focus of uncovering the Market/Business Intelligence otherwise invisible relationships. Innovation Management Identify issues with the diffusion of ideas and their implementation (or not) Event Management Connecting peers, ‘Corporate Match-‐making’. Mapping of project interdependencies to enable faster decision-‐making when Program Management making program/portfolio decisions Combination of stakeholder engagement and organisational performance Alliance Management, Outsourcing, services aimed at those involved with B2B partnerships, alliances and Supply Chain outsourcing. www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Confidence

Two Types of Partnering •  Optimice as Delivery Partner –  Situation •  You haven’t done ONA projects before and need someone to act as your delivery partner. •  You haven’t got any references for work, so need access to these.

–  Optimice’s role •  We help you put a proposal together and can reference our extensive library of project snapshots. •  Optimice will act as your ‘back oﬃce’ for ONA. You operate as the Project Manager interacting with the client. You participate in the project and knowledge/methodology transfer happens during the project. •  After a couple of projects you may want to consider taking responsibility for delivery, but want to keep the option open.

•  Optimice as a Coach –  Situation •  You will have some prior knowledge of ONA, but would like to have some coaching to make sure everything goes will.

–  Optimice’s role •  You win the work using your own case-‐studies •  We act as a coach and will review your deliverables and provide guidance along the way.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

I know my clients would value this service but I have yet to identify speciﬁc targets I have had my proposal accepted and we now have to deliver

Suspects Prospects

Flow-‐on Projects

1st Project

I have identiﬁed a target client and now need to formulate a proposal

Leveraging our initial project we are now pursuing ﬂow on projects

Optimice Support Available

Suspect Stage 1.  Optimice Web Site 2.  Pointers to support material 3.  Skype discussions to help qualify potential prospects

Prospect Stage 1.  Project methodology 2.  Support material for a proposal 3.  Pricing support 4.  Case studies for reference 5.  Committed resourcing if successful

1st Project Stage

Flow-‐on Projects

1.  Staﬀ training on tools and practices (Course work plus on the job) 2.  Support at each stage of the project delivery 3.  Review of project deliverables 4.  $US15K* for Optimice input (Delivery Partner

1.  Project proposal support as in prospect stage 2.  Support at data collection and analysis phases 3.  Reducing revenue split to Optimice (negotiated on time spent by Optimice)

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Prospect Stage • Optimice will assist qualifying prospects – Discussion of Service Areas and Industry Sectors

• Depending on the extent of partnering, Optimice will support you in providing a winning proposal: – Optimice acting as a delivery partner: •  Providing a project methodology which can be used for the work break down of the proposal (see slide provided) •  Provide advice and support on costing/pricing •  Provide advice on how to address common concerns or issues with SNA/ONA •  Provide targeted examples of previous work that can be used as reference material in your proposal

– Optimice acting as a ‘coach’ •  Providing a project methodology which can be used for the work break down of the proposal (see slide provided) •  Provide advice and support on costing/pricing •  Provide advice on how to address common concerns or issues with SNA/ONA •  A review of your ﬁnal proposal (optional) www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

1st Project Stage • Once a project has been secured and funding levels agreed to, Optimice will provide to you: – Our 1 day ONA/SNA training course delivered over the net and via Skype –  Coaching on kick-‐off meeting – Coaching on initial survey design using ONA Surveys. – We will undertake the analysis of the results using our library of techniques and practices, while coaching your staff on the methods. Many of our analytical methods use Excel templates and macros, which will be provided to you for use/adaptation. – Provide comparable benchmark results from other projects conducted by us or our partners (there is a tacit understanding that you will provide your results -‐ without client ID) to our library for future use. – We will assist you to prepare for the validation and action workshops. – We will review your final reporting of results and recommendations to the client by contributing some key outputs from the analysis for inclusion in your report.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Flow-‐on Project Stage • Having completed your initial project, for flow-‐on projects we would offer: – Assistance/coaching in survey design – Suggestions on analysis of results and coaching on the use of the analytical tools provided – Select comparable benchmarking analyses from our case library for inclusion in your report – Review of your final project reports and recommendations

• The contribution to Optimice will be negotiated based on the level of support you are seeking. Our experience is that this level of support will reduce to close to zero by the 3rd or 4th project.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Optimice Network Analysis Project Methodology Scope Definition

Tailor / Execute Survey

Validation Stage Brokers

Node Attributes

Project Team

Identify initial sample of network participants

Relationship Theme A

Develop Initial Network Maps

Relationship Theme B Contacts

Validate Maps and Connections

Identify critical network roles

Central Connectors

Actions Stage Value Network / Role Interactions

Action Planning

Identify interventions and actions to enhance network performance

Typical 1st project budget should be for between 15 to 30 person days (Optimice revenue share) www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Summary of Service Area and Buyer Scenario

www.optimice.com.au

Commercial in Conﬁdence

Organisational Performance Analyse knowledge flows integral to core process areas. Where key issues are efficiency and effectiveness. Ability to identify key brokers, ‘movers’ and ‘shakers’ who can drive change Problem/Opportunity: •  “We need to get our lateral business processes to work better across our business units. The hand-‐ overs aren’t working well.” •  “I look across our business and get the strong impression that some of our functional teams just don’t seem to get much traction while others seem to be in high demand. What’s going on?” •  “Things seem to take a long time here. I flattened the organisational structure, but I am worried that people haven’t adjusted yet. Can we measure this? •  “Our recent experience tell me that the [business unit] is really not connecting well with [other business unit]. I want to help then understand the gap and then fix it. •  “We have just completed this merger/restructure but we suspect that the only integration happening here is financial. What can we do?.” •  “We are implementing this new enterprise system. Its cost us a lot of money so we are concerned if our staff don’t get real value from this investment” Buyer/sponsor: •  Head of strategy, business improvement or HR involved in M&A, Organisational Development, or Process Improvement. Motivated buyers have ‘scars’ from failed business improvement projects where ‘people’ got in the way. www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Confidence

Core Competency Assurance Ageing workforce, succession planning, wherever the loss of critical human resources are a major issue. Also where there is a sudden influx of new people/ high turn over (particularly relevant for the mining, utilities, engineering industries). Problem/Opportunity: •  “Some of our core competencies are at risk. How can we better assess our current capability and potential risks?” •  “I know we will be losing some very experienced people due to retirement. I am really worried that our service levels will drop significantly”. •  “We have a high turn-‐over of staff. I really need to work out how we get new people up-‐to-‐speed as fast as possible.” •  We have identified our ‘high performers’ and we know that their people networks are what will see them through. How can I measure this and help them grow? Buyer/sponsor: •  Human Resources on behalf of one or more business units. •  Personal motivation is very much on the ‘social’ front to help people. However, ONA can help HR managers by providing an ‘evidence-‐based’ approach to what can otherwise be hard to measure. This makes it easier for the HR manager to demonstrate his/her value to the business.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Stakeholder Engagement Ability to identify and manage a complex web of stakeholders over whom you have little control. Problem/Opportunity: •  “We have so many stakeholders we are really struggling with firstly identifying them and then prioritising our attention to them?” •  “There’s a big risk that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. We just don’t know who in our own organisation has relationships with our stakeholders.” •  “The problem is that we often have conflicting objectives between many of our stakeholders. We need a way to agree on some common ground and get some clear accountabilities” •  “We are delivering what was asked, but it is clear that our stakeholders are still not happy. What more can we possibly do?” Buyer/sponsor: •  Look for executives responsible for external communities, corporate social responsibility etc. The executive management team typically have most of the external stakeholder relationships. •  Ask about these relationships are working. Typically organisations are frustrated by the lack of ‘control’ over these stakeholders. The Partnership Scorecard provides an effective mechanism of identifying what generates value between stakeholders. Because you have little formal control traditional management interventions don’t work, and the Partnership Scorecard identifies the things that motivate stakeholders to wanting to work together. www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Confidence

Market/Business Intelligence Understanding a market ecosystem, so that we can better plan our interactions with it. Provide ‘relationship centred’ BI, something missing from most BI systems today. Problem/Opportunity: •  “We have plenty of market intelligence on market shares etc…but we can’t tell who our competitors have relationships with.” •  “We are launching a new offering into a new market place and we have little idea of the dynamics of this market place” •  “We now that a lot of partnering goes on in this industry but we only get word of mouth. How can we get a better handle on this whole ecosystem?” •  “Our job in Government is to facilitate growth in this industry sector. We need to map current activities and capabilities before we can even start to do the job” Buyer/sponsor: •  Typically a marketing or competitive intelligence officer. •  More market facilitation groups look for market development staff. •  Market research firms will also be potential partners in this type of activity •  Use the report on www.visualmarkets.net to help sell these opportunities. www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Confidence

Innovation Identify issues with the diffusion of ideas and their implementation. Address ROI issues in Innovation Programmes. Problem: •  “We want to be more innovative…but where are we going to get the ideas from? Who do we need to get involved?” •  “What worries me the most is actually after we have identified a great idea…how do we get those influential opinion leaders on board.” •  “We know that innovation happens when people see new connections. How can I be pro-‐ active in getting people together so that these new connections can happen? And who are those people?” •  “Innovation is one of our key objectives, we have invested in an ideas’ platform and see much activity, but we just aren’t seeing any tangible results!” Buyer/sponsor: •  Chief Innovation Officer. Motivation is to demonstrate leadership in innovation by applying ‘new’ tools and processes. •  Chief marketing Officers can also be great allies as they are always looking for new offerings •  Heads of R&D can also be good prospects. They will be interested in how to get their good ideas into active use. •  Use 3Es of Innovation paper to promote the opportunity. www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Confidence

Event Management (Conferences internal/external)

Attracting attendees, Connecting peers, ‘Corporate Match-‐making’, Networking at events Problem/Opportunity: •  The key opportunity is to enable networking at conferences or internal events •  The challenge for conference organisers is to firstly attract attendees and secondly to deliver a profitable experience. Networking is a key part of that experience. •  Optimice is releasing a product called ‘Community Mapper’ to address this space….see it in action at http://www.creativeinnovationglobal.com.au/ci2011/networking/ and also on our ‘Friends of Optimice’ site: http://www.optimice.com.au/friends.php Buyer/sponsor: •  Event Organisers •  Web masters (for Friends of Optimice applications) * Note: While Optimice is addressing this market directly, leverage partners may look to gain follow on networking work from a conference that you have an interest in. This will particularly be so for internal events run by prospect organisations of yours and a potential entre for you. We have supported some 15-‐20 events using the Community Mapper approach. www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Confidence

Program Management This offering is about using network maps to help visualise the interdependencies between projects and then use this data to improve the overall program performance. Problem/Opportunity: •  “We manage many projects in our portfolio, but there is no master Gantt chart. We can only find out the interdependencies between projects from collecting intelligence from each project manager” •  “We have so many projects running that we seem to be continually tripping over each other to get things done” •  “We have projects of many different sizes. While we tend to concentrate on the larger ones, we intuitively know that some smaller projects are enabling projects for many of the large ones, but we have no way of visualising these dependencies” Buyer/sponsor: •  Program Management Office, Corporate Strategy (often) tasked with managing corporate initiatives), CIOs (often project-‐driven). Note: Project interdependencies is a relatively new area for us. We have been involved with some collaborative research projects on this topic but have now completed an initial commercial project

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Alliance Management, Outsourcing and Supply Chain Effectiveness of partnership / alliance in terms of knowledge and information flow, knowledge transfer and decision making. Problem/Opportunity:: •  “We interact with a range of different external organisations along our supply chain. We must get better at communicating with each other.” •  “We run the risk of stepping on each other’s toes. I don’t have a clear picture of who the players are and how they may be connected with each other.” •  “I know my people have lots of relationships with our counterparts/clients – but I have no idea if our coverage actually enable our business objectives.” •  “I am new around here and I need to get some objective measure for our level of cross-‐ collaboration.” •  “I am worried that we have a ‘team of stars’ rather than a star team” – can this be measured? •  “We aren’t that happy with our outsourcing partners, but can never pin them down on legal grounds” or from the other side… “We always meet our service level agreements but our clients still hates us?” Typical buyer/sponsor: •  Business unit managers responsible for the particular area. Could also be a ‘Knowledge Manager’, however these people tend to have less budget and therefore less opportunity for follow-‐on work. •  Looking for ‘evidence’ for something which has traditionally been impossible to measure. •  Motivation could be to justify why things are either good or bad. www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Confidence

Project Snapshots

www.optimice.com.au

Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Organisational Performance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Monitor discussion group of CoP to identify community discussion patterns

This global engineering community of practice was using a simple discussion list as the core of its communication platform, along with speciﬁc face to face events. The CoP facilitators were interested in a way of monitoring the community and assessing the impact of the events that they organised on behalf of the CoP. SNA was used to develop maps of communications from the online data. These maps were communicated to the facilitation team on a quarterly basis as an ongoiing health check for the community.

The maps proved to be strongly reflective of the ebbs and flows of this global community. Face to face events inevitably generated an increase in traffic and activity. Some groups became more or less active depending external events impacting their home businesses. Overall the utility provided a good means for monitoring the health of the community over time.

2,000 strong maintenance engineering community of practice analysis

This major resources organisation was in the process of merging their regional engineering communities of practice into a single global CoP with over 2,000 engineers. SNA was used to identify a baseline ahead of the implementation of the global community, supported by a full time facilitation team.

The analysis identified that the existing communities were heavily silo’ed within their respective lines of business. To encourage greater cross business collaboration a number of global improvement projects were devised from which participants were drawn from areas identified by the SNA as potentially benefiting most from greater collaboration.

SNA used to analyse a 200+ strong global petroleum engineers network. Used to identify key brokers for incorporation into a broker’s yellow pages

This signiﬁcant global petroleum company operated a petroleum engineering community of practice with 200+ members. They decided to use SNA as a baseline for a cultural change program that this CoP was facilitating. Traditional survey techniques were used in concert with a data mining exercise on their on-‐line discussion group

The SNA was able to identify that the community was heavily silo’ed to their geographic regions of Australia, USA and UK. The results identified the few critical brokers that bridged these areas. Interventions included employing a 'yellow pages' directory with just the 8 key brokers. The idea was that a call to one of them would provide a qualified contact and be far cheaper to implement than a traditional yellow pages directory. Additionally, the culture change program identified a number of barriers to knowledge sharing with follow up interviews. The online data mining analysis showed that relationships in the physical world were largely being mimicked in the online world.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Organisational Performance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Information mapping

This government agency was concerned about the eﬀectiveness of information provision across the agency. They chose to use ONA to identify where information was being sought (people and information stores) and how eﬃcient the process currently is.

The analysis identiﬁed a preference for using semi-‐formal systems for sharing information over and above the formal repositories and roles that had been established for information management. Recommendations related to blurring the boundaries between the current solos of information provision and to support the natural information sharing processes, rather than looking to change them to a more rigid and less user friendly approach.

Information ﬂow analysis for Intake processes

This social service government agency was looking to develop a frontline service centre to better manage the the number of calls for its services. Prior to installing a system they were interested in mapping how the current systems and processes worked to ensure that they were not missing any important interactions

A Value Network Analysis workshop was conducted which identiﬁed some key role to role interactions that were not catered for in the current design. These insights enabled the agency to better prepare for this major change to their operations.

Operational Performance (Open Knowledge Project)

This major European global oil company was looking for new ways to assess the operational eﬃciencies, health and safety, know-‐how and overall productivity of their diﬀerent drilling sites. They settled on using SNA techniques to analyse the working relationships at a particular site with the intention of repeating the study on other drilling sites around the world.

The SNA study addressed each of the performance metrics identiﬁed. Areas of underperformance were identiﬁed. Natural leaders and brokers between functions were also highlighted. A number of practical network metrics were designed for comparative use when the study moved to other drilling sites. See Bringing SNA Into Mainstream Business for some of the methods used.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Organisational Performance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Value Exchange Analysis

This major global mining company operates a substantial internal rail business responsible for carrying ore from the mines to the ports for export.

The stakeholder network was identified in a prior SNA study. With these identified key roles the value exchange workshop was conducted using our stakeholder engagement processes. We identified what the value exchange expectations were from each party.

Internal conﬂicts were arising between the operations and maintenance teams and the responsible General Manager was looking to use value exchange analysis techniques to resolve the tensions Engineering Community Analysis

This publicly owned rail utility has a long history and a mature workforce. Concerns about an ageing workforce and the potential loss of critical technical capabilities encouraged them to undertake an SNA of their engineering division to assess the potential risks to the organisation

These expectations were then tabled and a negotiation conducted to agree on value exchange accountabilities. These accountabilities were then built into the respective role accountabilities. The SNA was conducted across all the engineering related sub-‐ units including the chief engineering roles. The analysis identified, as expected, some critical personnel that were within 5 years of retirement. Potential successors based on the number of 'shared' relationships they had across the organisation, were identified. It had become apparent that many or these long term staff were more depended on for their 'organisational knowledge' than necessarily their technical knowledge. A re-‐organisation was conducted shortly afterwards to address some of the issues identified in the study.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Organisational Performance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Network analysis of SAP communities of practice

This government agency oversees statewide IT functions. Of particular concern was the eﬀectiveness or otherwise of the SAP implementations across the State agencies and the desire to take advantage of the shared expertise and experiences gained across the diﬀerent agencies

The SNA identified the current level of co-‐operation among the agencies. Key players in the different SAP modules were identified. The degree of dependence on outside contractors was also assessed. Recommendations were made on activities that could be initiated to build a more cohesive and effective SAP community.

Used to measure the eﬀectiveness of a communities of practice program. Was the community structure improving collaboration?

This government agency had responsibility for overseeing corporate governance activities. They had developed a number of 'Communities of Practice' (CoPs) and decided to use SNA to assess their health and contribution

The SNA was able to provide specific metrics on the degree of increased collaboration achieved by the CoPs, vindicating the investment in the program. Additionally, for one CoP who's leader was departing, the analysis confirmed the successor was indeed in the best position to take on the role, providing her with the confidence that she initially lacked.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Organisational Performance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Market development group engagement with service providers in support of transformation from a transport to a logistics business

This major shipping, road and rail business had recently established a new market development function. They were keen to assess how connected individuals in the new department were to their main stakeholders in the business and to ﬁll any gaps that existed.

The SNA study was able to identify precisely which relationships the members of the new market development department were bringing to the department.

Analysing the impact of central project co-‐ordination unit

This major government health services agency had created a clinical improvement program as a direct response for demand to standardise processes and share knowledge on best practices across the geographically distributed operational centres. The program was interested in how SNA could assess the eﬀectiveness of their program in engaging their stakeholders

The SNA identified the success of the program in generating engagement with their far flung stakeholders. However an unintended consequence was that engagement had become dependency and with the program only slated for a 3 year life, the SNA showed that if the program staff were removed from the maps that the organisation would revert to what it was before, meaning no sustainable change. Recommendations were made to the program team to shift their focus from service provision to facilitating peer to peer connections, such that a community of business improvement practitioners would exist even after the program had run its course. See Tyranny of Topdown for more information.

It was also able to identify areas of the business that the new market development department had poor coverage of.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Organisational Performance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Analysing the training and development function for community cohesion (Open Knowledge project)

The training department of this major European bank had some 3,000 training and development staﬀ located across the business. The functional head was looking to SNA to assess the extent of collbaboration across the group.

The SNA was able to identify a very cohesive function, with a high percentage of reciprocated connections across the function. However, with strong cohesion can come a lack of innovation, a factor that the group head had been concerned with for some time. The analysis was able to identify using a 'strength of week tie' analysis that one of the less mature business units (e-‐learning) was best placed to broker new developments into the group, and recommendations to this eﬀect identifying particular individuals, was provided.

Products community analysis This publicly owned railway utility had created a business unit to concentrate on the design of new products and services that could be oﬀered. This unit would rely heavily on peer business units for their eﬀectiveness. The SNA study had the dual objectives of informing the succession planning process as well as identifying the competency networks within the division Identify how well connected (or not) a global sales force is

This major IT&T outsourcing organisation was interested in how well connected its global workforce was. We used SNA to identify these connections as well as who the key players were in the global sales workforce.

The core dependency analysis show some critical dependency on a few higher profile officers. Recommendations on delegation and sharing the load resulted from this. The trust network analysis showed areas of deep capability but also identified areas where that depth of capability did not currently exist, leading to recommendations on areas for capability development. The results identified a strong polarisation of sales forces around particular regions. With one particular question we asked who people had worked with to win a major deal. From this analysis we were able to identify who the 'gun' staff were in the sales organisations. As it turned out some of these staff were not frontline sales staff, but bid support staff.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Organisational Performance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Used to analyse communication and relationship patterns across a technology, engineering and environmental management division. Used as part of a cultural change survey. Re-‐ measured in 2006.

This signiﬁcant international manufacturer was undertaking a cultural change program across its technical areas.

The SNA provided core measures on the level of collaboration existing across the breadth of technical and engineering areas.

They chose to use SNA to develop a baseline for current levels of collaboration and then to assess progress of the program by repeating the study after a 2 year period

When repeated after the execution of the 2 year cultural change program the results were able to conﬁrm that the levels of cross departmental collaboration and engagement had indeed improved.

Used SNA to identify communication flows between back office functions and disparate business units in an effort to enhance collaboration

This mining resources company was looking to identify potential gaps between people supporting the central core back oﬃce functions and the more remote mining sites.

The SNA results were able to identify the extent to which the remote sites were dependent on the core services and the levels of relationships that currently existed. Interventions were planned to address those 'less engaged' sites.

Communications analysis for train division

This major global mining company operates a substantial internal rail business responsible for carrying ore from the mines to the ports for export.

The intent was to improve the levels of collaboration and support provided by these centralised services.

A SNA study was conducted as part of an overall cultural change program, aimed at gaining improved and sustainable collaboration across the division

The SNA described the collaboration patterns across the subunits of the division. Critical staff members who others were reliant on in doing their work were identified and succession risks detailed. The value flows between departments were assessed against the expected process flows to identify potential inefficiencies in the organisation as a whole. Recommendations were made as to where improved collaboration could be achieved through targeted relationship building activities. The results formed a baseline for the cultural change program.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Core Competency Assurance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Succession Planning for whole Operations Division

The operations Division is one the the largest in this publicly owned railway utility. The initial SNA was conducted across one department of about 100 staﬀ and then based on the results, expanded to the whole division of some 1,000 staﬀ.

The SNA identified key staff that others were highly dependent on and approaching retirement age. The analysis also identified a strong respect for the hierarchy which was resulting in an overloading of top management who were potential becoming a bottleneck.

The objective of assessing succession risks in an ageing workforce was key, along with a desire to look at areas where the business could be more eﬀectively restructured. A shared business service was being considered that would impact the division.

Expertise mapping. Used to identify core capabilities that may be at risk. Also looked at the level of engagement with external expertise.

Recommendations were made relating to empowering ﬁeld staﬀ to collaborate in a peer to peer fashion to better service customers. With respect to the shared services proposal, the SNA was able to identify one unit that could be relatively painlessly outsourced to a share service, but another where outsourcing would have caused considerable disruption to the business. The business management made use of the maps to successfully argue their case to the shared services development team.

This state-‐wide water utility, as with many of their peer organisations, were concerned about loss of expertise from an ageing workforce.

The results were able to clearly identify the risk areas down to particular individuals and the disciplines at most risk of depletion to below a sustainable level.

They decided to employ SNA to re-‐assess their core capabilities and the extent to which they were reliant on external expertise

Key external resources in some disciplines were also identified. Interestingly the analysis identified a number of potential 'high flyers' who had managed to become central influencers after only a short time in the organisation.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Core Competency Assurance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

ONA used as part of a knowledge audit. To identify knowledge and information ﬂow issues that may exist across the organisation

This Government run water utility was concerned about the sustainability of their core technical capabilities. They decided to undertake a 'Knowledge Audit' to assess their current situation

SNA was used along with some additional Knowledge Management dimensions to deliver the knowledge audit. The key dimensions for the audit were Connectivity, Information Artifacts, Skills and Experience and Heuristic (tacit) knowledge.

ONA of IT Services Division for organisational eﬀectiveness (Open Knowledge project)

This IT division of a major European bank have some 4,000 staﬀ and 40 major business units. The executive were concerned about the silo’ed nature of many of these business units. They chose to undertake an ONA (as opposed to SNA) where job roles became the focus more so than individuals. Job roles and responsibilities were well documented for the division

These dimensions were collected with the SNA survey and matched against key decision points within their overall business processes. The results identified amongst other things, that some of the key line managers were still being relied on for technical leadership. This was not only overloading these individuals, but potentially impacting their effectiveness as line managers. The ONA study was able to identify the collaboration patterns across the organisation. Importantly it identified units that were seriously overloaded by strong dependencies from multiple units. On the other hand there were other units that were not called on much at all but who were draining resources from other units. The ONA maps provided a new dimension for organisational performance for them and insights that had not been available using traditional analytical methods. See Bringing SNA Into Mainstream Business for some of the methods used.

www.optimice.com.au – Commercial in Conﬁdence

Project Snapshots: Core Competency Assurance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Analysing the training and development function for community co-‐hesion (Open Knowledge project)

Major downsizing, SNA used to identify risks to the future business of staﬀ leaving

This manufacturing busness was undergoing a serious downsizing with the loss of 2/3 of its staﬀ. The incoming CEO was concerned that the remaining business might not be able to operate with such a loss of expertise. SNA was used to map the core disciplines across the whole business. The future state could easily be represented by taking those slated to leave oﬀ the maps, to see what the resulting 'damage' might be.

The analysis clearly showed that most areas would undergo a 'thinning out' of expertise but not necessarily damaging. The exception was two areas where the loss of the most central player would decimate the capability in that area. The intervention designed was to encourage those two individuals to stay on an extra 12 months and to spend this time mentoring those that were going to stay with the business.

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Project Snapshots: Core Competency Assurance Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Analysis of on-‐line communities of practice portal site

This global IT&T organisation had developed a portal to host some 700+ self generated communities across the organisation. The aim of the analysis was to assess the core capabilitieds that the self formed CoPs represented based on their membership.

The SNA used aﬃnity analyses to identify where the core clusters of expertise existed across the organisation. As well as providing an overall 'picture' of the organisation's core capabiltiies, it also facilitated some merging of CoPs where signiﬁcant overlaps had evolved.

Mapping of water expert, investors and other stakeholders.

The client wanted to identify water experts and investors and potential linkages between these to better identify investment options.

Project not completed.

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Project Snapshots: Stakeholder Engagement Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Social Network Analysis on UK Adult Participation in Sport Program (Open Knowledge Project)

This major UK local government agency had established a program for encouraging adult participation in sport and recreation ahead of the 2012 Olympics. They were interested in using SNA to assess the eﬀectivenss of the program in engaging the diﬀerent localities in this activity.

The SNA analysis was able to identify the level of collaboration between the core program members and their regional stakeholders both inside the community and out to external sporting and recreational groups. The analysis showed that whilst the core team was in strong demand they were in danger of being overloaded unless they began to help facilitate more peer to peer support to avoid developing an over-‐ dependence on the core team. See Tyranny of Topdown for more information.

Stakeholder mapping

Public service organisations in particular work with a complex network of stakeholders. Many agencies now fund 'not for proﬁts' to deliver services on their behalf. NFPs typically have multiple funding sources so they themselves also have a complex stakeholder network. The ﬁrst priority for this client was to get a 'picture' of what their stakeholder network actually looked like. This mental health network was responsible for facilitating statewide services for mental health. While they knew who they worked with directly they had no visibility of how connected their stakeholders were to each other. This is important when one is looking for a depth of capability in a given discipline area. Once visualised it is then possible to plan your interventionsn in a way that optimises stakeholder relationships

The ONA study provided a map of how each stakeholder viewed their own stakeholder network. ONASurveys was used to collect the data, some of which was collected via interview and entered into the survey tool. The resulting network maps were provided for review by the regions. As a community they were then in a position to optimise how mental health services were delivered across the region. The results can be viewed here:

The SNA study was able to identify precisely which relationships the members of the new market development department were bringing to the department. It was also able to identify areas of the business that the new market development department had poor coverage of.

Market development group engagement with service providers in support of transformation from a transport to a logistics business

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Project Snapshots: Market/Business Intelligence Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Network visualisation and query

Since 2004 the has client, on behalf of the an Australian State Government, been benchmarking the performance and practices of the state’s manufacturing industry. More than 500 companies have participated in a manufacturing best practice survey which provides a snapshot of the current state of the surveyed organisation, examining both the practices employed and the performance achieved across a broad range of business processes.This manufacturing best practice institute was conducting research into the productivity of the manufacturing industry in their region. The client wanted to gain more insights into their data-‐set by visualising this using SNA techniques.

Data from the survey was analysed using SNA affinity analysis and visualised in the form of network maps. A web site was established to allow manufacturing stakeholders to peruse these affinity maps which essentially identified clusters of manufacturing performance dimensions that were having most impact on performance.The maps contributed to the establishment of more specific interventions to help the manufacturing sector improve its performance as a whole.

IT market place alliances network. Used to identify the pattern of alliances that exist within the IT services market.

This research study used SNA to map industry alliances in the IT&T market place. Data was drawn from an industry data base on major contracts and partnerships. The sponsor was a key player in this market and was interested in gaining some additional competitive intelligence from the study.

The study was able to visualise the complex ecosystems of partnerships in the industry, with a focus on system integrators and their suppliers. The study was able, for the ﬁrst time, identify how their competitors' relationships with key suppliers compared to their own. It also identiﬁed thoose suppliers in strong leverage positions through having multiple relationships with key systems integrators.

Visual Market Analysis of Australian IT&T Industry 2006-‐2009

This piece of market research was conducted on the IT&T industry using social networking techniques and using the ﬁrm as the unit of analysis. The intent was to visualise the relationship networks that form in a market place. These relationships can be contractual i.e. customer/supplier transactions or less formal partnering or sub-‐contracting relationships. The intent was to expose new business intelligence, especially for clients looking to multisource IT services

New market analysis techniques were developed as part of this project. Techniques include a new way of assessing a ﬁrm's competitiveness based on the number of unique clients that they have. Also merger and acquisitions can be assessed based on the degree of overlap the parties may have in their business relationships. Other market mapping has been done in the media and mining areas. Read more and download the full report for free at www.visualmarkets.net

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Project Snapshots: Innovation Management Snapshot

Context

Interventions

ONA for Innovation Network prior to Spigit implementation (Open Knowledge Project)

This UK organisation is responsible for the facilities management of public housing. The executive were looking to improve their innovation performance and chose to install the open innovation ideas management platform from Spigit (www.spigit.com).

The SNA study was conducted using the Optimice 3E's of Innovation framework. Key players in the Explore, Engage and Exploit networks were identiﬁed from the analysis and recommendations made as to their eﬀective use as early adopters/users of the Spigit platform.

They also agreed to undertake an SNA study to identify those key staﬀ who naturally facilitate innovations across the organisation and who would become eﬀective change agents for the Spigit implementation

The intent was that these natural leaders would inﬂuence participation from a broader group, an essential element of the open innovation philosophy.

As part of an initiative to energise the public around ideas for improved clean energy use and sustainability, this organisation established an open forum to collect and discuss ideas from the 'crowd'.

The conversation maps were able to show the organisers the breadth and depth of the conversations being undertaken using the social networking platform.

Mapping of Yammer conversations

The idea for the use of ONA was to be able to visualise the conversation by mapping data from the social networking platform used (Yammer). Maps were updated on a daily basis up to the closing physical event ONA for sustainability

This globally growing engineering services firm had become concerned about the effectiveness of their innovation efforts. They chose to use SNA to identify how well or poorly new ideas were diffusing through the firm and become eventually new innovations for them.

The maps showed clearly how well ideas being offered were being engaged by those who had created the initial 'green energy' challenges and potential 'clients' for the ideas if implemented. The analysis showed that while there were a healthy number of staff interacting on idea generation and development, the senior management themselves were becoming a bottleneck in terms of implementation. Recommendations were made around identified 'brokers' in the organisation to play a more active part in the exploitation of emerging ideas.

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Project Snapshots: Event Management Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Membership analysis

This not for proﬁt innovation services professional group was interested in ﬁnding out more about its membership in terms of how much they networked amongst each other. One of the group's objectives was to facilitate this form of networking.

The survey and analysis identiﬁed that indeed the networking amongst the membership was one of the main reasons that members had subscribed. Many suggested that this was even more vauable than the events that the group regularly ran. The SNA provided some hard data from which the group could build greater cohesion amongst its membership

Used to identify common This major annual technology conference draws 800+ interests between registrants attendees from around the world.SNA was used to help and to assist them seek like attendees network during the event minded partners while attending the conference

A competition was run to see who could physically meet their 10 closest contacts. The winner met all 10, none of whom she knew previously.

Conference Mapping and Community Mapping

The aﬃnity mapping exercise provided a clear picture of how their membership was distributed amongst the key interest topics that the community leaders had identiﬁed. Being an on-‐ line map, the attendees at the annual conference could quickly identify those of 'like minds' that they would try and meet up with face to face at the event. The health check network analysis indicated that the degree of cohesion amongst the members of the network was indeed stronger than when the last review had been conducted 2 years previously

This professional group is supported by companies with paid memberships. The group leaders chose ONAsurveys and SNA to do a health check of their existing network. The group also ran an annual conference which they also condicted an aﬃnity mapping survey to better understand the needs and interests of their membership.

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Project Snapshots: Program Management Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Mapping of project interdependencies in a large complex portfolio. Part of a research project which Optimice and University of Technology Sydney (Australia) has been running for 2 years.

The client had more than 30 projects managed by 30 diﬀererent PMs and under governance of a PMO. The PMO wated to understand the dependencies between the projects and see of the PMs shared the same view of these interdependencies.

The top executive is quoted to say that "This is like moving from 2D to 3D". It allowed the executive to make instance decision on resource allocation.

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Project Snapshots: Alliance Management, Outsourcing, Supply Chain Snapshot

Context

Interventions

IT market place alliances network. Used to identify the pattern of alliances that exist within the IT services market.

Visual Market Analysis of Australian IT&T Industry 2006-‐2009

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Project Snapshots: Alliance Management, Outsourcing, Supply Chain Snapshot

Context

Interventions

Outsourcing relationship mapping and analysis

This IT&T outsourcing relationship had been operating for many years and the participants were interested in using SNA to assess the degree of relationshiops that had been formed over that time.

The SNA identiﬁed that the outsourcing unit had developed tight relationships around the team, but their connections with the client were still being facilitated by a handful of key 'account management' staﬀ. In essence the client relationship was being orchestrated and therefore was far from broad based. Some of the best relationships outside the account team were the executive desktop support team who interacted directly with senior client management. Recommendations were made to leverage such opportunities to develop a more broad based engagement between the outsourcer and its client.

IT Systems eﬀectiveness (Open Knowledge Project)

This plastics recycling business operated a number of sites where waste material was collected, sorted and recycled. The IT department looked to use ONA to identify potential gaps in their systems support for the supply chain activities

The analysis initially conﬁrmed that the informal modes of collaboration were consistent with the designed supply chain processes. Respondents to the ONA survey were given the opportunity to identify systems support gaps or shortcomings. Resolutions to ﬁll these gaps formed the major part of the recommendations

Market development group engagement with service providers in support of transformation from a transport to a logistics business

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Company Overview

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Commercial in Conﬁdence

Core IP -‐ Technology Optimice Technology is an enabler for the conduct of ONA projects. All software tools are web based, providing maximum access and utility. Workshop materials e.g. Partnership Scorecards are also purchasable or can be tailored for particular organisational use. Proprietary Technology ONA Surveys

ONA Web Maps

Partnership Scorecard

Non-‐Proprietary Technology Community Mapper

NetDraw

UCInet

NodeXL

NetMiner

Basic Guide for using Netdraw Netdraw is a popular public domain academic tool for social network analysis. It is our favourite analytical tool, so we have written a basic guide to help make it more usable for business users.

ONA Surveys

Friends of Optimice

Partnership Scorecard

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Core Methods Optimice Core Methods distills over a decade of ONA experience into simple guides and easy reading white papers to help partners not only deliver on ONA projects but promote the unique capabilities of the approach to their clients

ONA Techniques Library

Our practice guides collect speciﬁc techniques we have accumulated from over 40+ ONA projects. They include analytical methods designed for diﬀerent contexts, down to Excel macros developed to support them

ONA Training Guides

Visual Markets Methodology

Our ‘Visual Markets’ Methodology enables mapping of marketplace relationships to help surface the marketplace ecology and provide a unique insight and intelligence source

Stakeholder Engagement Methodology

Our Stakeholder Engagement Methodology provides visual mapping, analysis and relationship improvement phases for organisations with complex stakeholder engagement priorities.

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3 Es of Innovation Methodology

Accelerated Networking

Our ‘3Es’ of innovation model provides an eﬀective framework for successfully managing open innovation approaches We help conference organisers accelerate networking at their events through mapping the interest proﬁles of their attendees

Organisational Benchmarking Optimice is developing a number of predictive organisational benchmarks based on network measures. These benchmarks are designed to predict risks or opportunities arising from capability depletion, eﬃciency, productivity and innovation capacity. The intent is to use our partners to help build this into a unique resource for our clients to compare and contrast with other like organisations. Market Place Network Competitiveness

Trust Networks

Competency Networks

Market Competitiveness

Our ‘trust network’ benchmarking highlights the degree to which organisations are ‘engaged’ through trusted relationships. Comparisons can predict how eﬀective organisational changes requiring closer collaborations may succeed or otherwise. It can also indicate the depth of competency and/or capability of selected disciplines e.g. engineering, health & safety etc.

Our unique market competitiveness benchmark measures competitiveness based on the number of client connections together with their relative uniqueness to you. Ideally monopolies have many clients who are unique to them, so this tool benchmarks ﬁrms against this standard.

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Together with the trust network measures, key player vulnerability measures how reliant the organisation is on just a few individuals and compares this to other organisations in like industries.

Thought Leadership Web Sites www.optimice.com.au www.optimice.com.au

Books

www.onasurveys.com www.onasurveys.com

Whitepapers

Blogs

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www.visualmarkets.net

Reports

Some of our customers …

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Contacts

Dr. Laurence Lock Lee

Email: llocklee@optimice.com.au Phone: +61 (0) 407 001 628

Cai Kjaer, LLM

Email: cai.kjaer@optimice.com.au Phone: +61 (0) 411 569 694

For more extensive information on Optimice visit www.optimice.com.au