Facilitating Collaboration with Problem Structuring Methods: A Case Study of an Inter-Organisational Construction Partnership

Abstract

Despite the potential of inter-organisational collaboration to create 'collaborative advantage' among participant organisations, not all collaborations realise this potential due to the complexities and challenges faced by potential collaborators. To address these difficulties and increase the likelihood of collaborative success, different forms of intervention approaches for fostering inter-organisational collaboration has been advocated by collaboration researchers and practitioners. These intervention approaches all facilitate interaction and consensus formation among the participants. However their 'added value' is procedural rather than substantive in nature. They do not incorporate tools which can enable participants to structure the complexity of the web of factors that are implicated in their collaboration, and thus make it more manageable. This paper argues that problem structuring methods (PSMs), a family of model-based approaches to group decision and negotiation support, are a form of intervention which can provide a balanced attention to both the process and the content of inter-organisational collaboration, and reports the experience of applying a particular PSM to an inter-organisational collaborative partnership in the UK construction industry. Drawing on the rich data generated from the intervention, the paper discusses the impact of the PSM in supporting the joint appreciation activities carried out by collaborators to address their problematic situation. Implications of the experience for the research and practice of PSMs within collaborative contexts are then presented.

Guiding interventions in a multi-organisational context: combining the Viable System Model and Hierarchical Process Modelling for use as a Problem Structuring Method

“…These issues were all manifest in this project and our method design was in-part guided by the success reported in recent case study accounts of using PSMs to address these issues (Ackermann et al, 2005;Franco, 2006;Franco 2007;Eden and Ackermann, 2014), principally through the conduct of effective problem structuring, creation of shared understanding, and engendering of high levels of supportability and subsequent ownership of the commitments.…”

Climate change and cities: problem structuring methods and critical perspectives on low-carbon districts

“…see (Franco 2009) (Franco 2008). However, this application presents particular challenges to the facilitator due to the increased level of potential for conflict about the issues, goals and values that are relevant to the multiple organisations, and the need for the facilitator to achieve legitimacy with all the members of the multi organisational team (Franco 2009).…”

Rethinking Soft OR interventions: Models as boundary objects

“…Bechky, 2003a, b;Carlile, 2002Carlile, , 2004Henderson, 1991;Star, 1989;Star & Griesemer, 1989). This literature is relevant to Soft OR because it provides a useful means to better understand the type of model-supported problem solving collaborations that are central to Soft OR practice (Franco, 2008), and also highlight the conditions under which models can become boundary objects during group interaction.…”