Mapping Workshop

Hunting For Coordination Waste

One of the most distinctive features of what we and our colleagues have developed over more than 35 years of studying the way we human beings coordinate action and construct enterprises is a practice of mapping coordination. In life, we encounter many different kinds of maps – street maps, geographic maps, engineering drawings, maps showing data flows, and so-called organization charts distinguishing roles and hierarchies of authority to act. Maps help competent actors survey the territories they will traverse and design effective paths and practices for moving in those worlds.

Our new maps – maps of the commitments, coordination, and cooperation found and missing in enterprises – show clearly that all of the action in enterprises comes from human beings speaking and listening to each other as they invent possibilities of action, cause those actions to occur, and assess the results of their conversations.

This new class of maps makes it possible to observe a kind of waste that does not appear in any traditional organizational maps or financial reports: Coordination Waste. This formerly invisible waste constitutes far more than half of the waste that can be found in the operation of any sizeable enterprise, of any type, in the world.

In this conversation, we will introduce the practices of mapping coordination, and produce an experience of the dramatically new way of observing an enterprise at work.

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5 Half Day Sessions Starting Wednesday, October 19th, 2016. Optional prep session available on Oct 12th for people not familiar with Language Action. 

Course Meets on Wednesdays 3 pm – 7 pm Pacific Time

Participants are given homework (reading, observing, and mapping exercises) at the end of each session and are asked to bring findings to the following session for discussion and learning.

Course meets via Zoom. Recordings will be made available to the participants. Harvester retains all rights to use recorded materials.

Fee: $950

Limited Seating Capacity of 25. Only 1 seat left.