Jeff Conklin

Summary: A book about a problem (collaboration and sensemaking around 'wicked problems' in organisations) with a solution/technique (dialogue mapping). Also, somewhat unusually, the author provides some instructure material on how to apply/test their suggestions.

Things I liked:

Refreshing look at decision making and inforatmion sharing in organisations. The breadth and depth of the author's
experience and technique are good for someone, like me, who is working in on particular subset of the problem solving space.

Not to dogmatic. The author offered suggestions ofor different ways to apply techniques and explained why they were important
(along with how they could be substituted for other approaches). The author acknowledged that some groups just wouldn't go
for this approach and that it was one (fairly good one he thought) approach amongst many.

Things that could have been improved:

I would have liked some more baby steps towards implementation. The 'Shared Display' seemed like quite a bit step to me, so
maybe some recommended auxilliary reading with regards to introducing a technique like this to a new group would have been
good.

Highlight:

I think the section at the start where he debunked the ways in which everyone pretends things are fine in an organisation was
a good call to arms (I think I'll read it again soon). It definately set the mood for the book well and I think got me on
board.

"To function in such a hierarchy often means to collude in systematic denial of the complex and ill-structured dynamics of wicked problems,
a phenomenon dubbed 'skilled incompetence' - Argyris and Schon, 1996.… (plus d'informations)