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In group: Building improvement capability across boundaries

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  • Matthew Mezey posted an update in the group Building improvement capability across boundaries 4 years, 10 months ago

    I think ‘Systems Convening’ skills are proving to be increasingly crucial for successful learning and change across boundaries, and across a complex landscape.

    Etienne Wenger – who co-developed ‘Communities of Practice’ – will be writing a handbook on Systems Convening, as it’s a discipline he feels urgently needs to be created and established. It’s a level above specific Communities of Practice etc.

    Later this year – after he’s finished his current book – I hope he will be able to do a Zoom video call about ‘Systems Convening’ for the Q Community.

    These really are the skills needed for wide-scale cross-boundary work imho.

    If these skills might be relevant for a potential Q Exchange project, I can share a good chapter by Etienne and Beverley Wenger on this.

    • Hi Matthew,

      This sounds really interesting – I’m working with partners to create a whole system safety programme in Salford, at the heart of our learning so far (we’re 3 years in!) has been the added value of providing space for people from across the system to come together and think about a problem, I guess this could be called “systems convening”!

      Would be really helpful to find out other examples, and what we should be looking to replicate / avoid. Also keen to hear people’s ideas on how you evaluate the impact of working across boundaries. Equally I’m happy to share some of our learning and thinking. Really keen to hear what comes through this group.

      • Hi @joevans

        Sounds like you’re creating ‘Adaptive Spaces’: the exact thing that Prof Mary Uhl-Bien’s 10-year study of change in healthcare and elsewhere found was crucial to enabling successful change to embed. (And I noticed explained the journey of the Q-funded Hexitime timebank very well too!).

        I’ll add Prof Uhl-BIen’s Q Zoom call video to Q’s YouTube channel when I get time. It was great!

        Is there somewhere where I can read about your learning so far, especially on the value of providing spaces?

        Yes, pretty sure your providing spaces are either the same as ‘Systems Convening’, or strongly overlapping.

        Etienne Wenger got in touch to say he can do a Zoom call for Q, but needs to be after their current book is completed over the summer. (I think that one is on measuring the value of Communities of Practice).

        My feeling is that NHS folks need to somehow offer themselves as guinea pigs to try out whatever he comes up with in the ‘Systems Convening’ handbook he’ll be working on next. That way we get to use it, sooner… 😉

        The new world of Primary Care Networks, ICSs etc urgently needs these skills – and needs to recognise the new discipline of ‘Systems Convening’ imho.

        If ‘Systems Convening’ and the invisible leadership of creating ‘Adaptive Spaces’ remains often unnoticed (ie unsupported, unfunded etc), the leaders who do it will continue to burn out, and change and adaption for the future will be limited in the NHS.

        .

      • If I may add an observation; in recent work assessing the communications needs across STP and ICP, it has been my experience that there needs to be more work done on provision of a common communication platform across the partnership. While NHS Trust members may have their own platform – frequently different to that of a constituent Trust – local authority, Clinical Commissioning Group, and social-care provider employees rarely, if ever, have a platform suitable for raising issues such as safeguarding, misconduct etc. Might I ask if this is a misconception, or an accurate assessment of the situation? Is there a need for a common platform such as ‘WorkInConfidence’?

    • Hi Matthew, Hi Jo
      I would be interested in this work too. I am just about to embark on leading system wide working within AHP councils . Such a perfect opportunity , but keen to get it right … and thinking it, is ”systems convening”
      Ways to evaluate the impact would also be crucial. Apologies nothing to share at the moment , but keen to connect .

    • Thanks for the reply Matthew. I think I’m going to have to give that ‘Adaptive Spaces’ report a read as I don’t think I have come across this yet.

      The programme is called Safer Salford – more information is on our website http://www.safersalford.org. We are in the process of preparing an evaluation of the impact of the programme to date, but have completed annual evaluations which have captured some of the process-based outcomes from qualitative feedback from participants and some very remedial network mapping of connections built. We’re just finalising the Yr 3 evaluation but happy to share if you send me your email?

      Something which is really difficult to capture is the impact of ‘systems convening’ on outcomes (establishing causation – did X thing happen because Y event, etc), but we are developing some case studies / stories to highlight this.

      The point about the invisibility of ‘systems convening’ is really important. We are lucky in Salford that leaders have specifically placed value on this and support it, but there needs to be a way to demonstrate the impact in terms of outcomes!

      • I remember Prof Uhl-Bien specifically talking about the challenging issues around evaluating ‘Adaptive Leadership’ and suchlike (ie convening Adaptive Spaces etc). I’m pretty sure she’d found that whenever people tried, they just ended up with standard outcome measures, which missed the point…

        She was saying it would be great if someone did a nice big lit review of evaluation measures etc – and how they relate to adaptive work, operational work etc.

        There are certainly a lot of people who’d like to see someone crack that. Not least Prof Uhl-Bien herself!

        The book I think the Wengers are currently finishing is about measuring the value of Communities of Practice – which is one form of Adaptive Space. Principles could be useful more widely!

        Love to see the Yr 3 evaluation you mention. I’m here: matthew.mezey@health.org.uk I’ll send you that chapter on ‘Systems Convening’.

        The blurb for the Prof Mary Uhl-Bien Zoom call has links to some good articles by her: https://q.health.org.uk/event/how-to-support-innovation-in-the-nhs-with-a-little-help-from-complexity-science-zoom-webinar-with-prof-mary-uhl-bien/

        There’s even a whole book on her model, ‘Adaptive Space’, by Michael Arena (nb doesn’t cover her whole framework, just Michael’s favoured bits!).

        I really liked it!

        Other great work in this vein is June Holley’s ‘network weaving’, which goes wider than Mary’s organisational focus. I think foundations in the US in particular are starting to move towards network-based funding etc. (I may organise a Zoom to hear from one of the main health ones doing this).

        I often think that Helen Bevan and her NHS Horizons team strongly focus on creating temporary ‘Adaptive Spaces’ that link the informal innovation pockets in to the operational core.
        They – and others – could ‘sell’ this kind of Adaptive space-creating work better if this model was better known across the NHS.