"Organizational Network Analysis," Or Why Your Litigators Don't Talk to Your Deal Lawyers

Professor Carley, as well as a frequent correspondent who I will identify only as the director of KM at an AmLaw 100 firm, have come through.  First, Professor Carley provided a working paper on the Enron email database, and told me that under the auspices of her position as director of the "Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems" center the use and application of organizational network analysis tools is taught.

Second, my loyal reader pointed me towards the work of Rob Cross, a professor at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce (associated with the more familiar Darden school), who provides a handy-dandy summary of what one can learn about, and how one can improve, organizational dynamics through "making invisible patterns of information flow and collaboration in strategically important groups visible."

Let's dimensionalize this, folks, with a real-world case from Prof. Cross's practice:  A large consulting firm reorganized into four regions across the US from its earlier city-by-city structure, with the goal of being able to provide a broader and more diverse array of services to each client.  Eighteen months later, the question senior executives wanted answered was, how is the integration going?  Using organizational network analysis ("ONA"), they produced the following graphic representing the relationships across two of the new regions:

Any questions about which region had become more cohesive and which remained silo'ed in its earlier city by city footprint?

So what's in ONA for you?  Does integrating practice groups sound like a challenge you've ever faced?  And did you try to address it through exhortation and evangelism?  We can do better:  The tools are there for you to use, and they work.