Why PatchWorks Designs?
 

Change in the Rate of Change
and Complexity Model

History of the Method
 
 
With the development of the DesignShop our partners and clients have been able, over the last 23 years, to deal with great complexity and deliver high performance work in radically reduced time frames.
 
This has enabled many organizations to stay requisite with increasing complexity and the rate-of-change in their environment. Our entire Management Center and NavCenter processes, tools and environments have focused on providing users means to deal with the change/complexity equation and prepare themselves for the NetWork Economy. (See: Kevin Kelly).
 
However, there are now emerging issues of such complexity and accelerating change rates, that an even greater number of people and resources have to be employed (than can be in a DesignShop - or series of Shops, or with the resources of one Center) in order to effectively deliver solutions at an order-of-magnitude greater in scale and scope than any current practice.
 
PatchWorks is a system and method designed to get the same integration, time compression and quality of work typical of the DesignShop, Management Center and NavCentersenvironments at this greater scale.
 
This page will trace the development of the PatchWorks concept, describe how “PatchWorks-like” projects have been accomplished in the past and layout a conceptual framework for the practice. Elsewhere, Ongoing patchworks Projects are documented.
 
A full PatchWorks exercise is not possible without robust employment of the DesignShop, Modeling Language and the full Taylor NavCenter tool-kit. PatchWorks Designs assumes this prior art. In addition, many other “Taylor” processes are employed - Work Shops and adapted Delphi processes among them. However, more is needed. There are many many tools, processes, procedures, environments, necessary to the full PatchWorks Design experience. It can be said that PatchWorks is the systems integration process by which a variety of otherwise unconnected experiences are made to sum into one integrated result. A result that many different “customers” can employ.
 
CAMELOT at Picnic Island
in early 1997
 

The PatchWorks Designs concept jelled for me during a period I spent on CAMELOT anchored off Picnic Island outside of Ft Meyers. This was a working vacation. There were a set of questions that I was asking myself and I wanted the isolation of a week alone to answer them. For days, I never left the boat as it swung in the tide four times a 24 hour period. Hours and hours of silent thoughts - of questions.

 
PatchWorkd Designs Model
©MG Taylor Corporation 1998
 
The question ranged from philosophical to task. From issues out in the future to a short term focus on immediate challenges facing our Enterprise. How do you take this work to scale? How can truly complex problems involving thousands of people, hundreds of organizations and many political units be solved? How can the intensity of effort associated with a DesignShop be coupled with other work modes yet experienced as a whole over an extended period of time? How can many work techniques and styles be used and be integrated into one seamless system? How can team members - remote in time and distance - experience a continuity of effort? How can physical and virtual space make an integrated environment for thought and action? How can the many conflicting schedules and work styles endemic to a large diverse population be incorporated into a process that feels natural and unforced? How can the resources be marshaled necessary for the successful working of any complex problem? How can a “market” be build so the the different and often conflicting interests of many serve each in a way that individually addresses their requirements?
PatchWorks emerged as a design strategy. It summed up the experiences of the last 20 years and directly addressed the systems integration issues that are at the core of ValueWeb facilitation. Now, the methods, tools and organizational models were becoming requisite with the rate-of-change problem that I tripped over in 1961. For the first time, the practical possibility of matching organizational response with change and complexity seemed close at hand. This solution also matched the many strategies that are systemic to the Net Work Economy. The basis of the ValueWeb concept is that an organization cannot afford to focus only on it’s own formal organizational issues. It has to facilitate it’s larger network Enterprise. The first PatchWorks Designs exercises will be a test of this model. If this proves out, a whole new level of organizational competency will be established.
 
 
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Matt Taylor
Palo Alto
March 9, 1999

November 18, 2010
Tiburon

 
SolutionBox voice of this document:
INSIGHT • POLICY • PROGRAM
 
click on graphic for explanation of SolutionBox

posted March 9, 1999

revised November 18, 2010
• 19990416.452394.mt • 20010328.763814.mt •

• 20021112.222290.mt • 20101118.409109.mt •

(note: this document is about 65% finished)

copyright© Matt Taylor 1999, 2001, 2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The system and method described is Patent Pending by iterations.

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