Embedding SNA as a key business planning tool: A case study from social housing in the UK
Organization Network Analysis session
Michael Cochrane (Gentoo Group) — Stuart Smith (Woodholmes)
Embedding SNA as a key business planning tool: A case study from social housing in the UK
Gentoo Group is a private, non for profit, people and property business, which was created through the transfer of over 36,000 properties and around 1,700 staff from local authority ownership in 2001.
Around two years ago the company embarked on a knowledge management programme in partnership with innovation company Woodholmes. This involved taking a deliberate strategic approach to the sharing of knowledge, both internally and externally. The purpose of the programme was to gain efficiency savings, improve customer service, as well as facilitating business improvement, planning, growth and innovation by levering available knowledge assets.
A key aspect of this programme was to make the most of our internal staff resource, as well as our external links. Social Network Analysis (SNA) was identified as a potentially useful tool to examine how individual members of staff and internal teams related to one another and collaborated together.
The initial development of SNA as a business planning tool within Gentoo involved scoping out members of staff who had a relevant part to play in the wider knowledge management project, so a Community of Practice could be developed. This was then followed by more specific SNA training and coaching delivered by our innovation partners and then pilot SNA exercises taking place in key areas of the business. These pilots helped in contextualising the SNA tool set within the organisation and in understanding where it best added value.
A case study that we we’ll demonstrate included using SNA in the implementation of a new Asset Management Database. The social networks around the project and interfaces were mapped by hand and also by using SNA visualisation software. This highlighted a junior member of staff as a key hub and “go to person” within the process, who would not have otherwise been identified by using conventional methods.
The results of this SNA then proved influential in the leadership decision making process on the future position and role of the wider Asset Management function in the Group. This included the previously identified junior member of staff being centrally involved in the relocation of the function and future development and implementation of the database.
Gentoo’s traditional business focus was on the development, rent or sale and management of properties. With recent diversification into wider products and service areas, SNA has been used by teams and individuals within the organisation, to analyse whether they use their time effectively in order to help deliver the Group vision.
Particular strategic issues that were highlighted, which SNA could help to address, included identifying silos that developed within different areas of the business, as well as the lack of cross silo working in some areas. SNA was used in conjunction with developing a broad awareness of the importance of cultivating and maintaining “weak ties” in other parts of the business and externally within emerging business areas.
Personal and team SNAs were used to “hold up a mirror” to individuals, visually demonstrating their current use of time and directing future strategic planning. SNAs that highlighted previously unidentified hubs and individuals across the business with innovative characteristics, fed into the development and implementation of web based ideas sharing community.
A number of different SNA methodologies have also been trialled during its use within the Group. These included unstructured discussions, followed by hand drawn SNA diagrammatical representations. Structured surveys have also been used, including those which have been manually analysed and represented using such programmes as Xmind, as well as those that have been visualised and analysed using Netdraw.
Since its initial trial use within the business, SNA has, over the past year, been embedded as a standard research method within the Group. The scope and range of its use has broadened, as the results of initial trials were communicated and the wider awareness has led to other areas of investigation being identified.
The ability of staff within the Group to undertake their own SNAs, without necessarily having to call on the “experts” has also been introduced. This has been done by undertaking specific SNA training sessions with a variety of staff, as well as producing an internal SNA Research Toolkit, which has been made available to all staff on the company intranet, to introduce them to the basics of the method.
