Boeing Operations Center
Transforming an organization is an enormous challenge. Boeing is gaining stunning early adopter advantage by embracing the value network mindset. Small teams using value network analysis are delivering enormous gains in productivity. (We’d like to share the specific numbers of these mind-boggling gains, but they are highly confidential. Once they are declassified, they will be published broadly in professional journals and in this Blogsite). Value networks achieve fundamental advancements in productivity, productivity growth, and excellence in corporate performance. Organizational leaders take heed of the quote by the famous cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of people working together can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”
Glenda Turner was the first value network analysis (VNA) practitioner in Boeing. She was dubbed the “bubble lady” because of the network maps and value network visualizations used for organizational transformation. Glenda has been continuously introducing value network thinking into Boeing. She began in her own work group by collecting success stories. She also achieved a change in her job title from “Supply Chain Coordinator” to “Value Network Analyst.” Glenda demonstrated the value network analysis accomplishments for other groups inside Boeing. When a friend Bob Wiebe heard about Glenda’s work, he asked to do some experimentation. It was during the development of the Operations Center for the Commercial Airline Systems. Glenda explored possible applications within Boeing. In due course, over the next year, a passionate community of supporters and qualified practitioners took root. They began exploring value networks and using value network analysis. The excitement and potential was palpable. For Boeing, value networks provided the organizational and process meta-model. It led the combination of system dynamics, organizational effectiveness practices, learning networks, and Lean manufacturing. Value networks produced a coherent and more effective whole system view. Furthermore, the value networks lens allowed teams to expand their understanding and skills in other sub-methodologies. The concepts and language of VNA is becoming the lingua franca of organization and process at Boeing.
Glenda also showcases Boeing’s success at the worldwide Value Network Cluster Action/Research Events. These distributed value networks conversations are led by participants only. They are orchestrated by the Value Networks Consortium. In May, 2007 Philip Stielstra, Deb Pagel, Glenda and others led a special session at the Linkage Organization Development Conference in Chicago. These key internal and external business narratives develop the conversations essential to value network adoption in large organizations. These breakaway organizational success stories assure the steady diffusion and pull-through in large organizations. They are the heart and soul of the fundamental evolution from the 20th Century function and process legacies into the diverse network future of the 21st Century.
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