An organization is a function of the environment within which it conducts its affairs. It is contingent, for its form and behaviour, on factors in that environment. It is essential, therefore, that an organization has, in place, clear mechanisms, to identify, measure and respond to events and activities, occurring beyond its organizational perimeter, both physical and abstract.
A fundamental aspect of our Organizational Development work is the identity and definition of five essential Protocols. They are, routinely, applied to undertake a process, which we call, ‘Environmental Scanning’ (ES). Taken in order, the five Protocols provide an action model that can be memorialized in the acronym, VIPER, as follows:
V – Vigilance
I – Information
P – Processing
E – Evaluation
R – Response
Vigilance An organization’s environment is never still. It is in a constant state of change. Consequently, it is not enough to identify and respond to its prevailing condition. There must be a reliable and effective mechanism in place to carry out continuous monitoring of events, activities, decisions etc occurring within the environment. Such phenomena might require responsive changes, within the organization, itself.
Information The integrity of decisions, aimed at dealing with problems and opportunities, identified within the organizational environment, is directly linked to the amount and quality of the information gathered. The information needed is that which can have some impact on the organization’s Aims, People, Technologies and Structure.
Everyone, in the organization, has a responsibility to identify and report on changes occurring in the environment, where they function. Beyond individual responsibility, groups or teams might be given particular accountability for analyzing specific components of their environment. This includes departments, project teams, multidisciplinary teams and, of course, the senior executive team such as the board of directors.
Processing There is a need to establish a system for, internally, processing the information on changes occurring within the organizational environment. The responsibility, for managing the system, should be allocated to one individual, who is designated as the Change Coordinator, within a defined constituency, such as a. department, division, job discipline etc.Following an environmental scanning session, the analyst completes a standard report on any current or impending event, identified. A separate report is completed for each environmental event.
The Change Coordinator is responsible for collating all environmental analysis reports, for his/her assigned constituency. These are, subsequently, presented to a group of people designated as the VIPER Action Team. These people are assigned, to the team, because their skills and knowledge qualify them to evaluate and make action proposals on the identified organizational events. The VIPER team is responsible for the ‘Evaluation’ and ‘Response’ steps in the action model.
Evaluation Using the first three stages of a six stage task achievement plan, the members of the VIPER team review the content of each environment analysis report, in turn. In each case, they:
- Establish what must be achieved and define clear objective(s).
- Review the content of the ES report and, using both convergent (logical) and divergent (creative) thinking techniques, define and describe a range of action options.
- Select one, or a combination of a number of options, which provide the basis for the best response to the environmental event.
The Viper team is then able to move on to the Response stage.
Response Steps four to six provide the means of responding to the environmental event.
4. Develop an Action Plan, which clearly, defines the action stages in the plan, who is responsible for each stage, what resources are required and a timetable for the completion of each stage.
5. Implement and monitor the Action Plan, until completion.
6. Evaluate performance against the Task’s success criteria.
It must be emphasised that consistent environmental scanning is essential, not only for the continuing development of the organization, but also for its very survival.
‘Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous’
(Middlemarch: Mary Ann Evans, 1819 – 1880, writing as George Eliot)
The ‘VIPER’ Protocols contributed to the DNA of the following Training Package