Dynamic patterning

Discover what’s changing sooner. Take responsive action.

New insights revealed by our award-winning research offer much needed clarity within complexity. They tell us where to look to discover weak signals about what’s changing in your organisation. So you can learn faster about newly emerging opportunities and potential problems. And you’ll be better equipped to take responsive action in live change.

Rather than reacting automatically, based on old-world habits, you choose your responses into emerging patterns – and learn what works in the new world you’re co-creating.

Our Dynamic Patterning methodology is both highly practical and grounded in peer-reviewed research.

• Business leaders and managers
• Change leaders
• Programme directors
• Project boards
• HR and OD professionals
• Risk management professionals

• Early indications of bright spots and unlocked potential in your organisation
• Warnings of new challenges, or the unexpected persistence of old cultural patterns
• Insight into what were previously ‘unknown unknowns’
• Strategic learning to inform decision-making

How you benefit

Our methodology reveals valuable, actionable insights which help you:

• Seize opportunities faster
• Tackle problems when they’re smaller
• Avoid missed opportunities and nasty surprises in change

How your organisation benefits

• Builds organisational agility and resilience
• Enhances risk and opportunity management
• Develops strategic leadership capabilities for a VUCA[1] working world

It’s never too soon to start. Make space now to develop insights into your organisation’s patterns of change, so you’re ready for when you need them most.

Planned change programmes

Every planned change programme should include a parallel process to discover and respond to emerging patterns of change. Remember to put it in your project plan!

Project and programme management

We work in multi-project and programme environments with complex interdependencies which cannot be fully mapped out in advance. The best project directors anticipate problems and opportunities in live projects by noticing weak signals and making sense of emerging patterns much sooner than others. Project Boards need a methodology to enhance risk and opportunity management, by taking the focus beyond the parameters of individual programmes, and evaluating the changing context for success.

‘Bring Your Own Device’

BYOD, social media, big data, cloud computing – a nexus of forces which are transforming the way people relate to technology and how they interact with each other. We cannot know all the risks and opportunities in advance. We need to notice and interpret emerging patterns arising from technological change, so we can choose how to respond.

Organisation design, restructuring, smartworking

Organisation restructuring changes formal relationships and practices. But successful outcomes that enhance effectiveness depend on informal patterns and relationships emerging during transition – after formal changes have been made. We must pay attention to those patterns to maximise the benefits.

Mergers and acquisitions

M&A due diligence is a front-loaded legal process in corporate finance. But realising the benefits of M&A activity is a longer-term, people-related process of transition. Due diligence in transition entails discovering and responding to emerging patterns created by new interactions between people.

Re-vitalising your brand, engaging people

Successful brands are lived from the inside out. They engage employees, attract talent and ensure that the customer experience lives up to the hype. Internal brands evolve and develop through emerging patterns of change. Discovering those patterns can help you strengthen the brand experience.

Leadership development

Working with emerging patterns of change is a strategic leadership competence, and is becoming evermore important in a VUCA world. You can develop vital leadership skills to notice, interpret and choose how to respond to emerging patterns by embedding our Dynamic Patterning programmes into your leadership development processes.

Outsourcing and joint ventures

A multiplicity of outsourcing deals, commissioning models, ‘as-a-service’ contracts, joint ventures and flexible labour policies has changed the nature of organisations. It’s much harder to understand the end-to-end landscape and anticipate the inherent risks. We need to make space to understand the changing patterns of power, knowledge and relationships.