Organization Design Forum

Organization Design Forum is pleased to offer our

June 18, 19 & 20
Hyatt Place Fremont/Silicon Valley
3101 W. Warren Avenue
Fremont, CA - Phone: (510) 623-6000

To register or for more information, please click here.

Designing for Impact: Our Changing Organizations, Community and World--A Forum for Leaders, Practitioners, and Educators
April 22-24, 2008, Philadelphia, PA

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Conference Participant Information
Hotel Information
2008 Conference Macro Design (Word file)
Fun Facts About Philly (Word file)

Mark your calendar for April 22 – 24, 2008 to join a unique group of practitioners, thought leaders and educators who will gather in historic Philadelphia to learn from each other about the latest in the field of Organization Design.

2008 Theme: Designing for Impact: Our Changing Organizations, Community and World – A Forum for Leaders, Practitioners, and Educators

To meet the changing and complex needs of the organizations and communities that we design, we find ourselves drawing from other fields as models for design. This year, we look at design in the way an architect would:

"How we enter and leave a space is just as important as what we do in it."

Pre-Conference Workshops, April 21, 2008:

ODF's 7- Step Workshop: Creating the Designed Organization
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Craig McGee, Kathy Molloy

The Axelrod Group: The Conference Model: Accelerated Redesign
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Dick Axelrod, Emily Axelrod

AlignOrg Solutions: Differentiation by Design: Connecting Strategy to Organization Design.
An introduction to practical tools that make the connection between strategy and organizational choices about structure, resources, and design.
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Reed Deshler, Kreig Smith
  Click here for more information about these presenters.

Conference Plenary Sessions:

Designing a Community in Real Time: Many People, Diverse Opinions and One Strategic Solution.
An overview of the revolutionary approach in housing.
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenter: Charles "Chuck" Durrett (Co-founder, McCamant & Durrett Architects)
  Click here for more information about this presenter.

Co-Creating the Customer Experience: Implications for Organization Design
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenter: Francis Gouillart (President, Experience Co-Creation Partnership; formerly affiliated with the Value Innovation/Blue Ocean Strategy Model)
  Click here for more information about this presenter.

Designing for Differentiation; This hands-on plenary session will interactively demonstrate the power of organization design aligned to strategy.
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Reed Deshler, Kreig Smith (Align/Org Solutions)
  Click here for more information about these presenters.

Real Time Strategic Change: The Business of Fast and Lasting Organization Design.
Shorten the time between investment and return. Stack the odds of long-term success in your favor. Make the few moves with the biggest payoffs.
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Jake Jacobs, Ian Paterson (Winds of Change)
  Click here for more information about these presenters.

Capstone Plenary Session
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Marc Gerstein, Jay Galbraith
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Conference Concurrent Sessions:

The Structure of the "Thousand Islands" Organization.
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenter: Supriadi (Yadi) Legino

Accelerating Change: Rapid Prototyping for Merging Acquisitions.
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Craig McGee, Claudia Murphy

Integrating Organizational Design with a Leadership Operating System to Achieve your Strategic and Cultural Intent.
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Nancy Reyda, Mary Harmon (Trium Group)

Future-Proofing Your Business: Clarifying Strategy and Designing for Alignment - An International Case Study.
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenter: Ken Brophy (Align/Org Solutions)

Saving Millions Whilst Improving Performance: How Real Time Design and Polarity Management Work Together.
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Julie Beedon, Sophia Christie

Reversing the Focus: The American Red Cross Journey from HQ to Donor-Centered Design
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Naomi Stanford, Steve Denne

Conference Mini-Concurrent Sessions:

Whole Systems Rapid Improvement Events--Applications from Sex Ed to Submarines.
Presenters: Alastair Mitchell-Baker, Tim Pidsley

The use of software to speed up the design process
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenter: Lawton Harper

Designing Organizations at the Speed of Life
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Scott Bartlett, Ray Wassel

Creating a Customer Atlas to Propel Organization Design
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenter: Tim McClernon

Linking Organization Design to Job Design
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenter: Paul DeYoung

Whole System Rapid Improvement Events
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Alastair Mitchell-Baker, Tim Pidsley

Tools from the Conference Model - Accelerated Redesign Workshop
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Dick Axelrod, Emily Axelrod

Conference Sunset Dialogue Session

Organization Transformation – A Dialogue with a Chief Information Officer
  Click here for more information about this session. (pdf file)
Presenters: Rahul Merchant, Yo Yeong

Opening Keynote Speaker:
"Designing a Community in Real Time: Many People, Diverse Opinions and One Strategic Solution"
Charles Durrett of McCamant & Durrett Architects and The CoHousing Company

Mr. Durrett's company has created a collaborative process that actively involves residents in the design of shared living space. He will help us look through the lens of an architect when designing in our space.

Keynote Speaker: "Co-Creating the Customer Experience: Implications for Organization Design"
Francis J. Gouillart
President, the Experience Co-Creation Partnership

Francis J. Gouillart teaches at the Center for Experience Co-Creation at the Ross Business School at the University of Michigan. The Center for Experience Co-Creation was founded around the concepts of Experience Co-Creation, originally developed by C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy, the two widely recognized strategy and innovation professors at the Ross Business School at the University of Michigan, with Venkat Ramaswamy as Director of the Center.

Francis Gouillart is also the President of the Experience Co-Creation Partnership (ECC Partnership). The ECC Partnership is a services firm built to implement the Experience Co-Creation ideas with corporate clients around the world. Venkat Ramaswamy is the Founder and Chairman of the ECCP. The ECC Partnership provides workshop, coaching and consulting services to its clients, encouraging the development of internal capabilities through a cost-effective, high-leverage model.

Before joining Venkat Ramaswamy in the ECC Partnership, Mr. Gouillart was closely associated with the development and implementation of major business methodologies, including the Balanced Scorecard model (working with its two creators Robert Kaplan, at Harvard Business School and David Norton, at the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, now division of Palladium), and the Value Innovation/Blue Ocean Strategy model (working with Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne at INSEAD). He also worked with C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel in their development of the Strategic Intent and Core Competences model.

Mr. Gouillart is co-author (with James Kelly) of the book "Transforming the Organization", published by McGraw-Hill, which reached the top of Business Week's best-seller list in 1995. He is also co-author (with Frederick Sturdivant) of the article "Spend a Day in the Life of Your Customers", published by Harvard Business Review (January-February 1994). He also authored the popular "Stratégie pour une Entreprise Compétitive", Editions Economica, Paris, which was named 'Best Strategy Book of the Year' by the French Association of Strategic Planners (AFPLANE) in 1989.

He is considered one of the leading authorities on the topic of strategy, innovation, transformation, and capabilities-building. He has been widely quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune, and has been featured on CNBC.

Mr. Gouillart received an MBA from the University of Chicago, and currently resides in Concord, Massachusetts.

Hands-On Plenary Sessions Include:
"Designing for Differentiation" by Kreig Smith & Reed Deshler from AlignOrg Solutions

Kreig and Reed delivered a dynamite pre-conference session for the 2007 ODF Conference and they have been invited back to present during the main conference in 2008. They will provide a highly interactive session that will demonstrate the power of organization design aligned to strategy.

"Real Time Strategic Change" author Robert "Jake" Jacobs & Ian Paterson from the Winds of Change Group
Real Time Strategic Change: The Business of Fast and Lasting Organizaiton Design

Shorten the time between investment and return. Stack the odds of long-term success in your favor. Make the few moves with the biggest payoffs.

Have you ever wanted to avoid the missed milestones, stalled teams, or disappointing returns on investments that seem to crop up in nearly every organization design effort?
Would you be interested in finding a way to achieve your redesign effort goals in half the time?
Wouldn't it be great if you knew which levers to pull to guarantee your project teams really could Work Smarter, Not Harder?

It's easy answering Yes to each of these questions. It's hard knowing how to solve these problems. That's where Real Time Strategic Change can help.

During this session you'll apply the Six RTSC Principles and turbo-charge your existing design methods. The goal? To leave with at least one concrete action you can take that will significantly accelerate your organization design efforts in the future.

Case-Study Plenary Session:
Rahul Merchant, CIO of Fannie Mae, and Yo Yeong, Director, Organization Development

Rahul and Yo have a great story to tell about the restructuring of Fannie Mae's IT organization, which comprises over one-third of their company. They started with a major technical skills assessment followed by a redesign of the overall IT organization along with outsourcing. You will hear how strategy and organization design intersected and facilitated the success of the redesign.

Closing Plenary Session:
Marc Gerstein of MGA Limited & ODF Co-President

So where do we go from here? What next? How do we, as organization designers, exit this space? Marc will navigate our community through the answers to these questions and more as we challenge each other to explore the possibilities.

In addition, concurrent sessions will be run emphasizing one or more of these key themes:

Crossroads: Where strategy and organization design intersect

Matrix, Network or Virtual: Complex, new and emerging models

Real Time Design: Designing at the speed of life

We also have pre-conference workshops available on Monday, April 21st! The topics and presenters for these sessions include:

"Creating the Designed Organization" workshop will be presented by Craig McGee and Kathy Molloy.

Reed Deshler and Kreig Smith from AlignOrg Solutions will present a workshop that will focus on the intersection of Strategy and Organization Design, offering a more in-depth look than their plenary session will provide during the conference.

Collaborative change consultants, Dick and Emily Axelrod, will share their best practices in their session The Conference Model: Accelerated Redesign.

Please stay-tuned to our website as we gain more information about all of the sessions and pre-con workshops and update our information accordingly.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about the conference or would like to share ideas with the Planning Committee, please contact one of the Conference Co-chairs:

Cathy Kuhnau: CK_Consulting@comcast.net
Lisa Smallwood: lsmallwo@amfam.com
Or the ODF Administrator Brenda Price: b_r_price@bellsouth.net

See you in Philadelphia, a city that mirrors our changing world!