Introduction: Secrets to Initiating and
Contracting for Successful Large Inquiries
    

by Bernard J Mohr and
Stephen P Fitzgerald

AI success stories in print are constructions – retroactive tales most often told from the vantage of the consultant(s) engaged in the inquiry. Like all
good stories, they selectively focus our attention, stir our passions, and ignite our imaginations. And they unfold in a series of seemingly sequential acts called “Discovery, Dream, Design, and Destiny"
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In this section, we begin to explore the myriad ways that relationships that generate and
support large-scale inquiries are established and cultivated. The section concludes with a provocative, introspective reflection on the subtle, often hidden-from-view questions and dynamics involved in that process.

Demystifying the AI Planning Process: Letting the Client Lead

by Gayle Lantz

Organizations go about planning AI based change processes in a variety of ways. This article details one way based on a recent case with a NASA department that wanted to initiate cultural change. The following issues are highlighted: early key success factors that contributed to a productive AI experience; main issues considered in the planning process; and lessons learned through the experience. The article also stresses the importance of letting the client lead and the value of fostering effective collaboration throughout each step in the process especially when there is client doubt.

Coming Alongside: Learning from Ambiguity and Creative Tension in the Early Phases of Consultancy-Client Engagement

by Peter Shepherd and Alexandra Stubbings

It is understood in our profession that early contact between client and consultancy will be
instrumental in establishing norms of communication, relative value and respect, authority, and influence. However, this understanding does not always manifest in text-book responses to authority in a client-consultancy relationship. In this article we explore our experience of engaging with a client and the associated assumptions, expectations and fantasies. We discuss what both parties need to believe about each other, how idealising can occur, and why we think voicing disquiet is an act of appreciation.

Part 2: Emergence, Complexity, and Chaos

with Penny Williamson and Tony Suchman

AI case stories are often presented via print, presentations, and conversations as linearly
executed expressions of the now ubiquitous 4D or 5D AI process model, and for many AI experiences this may be effective and appropriate. Yet how does our image of that model enable and/or constrain our engagement with the increasing complexity of very large systems over time? What impact does it have on the AI practitioner when s/he lets go of
any attachment to implicit, pre-determined models of linear development (i.e. 4Ds) and
surrenders to the experience of emergence through pluralistic engagement with people in highly complex systems? The authors in this section push the bounds of ambiguity with AI in a variety of exciting, dynamic and generative ways.

Emergent Change Strategy at the BBC:
Living AI During Client Contracting
by Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge

This article explores how AI values and principles were used during the contracting phase to demonstrate the power of the approach as part of the ownership management strategy,
particularly by encouraging the client to participate fully in co-constructing the process of
change. Key choice points, challenges, opportunities and outcomes are described related to letting a change strategy emerge rather than planning it in advance.

Using Whatever Emerged: Infusing AI through the Contracting Process

by Lonnie Weiss

This story highlights how partnership, flexibility and opportunism–in the best possible way–allowed us to build momentum and begin infusing AI even before the initiative began. Although top leadership support was unwavering, the contracting process at a large state agency took many months.

Part 3: Progressive Definition within Complex Systems: Lessons from the YWCA
  
by Colette Herrick, Sallie Lee, Cheri Torres and Wendy White

The YWCA of the USA, a large, loosely woven national organization that is working on
culture transformation, was the winner of the AI Consulting Destiny Prize. This project provides insight into a range of essential considerations for the application of AI for large scale change and lessons for the Definition process. Areas of focus include the significance of organizational structure on change initiatives, the role of formal and informal leadership, and the progressive nature of the definition phase in the context of a system that has been undergoing explicit reinvention of culture and structure for over a decade.

Creative Definition as an Antidote for Skepticism: Building up Guyana’s Positive Change Wave
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by Jen Hetzel Silbert

This article describes the early stages of a partnership between Innovation Partners
International (IPI) and Aurora Associates in their introduction of AI to the people of Guyana. Sponsor skepticism that a nation known for historically
violent racial clashes could embrace a strength-based, participatory approach to peacebuilding
and community/nation development was one of the hurdles to be overcome.