Module 4 - CaseAppreciative InquiryCase Assignment

For this assignment, first carefully review the required background materials. Make sure you understand the standard organizational development approaches to team building such as process integration as discussed in the Kondalkar (2009) or the approach discussed in Rothwell (2010). Then make sure you understand the main principles of Appreciative Inquiry.

When you are finished reviewing the background materials, go through each of the scenarios below and apply what you've read to these scenarios. For each scenario, cite at least one of the required readings to support your answer. You should cite at least three of the four required readings in your paper. Your paper should be 4-5 pages in length:

1. A bank has recently been losing money. Many borrowers have not been able to repay their loans. It is not clear why this has suddenly been a problem. Management is not sure if this is due to poor motivation of their loan officers who may not be doing careful credit checks on borrowers, or if it is due to other factors. But regardless of the source of the problem, the bank needs to fix this problem soon or otherwise they will go out of business. Time is of the essence for the bank to fix this problem. Should this team use an Appreciative Inquiry approach, or a more traditional Organizational Development approach? Explain your reasoning with references to the required readings.
2. A team of television screenplay writers have been working together for 10 years. For the first eight years their show had very high ratings, but over the last two years the ratings have started to slip and the network is thinking about canceling the show. The team used to get along with each other very well and agreed most of the time. But now the team has been fighting, blaming each other for the lower ratings, and having a lot of difficulty reaching agreement on what kind of stories or plots the show should have. Should this team use an Appreciative Inquiry approach, or a more traditional Organizational Development approach? Explain your reasoning with references to the required readings
3. A new start-up social networking company has recently received a lot of money from investors. The top management team consists of young but experienced employees who have worked at Facebook, Twitter, and similar companies. They are all highly motivated and get along well with each other. But in spite of their motivation, experience, and money from investors, they all agree things are not working as well as they should. They have only been working together for a few months but feel that something is missing in how they work together. They believe their functioning as a team could be improved but are not sure what exactly needs to be done. Should this team use an Appreciative Inquiry approach or a more traditional organizational development approach? Explain your reasoning with references to the required readings.
4. An organization hires an Appreciative Inquiry consultant to help the company get back on track and improve the performance of its product design team. The consultant starts by asking members of the team how they would like the team to perform and what their ideal vision of the team would be. The consultant collects all of this input and puts together a vision of how the team should perform and function. However, once this vision is presented to the team they are unable to come up with a plan to implement it. They all agree it would be great if they could achieve this vision, but they also are in consensus that this vision presented by the consultant is highly unrealistic. What do you think went wrong? What steps do you think the Appreciative Inquiry consultant could have taken to make the consulting process go better? Refer to the specific "4 Ds" of Appreciative Inquiry in your answer.

Assignment Expectations

• Answer the assignment questions directly.
• Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
• Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you use articles from the Internet, make sure they are from credible sources.
• Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the "Writing Style Guide," which is found under My Resources in the TLC portal.

Module 4 - BackgroundAppreciative InquiryRequired Reading

To start off, take a look at this very short introduction to the basic concept of Appreciative Inquiry:

Hayes, J. (2009). Appreciative inquiry. Aarhus School of Business https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqHeujLHPkw

Now take a look at this slightly more detailed video. Pay close attention to the discussion of the "4D Model" towards the end of the video:

Kelm, J. (2011). What is Appreciative Inquiry? Appreciative Engagement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwGNZ63hj5k

For a more detailed discussion about Appreciative Inquiry review this book chapter. Pay special attention to discussion starting on page 169 about the differences between Appreciative Inquiry and traditional Organizational Development approaches, as well as the section starting on page 175 about the "AI 4-D Cycle":

Rothwell, W. (2010). Chapter 7: Appreciative inquiry. Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change (3rd Edition). Hoboken, NJ, USA: Pfeiffer. [Ebrary]

Finally, take a close look at these two short but important articles which provide direct comparisons between Appreciative Inquiry and traditional Organizational Development techniques as well as some of the main advantages and disadvantages of Appreciative Inquiry:

Venter, J. (2010). Appreciative inquiry. Accountancy SA, 42-44. [Proquest]

Zemke, R. (1999). Don't fix that company! Training, 36(6), 26-33. [Proquest]

For more information about Appreciative Inquiry, take a look at the optional readings below which includes an article about a real life practical use of this method and another book chapter that gives a very thorough overview of this method.

Optional Reading

The following book is a comprehensive guide to Appreciative Inquiry:

Watkins, J. M., & Mohr, B. J. (2011). Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination (2nd Edition). Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons. [Ebrary]

For a detailed case study of a real-life use of Appreciative Inquiry, see the following article:

Berrisford, S. (2005). Using Appreciative Inquiry to drive change at the BBC. Strategic Communication Management, 9(3), 22-25. [ProQuest]