| DESCRIPTION |
The SODA (Strategic Options Development and Analysis) was developed
in the late 80's. In summary it is a methodology for helping someone understand
the various viewpoints of a problem area. Whilst the detail of any projects
is tailored to the specific problem, the general steps are;
- Planning meetings: Where the project is set up and
an initial view of the problem / situation is achieved. At this point
it is important to decide who the participants will be and what the
outputs will be in order to manage expectations.
- Client interviews: Here the key people involved
with the issue are interviewed, in a relaxed format, for an hour or
so to obtain their individual views of the problem area / situation.
- Development of causal maps: Causal mapping is used
to get depict the interviewee’s perception of the situation.
- Check-back interviews: To check with the interviewees
that the causal maps have correctly interpreted their views. If not,
they are modified until they are a true representation.
- Merging the maps: The individual maps are combined
to form a single map.
- Presentation: Both the individual and combined maps
are presented to the participants, and the merged map is worked on until
everyone finds it acceptable. This is best done on a computer with projector,
or using several computers and appropriate software. This allows the
whole group to understand all the viewpoints and to have ownership of
the final map.
- Interpret the map in terms of goals, strategies
and tactics: The completed, agreed, map can be used to determine the;
- High level goals – these are usually where
the causal arrow-heads that emerge from the map but don’t
go any further.
- Medium level strategies - these are generally
the factors that feed in more or less directly to the goals.
- Low level tactics and operational targets - these
are typically the activities that feed into the medium level strategies.
They are often located at where causal arrows tend to come in from
the wider environment.
- Action selection, allocation and implementation:
Now that the goals, strategies and targets have been determined, these
need to be allocated to people for implementation
|
