Interpretive structural modelling workshop

The interactive management facilitator should have an already-prepared set of flip chart displays available for use in briefing the participants on the anticipated activities, their purpose, their sequence, the expected products, and the significance of those products in terms of the situation (Warfield and Cardenas, 2002: 142). A brief presentation regarding the purpose, objectives, and intended outcomes of the workshop session was made for the participants prior the start of the workshop.

A total number of 6 participants satisfying the required stakeholders’ profile described in § 5.1.2 attended the interpretive structural modelling workshop. The attendees comprised one system engineer, two project managers from Nuclear Project Management Department, two project managers from the Outage Department and one project leader from the Operations Department. Other participants who contributed towards generating ideas for project delay factors could not attend the workshop due to other priorities and commitments. However, the information and knowledge they shared through the questionnaire responses was used to conduct the workshop session. A turnout of 6 participants is deemed to be sufficient as this number is equivalent to a committee established for a certain purpose. The following are the advantages of the committee:

• Pooling of knowledge and experience results in a more realistic and objective appraisal of the problem from all angles.

• Improved communication is achieved with the committee setup and helps with unwritten policies and objectives to be explained effectively through deliberations of committees.

• Participation in committee meetings promotes mutual understanding, teamwork, and cooperation among the committee members.

• Participation in the decision making process not only improves quality of decisions, it creates a sense of belonging.

• Committee promotes democratic management and help to avoid the risk of concentration of too much authority in the individual and the danger of abuse of power.

• Various group interests may be given a representation and such representation may be necessary to secure the commitment and cooperation of people.

In addition, Janes (1988) cited by Tuan (2003: 76) suggested that the participants in an interpretive structural modelling workshop should be limited to a maximum of approximately eight people. If the group size increases much above this number, the quality of debate deteriorates and each member could pose counter-arguments opposing each other. As a consequence, the number of possible communications between different individuals in a group of n people is n (n – 1).

It is important to stress the fact that during the workshop session the group should enter in an open dialogue, and therefore their primary attitude focused on learning and understanding each other’s ideas (Warfield and Cardenas, 2002: 143). A similar approach was encouraged by the researcher during the workshop session of establishing interrelationship among the modification project delay factors identified by the participants. The participants also displayed the same attribute when they were engaged in the discussion to construct the model.

As discussed in § 3.3.2.2 of this document, Concept Star is the relationship modelling software tool used in the study of identifying factors causing modification project delays. Relationship modelling is a method for creating a road map of complex situations where there are many issues or options to consider and is often used to provide fundamental understanding of complex situations, as well as to put together a course of action for solving a problem (Sorach_Inc, 2014: 1). Below are a few examples of how Concept Star has been used (Sorach_Inc, 2014: 2):

• Organizational mission statement and goal setting. • Personal visioning and goal setting.

• Formulating corporate strategy.

• Selection of technologies for investment. • Scenario planning.

• Development of organizational structure.

• Creating a common understanding of the situation involving technical staff and marketing through joint exploration.

• Feature prioritization for a complex product. • Defining new strategic planning process.

• Creating marketing plan. • Designing user interface logic. • Designing a training course.

Significant project delay factors shown in Table 4-3 were loaded into Concept Star software as elements of analysis. Within the Concept Star software application, three application tools available for analysis, namely:

• interpretive structural modelling; • linear interpretive model; and • interrelationship digraph.

Interpretive structural modelling tool was used for constructing modification project delay model. The trigger question, the context phrase, and the relation phrase were loaded into the software:

• Trigger question: Which factors influence plant system modification projects and

lead to untimely project delivery? • Context phrase: Does

• Relation phrase: Significantly aggravate

The context and relation are important control phrases, with context helping to guide the discussion and decision making during construction of the relationship model, and relation helping to determine the meaning and structure of the relationship model. Both phrases are displayed during the voting activity and used by participants to analyse the relationship between pairs of ideas and remind participants of the situation and what they are hoping to accomplish (Sorach_Inc, 2014: 8). The process of generating a model for factors causing modification project delays at Koeberg Power Station followed a similar approach shown in Figure 4-7.

During the workshop session, participants were given an opportunity to view project delay factors (herewith referred as elements) loaded on the software. An Excel spreadsheet (soft copy) with the same elements (shown in Table 4-3) was also made available to help the participants to refer to the description of elements where uncertainty of understanding of a particular element was experienced. Figure 4-8 shows a Concept Star dialog box where the elements were added and loaded into the software.

Figure 4-8: List of elements with assigned numbers

The context phrase “Does” was loaded into Concept Star as shown in Figure 4-9.

Figure 4-9: Context phrase

The relation phrase “Significantly aggravate” was also loaded on Concept Star software as shown in Figure 4-10.

Figure 4-10: Relation phrase

Interpretive structural modelling uses pairwise analyses of ideas to transform a complex issue, involving a lot of ideas, into a structured relationship model that is easier to understand (Sorach_Inc, 1999: 3). Therefore, during the workshop participants were given an opportunity to assess the relation between two elements at a time. A computer dialog box was displayed to the participants each time a question to assess relationship is posed. For example, “does proficiency of a project manager significantly aggravate poor leadership” was posed to the participants as shown in Figure 4-11. Participants were provided with an opportunity to elaborate, discuss, and debate their views regarding relationship of the two elements under evaluation. Consequently, participants were requested to vote in cases where opposing views were presented. In most cases the relationships among the elements were obvious to the participant and the participants could agree to vote either “Yes” or “No” to the imposed question.

Figure 4-11: Example of posed questions during the workshop session

It is important to note that each element is assigned a specific number by the software. The software (Concept Star) uses these numbers to record the votes made by the participants as they are going through the process of evaluating the relationships among the elements and

judges whether a relationship exists or not. Figure 4-12 shows the votes among the elements indicated by numbers as conducted by the participants during the workshop session. Tuan (2003: 71) suggests that once the problem is posed, the process of structuring starts with a team replying to a series of questions aimed at establishing the contextual relationship between two elements at a time. If the answer is “Yes” to the posed question, then “1” is entered into the cell of the reachability matrix of the elements. Otherwise, “0” is entered signifying that a contextual relationship between the two named elements does not exist. The underpinning algorithm of interpretive structural modelling is to establish relationships between elements related to the problem through the manipulation of binary matrices. The contextual relationships of the generated elements are required to be transitive in nature. For example, if element A is heavier than element B and element B is heavier than element C, then, it can be inferred that A is heavier than C (Tuan, 2003: 78). A similar approach as explained by Tuan was used when assessing interrelationships among factors causing project modification delay at Koeberg Power Station. Consequently, a total of 54 votes concluded the workshop session and produced a model shown in Figure 4-12.

Figure 4-12: Vote results