We are very pleased to have been chosen to present a paper entitled Improving System-level Outcomes through Shared Managerial Understanding – A Case Study of A Group Process Strategy. The paper describes how local government jurisdictions in the United States face revenue loss due to our economic recession, and are experiencing a loss of institutional knowledge as a cluster of veteran managers reach retirement age.  Scarcity of resources coupled with the loss of long term leaders compounds the isolation and lack of communication departments within the larger organization experience.  There is often a lack of shared understanding of how the system operates as a whole and how individuals working within the system are, in fact, interdependent.

RDA’s case study of San Francisco Department of Public Health – Community Behavioral Health Services examines the processes that were used to develop a shared understanding of a system in order to collectively determine how it could be improved to produce the desired results, implementing a change in revenue policy that would save the City of San Francisco millions of dollars.  Of primary importance was the discovery process utilized among managers who had each previously understood only a small component of the larger system.  To read the full case study abstract click here.

To read more about the conference click here.