Policy Development, Power, and the Shadow Organisation . A peer reviewed presentation given to the Australian Defence Force Academy in November 2009.

The abstract was:

Public service organisations, like all organisations, have a formal structure, which is usually depicted as hierarchical wire diagram. Policy development follows formal processes that are aligned with the hierarchical structure; however, this is rarely how the organisation actually works. Systems models, such as the Cynefin Framework, allow us to view organisations as complex entities and provide insights into the shadow organisation. Methods like social and organisational network analysis reveal how people actually work. These methods can be extended to show how policies and processes are used, or not used, in an organisation. They can reveal hitherto unknown patterns that provide opportunities for system optimisation. This presentation introduces this idea and draws on three cases from public-sector organisations.