Stream analysis, a practical tool for innovators and change agents

To survive organizations have to innovate and to change. Fundamental questions are: * Which strategies and tools could be applied succesfully in the everchanging environment? * Are the identified instruments effective iri our business? * Do we need professional support? In more than a dozen projects in different organizations (in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) stream Analysis proved to be a broad and general method for guiding planned change and innovation in organizations. It offers a conceptual framework for organizations that will help managers and change-practitioners to better understand and improve organizations and their innovative activi.ties. Drawing on that framework, the paper describes an approach for: - diagnosing failings in organizational functioning; - planning a comprehensive set of specific change activities needed to change the organization into a more effective and innovative system; - implementing alterations in a system's character and functioning; - and tracking the actions taken. From 1988 till now, stream Analysis was effectively applied at Ingersoll Rand, AT & T, Philips, Volker Stevin, Mercedes-Benz, DAF, several hospitals, and other companies. Experiences with this method, developed at Stanford University and improved at Eindhoven University of Technology, showed the method to be powerful.