The Mind Map & Metamorphosis

Bill Clinton once said, "The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change."

When Global Health Supply Chain Program Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) Zambia began operations, the technical organizational structure was overhauled to be more inter-connected, agile and adaptable. Several months in, it became clear that activities were being implemented rigidly, simply to ensure they were completed and ticked off. Additionally, teams were working myopically, disregarding the vital interdependencies that existed between groups. Thus, the Mind Map activity was born.

The activity utilized the CLA principles to increase the team's abilities to think flexibly and devise timely and suitable responses in the face of new information, challenges and changing stakeholder objectives and to help managers realize that recalibrating activities was expected and necessary. Additionally, the activity highlighted the numerous links existing between teams and how these links need to be leveraged for ultimate project success.

To ensure this message was clear for all 100+ staff and to focus each team towards achieving the overall project goal, the activity was also expanded into the project's work planning approaches so that each team can see how their activities feed directly into building capacity for improved commodity security in Zambia.

The radical transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly exemplifies what we hope to achieve. Every new project demands an evolution from one form to another; a metamorphosis that will call for constant learning, shedding of old patterns and ideas and reflective thought that will ultimately give our activities wings to fly.