Evaluating the Team

The SNA revealed both positive traits and potential problems within Randle's organization. He found that there were individuals in all four of his IT Operations departments that demonstrated high degrees of all three centrality types. Randle was pleased to find that his Enterprise Network department was highly connected to all teams within IT Operations at both a management and individual contributor level. This high connectivity of the Enterprise Network department was especially important to Randle because it's a function that all his other teams rely on.

But Randle also noticed that as in many other organizations, there were silos within his IT Operations organization. He found groups that were jointly responsible for key IT-wide initiatives that could increase their communication to benefit these projects. And there were cross-functional groups that could perform more efficiently by better connections with the teams they supported.

Randle remembers a project to upgrade a key customer care system that did not go smoothly. There were communication disconnects between the project managers responsible for the upgrade. Key dependencies on other teams were not uncovered until late in the project. One result: Server administration teams were not brought into the loop until the 11th hour, which led to configurations being done on the fly without the desired level of planning. When Randle looked at the SNA results he immediately saw that the project management team responsible for the upgrade operated in a silo, and that silo correlated to the lack of communication that had jeopardized the upgrade.

Stronger Management in the Front Office

Beane used his insight to ensure the A's minor league management and player development personnel focused on plate discipline and long, patient at bats in order to build up-and-coming players' skills. Similarly, Randle used Social Network Analysis to identify effective practices among his management team. Examining his managers, senior managers, and directors provided a clue into how the department's silos had emerged. Randle found there were strong ties between three of the four first-tier managers, but one department was clearly more isolated than others. At the second and third management tier there were only a couple of connections between departmental managers.

"The management only analysis let me visually show my direct reports tangible evidence that there where some communication gaps. This quantifiable data was helpful to foster discussion with my management team," Randle says. The SNA revealed which two of his direct reports were the best interdepartmental communicators. Randle can leverage these two leaders to strengthen communication across all of his departments by involving them in cross-functional projects.

By increasing openness and collaboration at the management level and bridging communication gaps, Randle hopes his management team will lead by example and that this will have a trickle-down effect that increases communication throughout the entire organization.