A consulting company used organizational network analysis to analyze email data and employee surveys to understand what team characteristics led to higher client impact scores. They found that teams with an individual central in the email network, teams with someone strong in managerial skills, and teams incorporating new members not previously worked with experienced greater client impact. The recommendations were to include information brokers to connect teams, leverage managerial individuals, and incorporate new personnel each year.

1. The Leading Edge of ONA; eData; Reorgs;
Networks Outside the Organization
Luke J Matthews, PhD
617.558.0210 | info@activatenetworks.net | www.activatenetworks.net
1 Newton Executive Park, Suite 100 | Newton, MA 02462

2. Reorg Case Study
•
Company: A major telecommunication company
•
Reorg type: Recent acquisition and re-structure
•
Issue: Post- change, HR could not assess if the
change initiative was successful
•
Goal: To use Organizational Network Analysis
(ONA) – through survey and email data – to
discover what factors drove collaboration,
specifically to confirm if the old structure, the
legacy group, continued to drive how employees
connected
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks
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3. Question:
What is driving collaboration post-change?
Location?
Rank?
Sub-function?
Role?
Legacy group?
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks
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4. Method:
Email Data Analysis
Timeframe: 15 weeks Criteria: From, To, Date, Time
From
Time
jsmith@email.com
jdoe@email.com
12:30:00
3/31/2012
jdoe@email.com
jsmith@email.com
12:31:00
3/31/2012
djones@email.com
12:35:00
3/31/2012
jsmith@email.com
jdoe@email.com
12:37:00
3/31/2012
jsmith@email.com
ehays@email.com
13:15:00
3/31/2012
jsmith@email.com
djordan@email.com
13:43:00
3/31/2012
jsmith@email.com
djones@email.com
14:01:00
3/31/2012
jsmith@email.com
skellly@email.com
14:26:00
3/31/2012
jsmith@email.com
pgray@email.com
15:02:00
3/31/2012
jsmith@email.com
Volume
Connection
Date
jsmith@email.com
Response
Connection
To
djones@email.com
15:36:00
3/31/2012
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks
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5. Method:
Email Data Analysis
Email Volume
0.98
0.96
0.94
0.92
Correlation to Prior Network
0.90
0.88
0.86
0.84
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Weeks
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks
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6. Method:
Email Data Analysis
An Email Network
• Ties are inferred from
email log data
• Nodes are colored by
physical location
Matthews et al. 2013 PLOSONE
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks
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7. Method:
Email Data Analysis
Network Community:
A community is a group of nodes
(individuals) within a network.
Individuals within communities are
more connected to each other than
anyone else.
ANI has found that 60-80% of email-inferred network ties are
within the same network community.
We can then use network regression techniques to find which org
structure features best predict individuals being in different network
communities.
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
7
© 2013 Activate Networks
7

8. Question:
What is driving collaboration post-change?
Location?
Rank?
Sub-function?
Role?
Legacy group?
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks
8

9. Results:
Function, not legacy group.
Effect on being in different network communities
Survey | Email
Location
2.1 | 1.94
Rank
0.88 | 0.98
 Sub-functions
Role
Legacy group
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
10.1 | 4.89
2.5 | 2.12
1.9 | 1.66
© 2013 Activate Networks
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10. Implications:
ONA through all stages of the Reorg
Pre-Change
During
Post-Change
• Collect data on the
existing network
structure and
collaboration ties to
allow for more
informed decisions
prior to initiating
change
• Monitor how the
change is impacting
the network structure
and identify which
areas need
additional targeting
• Quantify if and how
initial goals were met
• Understand how the
network functions to
allow for more
informed human
capital planning
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks 10

11. Situation Overview
Situation
Overview
A consulting company has teams of personnel on
each account. Their clients provide an “impact”
score of how much the consulting positively
affected their business. ANI undertook a project to
assess the key team characteristics that
contributed to higher client impact scores.
The objectives of the ONA were to identify:
The Role of
Network
Analysis
• Identify network and personal characteristics of
team members that accounted for high client
impact scores.
•Provide actionable recommendations on how to
better construct consulting teams to maximize
client impact.
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks 11

12. Social Network Analysis Approach
•A comprehensive social network map was built by analyzing the
email records of all employees.
•The only information used from email data were the
sender, receiver, and date-time stamp.
•Survey instruments were used to assess personal strengths of each
employees
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks 12

13. Findings and Recommendations
Recommendations
Key Findings
Teams with a strong
information broker in the
email network experienced
greater client impact.
•Plan teams to include an individual with a short
social distance to other employees in the
company’s communications network
•Client impact should improve by 4% if a team’s
most connected individual is just 1 step closer on
average to the overall network.
Teams with a high managerial •Teams should include an individual with a high
score for managerial type strengths.
personal characteristics
•Client impact should improve by 3% if the team’s
individual experienced greater
highest managerial score is raised by 1 standard
client impact.
deviation (0.15 strength points).
Teams can benefit from new
members.
•Include at least one member on a team who has
not worked previously with the other team
members.
•Including a novel individuals on multi-individual
teams should improve client impact by 3.5%
compared to constructing teams from individuals
who have all worked together previously.
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks 13

14. Team Network
Nodes indicate project
teams
Teams linked by lines if
they share some of the
same people on a team
Line thickness reflects the
number of individuals
shared by the teams
Node size reflects the
number of people
Node color reflects client
impact (red =
higher, blue = lower)
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks 14

15. Network Brokers Enhance Team
Success
Network brokers improve a team’s Client Impact Scores
• Teams with an individual who was more central in the
email social network had higher client impact. If a team’s
most connected individual is just 1 step closer on average
to the overall network then their client impact score
averaged a 4% increase as compared to other teams.
Recommendation
• Highly central individuals can bring in needed skills and
information from outside the team. Assigning a highly
central individual can increase team client impact.
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks 15

16. Personal Characteristics Analysis
Having one individual with managerial strengths improved
client impact.
• Teams with an individual who was 1 standard deviation
above the average (0.15 points) in managerial strength had
an average 3% greater client impact.
Recommendation
• Include on all teams a person who is finds fulfillment in
setting attainable goals and dividing labor to meet them.
This can enhance the performance of other team members
to result in greater client impact.
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks 16

17. Team Construction Over Time
Having new team members improved client impact
• We used information from team co-membership in 2010 to
predict the client impact of teams in 2011. Having at least
one individual on a team who had not worked with his/her
teammates in 2010 improved client impact by 3.5%
compared to teams where all the individuals had worked
together in 2010.
Recommendation
• Continue to reassign at least a few people to project teams
each year to ensure that some new blood is added as multiyear projects progress.
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks 17

18. Recommendations
RECOMMENDATIONS
Benefits of
Brokers
•Include on
teams at least
one individual
with high
brokering
potential who
can connect the
team to the rest
of the network.
Leverage
Managerial
Individuals
•Teams benefit if
at least one
individual has a
core strength
area in
management.
Incorporate
New
Personnel
•Do not leave
teams with the
exact same set
of individuals
from one year to
the next. Add
new faces.
These analytics can be optimized for different purposes and interactive
views, for example:
• Managers may want feedback on the best additional team members to
select given a present set of team members and a desired team size.
• Employees may want to know with whom they should try to network in the
near future.
Connected Insight Summit 2013: www.connectedinsightsummit.com
© 2013 Activate Networks 18