Archived: Originally published on 15 March 2018. There will be no further updates to this Open Educational Resource.

Planning for the future

Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry is a change tool which supports collaborative sense making and identifies what is going on when things work well. It is based on the work of David Cooperrider and Diane Whitney who developed the model as a way to access collective wisdom and support life-affirming learning cultures. The approach is based on a positive inquiry process rather than a negative, problem solving approach.

Appreciative Inquiry is based on one key assumption: that every team, family, organisation and system is doing something right, something that is positive and gives life and energy to the people involved. Even when dealing with acute challenges or difficult issues, some aspects will be less problematic and will work well. You may have to look hard to find these effective aspects but the assumption is that if you have an open mind and a positive inquiry approach you can find and use them as the basis of your strategy for moving forward.

Appreciative Inquiry is also based on a central, unconditionally positive question which can be adapted for any context to help you discover what is working well. The question is: ‘when you are working at your best, what is going on?’ As people begin to share their stories of what is happening when they are working at their best, subsequent positive inquiry questions can be asked such as: ‘what worked well?’, ‘what did you do that enables this?’, ‘what do you most value about yourself, about others, about the environment in this example?’

The Appreciative Inquiry model has four stages which can be applied to any question or challenge and is incorporated into a storytelling process about what works well.

Stage 1: Discover. People inquire into each other’s stories using the core question: ‘when you are working at your best, what is going on?’ Once the stories have been discussed and explored, elements of good practice are drawn out which reveal what works well in this situation.
Stage 2: Dream. The elements of good practice are used to project forward into the future and to imagine what it would be like if we did more of these. A set of aspirations for the future begin to be identified.
Stage 3: Design. The elements of good practice and aspirations for the future are turned into objectives and the architecture for building this new future is designed. This includes what will need to be in place, what resources we will need, what will need to be different, strengthened, etc.
Stage 4: Delivery. The action planning process kicks in; practical steps and commitments are agreed and next steps initiated.

The Appreciative Inquiry cycle can then be used all over again to evaluate and support an ongoing cycle of learning and reflection.

Resources and signposting

The SSSC Appreciative Inquiry resource pack is for anyone who wishes to use an Appreciative Inquiry approach to support service improvement or redesign. It offers a programme structure and supporting materials for a cycle of Appreciative Inquiry.

Some definitions of Appreciative Inquiry.

The Appreciative Inquiry Handbook: For Leaders of Change. Cooperrider, D. L., Whitney, D., & Stavros, J.M. Berrett Koehler Publishers, 2008, 2nd Edition. This guide to Appreciative Inquiry includes case studies and slide sets to support you in running your own Appreciative Inquiry event.

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Planning for the future by the Scottish Social Services Council is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://learn.sssc.uk.com.