Since your hypothetical human resources have a programming background, I
would offer the following approach:
1) Have them read something like Senge's Fifth Discipline, which will give
them an overview of systems thinking and its related disciplines
(facilitative advertisement: I have a 40-page summary of his book that I
sell for those who want the main concepts, with page # references to
Peter's book...both are well worth it).
2) Start the "team learning" aspect by assigning reading to them and
getting together as a group once a week to practice concepts like
dialogue.
3) Get them started on a computer simulation program like PowerSim or
iThink. They'll hopefully go nuts with this, and will begin expanding
their team learning concepts by developing computer models with one
another. George Richardson has done some great work in developing a team
approach to facilitating system modeling...his e-mail address is
gr383@albnyvms.bitnet.
The key here I believe is to get them to begin to learn collectively and
share their learnings with one another. I'm sure you'll get a number of
other ideas from everyone on this list. Good luck.
Humbly yours,
-- Robert Levi Robert Levi | 303-546-0679 2800 Kalmia, #A-327 | email: rlevi@usa.net Boulder, CO 80301 | "Think globally, change personally."