Appreciative Inquiry always works. Always. It works to a different extent depending on how many of the success factors are there, but as I tell my clients (in a rare moment of bravado in the pitch process) it always works. Now, you have to know how to do one and be willing to take some risks in facilitating it. I was shocked to learn that one of my colleagues who had gotten her Master’s with David Cooperrider at Case Western still hadn’t done a full AI of her own. I think she was too scared to make a mistake. Or she knew too much. You can get bogged down in the myriad ways to plan one. As the Army likes to say, an 80% solution now is better than a 100% solution 6 months from now. So do it! You can learn more from my previous post here.
