OrgMapper Uncovers The Potential Of Networks
January 22, 2016

OrgMapper Uncovers The Potential Of Networks

Barry Camson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with OrgMapper

I am a consultant and trainer. This year, I have offered several workshops to both public groups and intact teams using OrgMapper in various ways. I am planning to continue using OrgMapper in similar workshops. I am also planning to use OrgMapper in ongoing consultations with clients. My focus is to help organizations understand the potential of working in networks and in improving the effectiveness of the networks in which they operate. The use of OrgMapper is a key part of this. I am offering workshops and consultations to non-profit and private organizations and members of such organization in a public forum.

Pros

  • OrgMapper uses appropriate questions to understand the different aspects of networks in organizations. These questions are conceptually sound and appropriate and diverse. They are easy to understand.
  • There is a direct path from the survey to the visualization of data in network maps. Though having an official report is of great value, I rely on the ability of OrgMapper to translate raw data obtained via survey into actual maps potentially in real-time if needed.
  • I appreciate the use of modules like Knowledge Mapper or Team Mapper which pull together questions to respond to particular issues in organizations. This makes marketing easier and facilitates the decision making process on the part of clients.
  • I have found the technical support for OrgMapper to be helpful. I appreciate that the Maven 7 people like many of us users are all on a learning curve with regard to the translation of network science into practical usage. Thus, ongoing communication back and forth between we users and Maven 7 is helpful and important. I appreciate the inquisitive approach taken my Maven 7 and their dedication to resolve technical issues that arise.

Cons

  • I encountered difficulty in emailing the OrgMapper survey out to a public group (not part of one organization). A good number of people did not receive the emails or were not able to access the survey via password. I gather the OrgMapper folks have been working to prevent this from happening in the future.
  • OrgMapper is based on the assumption that people taking the survey are all part of one organization. Thus, it is possible to populate the software survey with specific names. But, what if the potential survey respondents are not part of a single organization? What if some possible network members are even unknown at the time of the administration of the survey or at least unknown to the administrators of the survey. Would it ever be possible for respondents to write in the names of other people and in doing so populate the survey with the names of these other people. Would this be practical?
  • I really appreciate the thinking going on at Maven 7 with regard to offering a comprehensive, diagnostic survey in addition to the modularized approach. I would like to be using OrgMapper with regard to organization design which is a very comprehensive intervention. Having a survey which touches on many of the different areas relevant in organization design would be of great benefit.
  • One business objective of mine is to be able to offer workshops on network effectiveness. OrgMapper is a very user-friendly, insightful and relevant way of demonstrating many network concepts through visualizing the reality in an existing organizational network. It also enables clients to arrive at useful insights about their organization. In this capacity, OrgMapper has been an important part of my workshops. I also hope it will become an important part of my delivery of consulting services to clients.
  • I am hopeful that the use of OrgMapper will position me to provide greater value to clients.
I have had some exposure to other products. They tend to be far more complicated to use, less encompassing, less oriented to business issues and less practical. They tend to be far more difficult to customize.
OrgMapper is currently suited for helping organizations to focus on specific issues like team performance or the sharing of knowledge across the organization. Currently, it is as not as feasible to use it as an encompassing diagnostic approach though one could customize a survey to combine many of the questions from across the survey. This would take some work on the part of the consultant-user and on the part of the orgMapper folks. So, currently OrgMapper is better at dealing with focused issues. OrgMapper is also more appropriate to be used within an intact, formal organization. Using it in a less formal network spanning several organizations or in a network at large in society may prove to be a challenge. One challenge here is in populating the survey data base.

Using OrgMapper

  • Using OrgMapper in workshops for clients and in public workshops on how the potential of networks and how to be effective in networks.
  • Using OrgMapper as a diagnostic and planning tool for helping organizational networks make improvements.
  • Using OrgMapper in associations and less formal networks to improve the potential of the network.
  • Building OrgMapper into a workshop that helps individuals and members of existing networks to visualize the existence of themselves as a working network and to understand what improvements could be made to improve the effectiveness of their network.
It is a very useful, innovative and interesting product. The development efforts on the part of OrgMapper staff indicate that the product will continue to improve and to help organizational networks respond to important challenges.

OrgMapper Support

OrgMapper support people seem very technically knowledgable. All of the OrgMapper staff are dedicated to learning and to further developing the OrgMapper product. Some issues are being worked on so immediate resolution was not feasible. Issues were resolved, though on one occasion it took reaching out to the CEO.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
Escalation required
Yes - I quickly become engaged in conversation with developers who either immediately addressed it or said that this was something currently being addressed.
I have wanted to see OrgMapper offer a survey which takes an encompassing approach to organizational networks using questions that crossover the different current modules. I have found a receptive audience within OrgMapper to this idea and actually found that they were also considering a similar approach. This has led to some interesting and useful conversations with OrgMapper staff. It convinces me that there is a very high level of quality, dedication and desire to learn on the part of OrgMapper staff in order to develop a highly useful product.

Using OrgMapper

Emailing out the survey to respondents can be a complex undertaking. Helping them gain access via their password can also take effort. The survey respondents must be entered by hand. I did not have a great deal of trouble doing this with 30 people. Questions are clear and understandable. However, if the context of the question differs from the normal way the question is used, this may present some difficulty to the respondents to understand and make sense of the question. Support here is important. It is extremely easy to select questions based on the identification of a focused challenge. Translation of the raw data to the visual map is done by the software and this is of great benefit and makes the product quite useful to me. Filters and the ability to manipulate the maps are also helpful though there is a learning curve to this.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
Requires technical support
  • Visual Mapping
  • Question selection
  • Filtering and manipulating of visual maps
  • Emailing survey to respondents
  • Using OrgMapper outside of an intact organization
  • Learning to use all of the map filtering functions requires some effort.

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