Shannon Arvizu, Ph.D.

How can teams better produce complex and creative knowledge work in today’s competitive and fast-moving business environment? How can team coaches and organizational design practitioners equip teams to consistently produce high value for their stakeholders, given the social and technical factors associated with sophisticated knowledge work production? As researchers and team performance coaches, we see an urgent need to offer interventions that account for the demand placed on teams, the… Show more

How can teams better produce complex and creative knowledge work in today’s competitive and fast-moving business environment? How can team coaches and organizational design practitioners equip teams to consistently produce high value for their stakeholders, given the social and technical factors associated with sophisticated knowledge work production? As researchers and team performance coaches, we see an urgent need to offer interventions that account for the demand placed on teams, the cognitive load and capacity of teams, and the emergent and unpredictable nature of knowledge work. In this position paper, we build upon existing team performance research by introducing the Kanban Method to improve the system of work. We outline the Agendas, Principles, and Practices of Kanban, as well as share resources for practitioners to learn more, so that we can all help teams reliably and consistently accomplish goals in today’s business environment. Show less

How can team coaching enable startups to leap frog ahead of the competition and embrace agility in the face of an uncertain future? This is a case study of a transformative journey with a leading SF-based startup to build the capacity of its leaders and teams.

How can museums and other informal learning institutions cultivate greater civic engagement among the visiting public around important social issues? This case study of the National Network of Ocean and Climate Change Interpreters’ (NNOCCI) professional learning community illustrates how insights from the social sciences can be productively integrated into existing museum interpretation practice.

Everyone these days is talking about "disrupting education"' through technology, but what do the gatekeepers of education (governors, school boards, textbook publishers, etc.) think about digital learning? This research uses link analysis to identify the network of influencers on education and a content analysis to identify how those influencers communicate about digital learning.

One of the biggest hindrances to furthering digital learning is the way the media portray its use. This study finds that the media reinforce public conceptions of digital tools as a distraction from learning or dangerous to learning, instead of an interactive, hands-on and engaged approach to student learning.

The electric car was pronounced "dead" in 2003. Yet, today almost every major automaker has a plug-in model on the market. How did this happen? I track the emergence of a new network of policymakers, entrepreneurs, non-profits, researchers, and industry mavericks who shifted the way we think about mobility and brought us where we are today.

How do young people in Cairo conceive of their new role as empowered citizens in a changing political environment? This research forecasts the emergence of the Arab Spring Movement, based on tracking young people's use of media to create a new realm of discourse for political and civic empowerment.

This toolkit offers a suite of empirically-based communications strategies to help experts and advocates build public support for digital learning programs. These communication tools include talking points, frequently asked questions, sample op-eds, and key framing guides.