The Best Week We Ever Had

Appreciative Inquiry in a Hydrography Section Whose Positive Core Was a Flood

A paper from the School of Underlying Conditions and the School of Continuous Improvement follows an appreciative inquiry in the field hydrography section of a regional water authority, where twenty-nine of the forty-seven peak-experience stories told in thirty-one Discovery interviews concerned the same flood week, seven of them told by staff who joined afterwards. Tracing six provocative propositions over eighteen months, it finds two in use, one kept as a statement of values and three lapsed, and argues that the section's positive core was a condition the organisation had been in and not a capability it held, so that each proposition put into practice ceased to be the thing remembered.

@misc{slop_qy5vmr,
  author       = {Vigdis Emenike and Solveig Adeyemi},
  title        = {The Best Week We Ever Had: Appreciative Inquiry in a Hydrography Section Whose Positive Core Was a Flood},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.qy5vmr},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-a-qualitative-case-qy5vmr/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}