Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops is a Wired magazine article by Thomas Goertz. It seems useful to better understand this for change management. He also discusses the use of real-time sensors and responders, which could be useful for planners.

A feedback loop involves four distinct stages. First comes the data: A behavior must be measured, captured, and stored. This is the evidence stage. Second, the information must be relayed to the individual, not in the raw-data form in which it was captured but in a context that makes it emotionally resonant. This is the relevance stage. But even compelling information is useless if we don’t know what to make of it, so we need a third stage: consequence. The information must illuminate one or more paths ahead. And finally, the fourth stage: action. There must be a clear moment when the individual can recalibrate a behavior, make a choice, and act. Then that action is measured, and the feedback loop can run once more, every action stimulating new behaviors that inch us closer to our goals.

Ask any manager to recount a time when significant changes to their organization were required, and the response will more than likely be a woeful tale of suspicion, resistance, and eventually reluctant acceptance. Initiating and implementing organizational change can be, and very often is, a journey characterized by periods of temporary progress followed by slow regression back to old habits and operating practices. Countless challenges and barriers rooted in individual and group perceptions lay around each and every bend in the road to effective and lasting changes. More importantly, the journey of organizational change is one in which the pressure influencing change can shift rapidly and without warning making the destination seem unattainable. Fortunately, with firm commitment and thorough planning, the initiation and implementation of pressure-driven changes can be successfully made within an organizational setting. . . . Other strategies identified include manipulation, co-optation, and explicit/implicate coercion. While these strategies are defined and accepted, they are not considered desired or even ethical. Most often these tactics lead to rapid inappropriate changes that are short lived. Additionally, these strategies certainly leave participants feeling as though they have been deceived and taken advantage of. Such emotions will only serve to diminish individual and group trust which is extremely destructive to an organization.