Final Draft NCP Fantasy Systems Thinking Team

The last two blog posts selected four of the five for the proposed NCP Fantasy Systems Thinking team, two new and two from the SP UK course selection leaving, Sir Geoffrey Vickers, Peter Checkland, Stafford Beer or somebody else new for the last position.

The SP UK course, using Ray Ison’s chart, placed Forrester and Meadows, the first two selected, on the ontological side of a Y-axis of a systems thinking chart of influences, and Ackoff and Argyris, the second two selected, on the epistemological side, though still fairly close to the ontological. The X-axis of Ison's chart is developmental influences, growing in these instances out of Operations Research and Complexity Sciences respectively.

Sir Geoffrey Vickers could be seen as a foundation of the SP UK course’s approach to systems thinking. Admittedly, very little is known about him and there has been no exposure to his work before this. A good part of his work was on Appreciative Systems and Behaviors. His school of Social Systems though is placed by Ison on the ontology side in between Systems Dynamics and Information Sciences, Management Sciences and Management Learning.

Vickers corresponded with another contender from the SP UK list, Peter Checkland, who is squarely on the epistemological side. They discussed the relationship between systems ideas and real-world experience. Checkland, similar to Ison and the SP UK course, saw differences between what could be termed hard and soft systems perspectives, with soft systems treating the definition as a question of epistemology, as in what can we know or find out about the world? A hard or dynamic system takes a more ontological approach. The differences between the two approaches are provided by Dr. Mike Yearworth in a chart (slide 5 adapted from Checkland & Holwell, 2004).

The Viable Systems Model (VSM), developed by Stafford Beer, was featured in the blog post Systems Thinking - Sailing through Wicked Problems on Complex Seas. VSM has been seen as a dynamic system, though according to Ison is epistemologically based, said to be not a method or process but a model.

"It is an organizational representation of the elements and interactions considered essential for any system to be viable or autonomous".

“A viable system being one that is organized and operates in a manner such as to survive in its changing environment. Adaptability is one of the prime features of systems that survive."(Adapted from Wikipedia)

This video explanation on the Basis for the Viable Systems Model is narrated by Beer, himself.

The final selection for the team, however, is Michael C. Jackson, who, as featured in the post Enabling a Better Tomorrow through New Community Paradigms via Systems Thinking, developed another type of System of Systems Methodology (SOSM) framework. Jackson’s framework, rather than being divided between ontology and epistemology then defined by developmental influences, is defined by simple systems versus complex systems and by the type of relationship between participants, whether unitary, pluralist or conflictual (my preferred term, Jackson also used coercive). Jackson, as he explained in Critical Systems Thinking: Beyond the Fragments sought to,

"Relate developments in systems thinking to an increased sophistication in coming to terms with extreme complexity and an increased awareness of difficulties posed by the divergent values and interests of stakeholders.”

Jackson's framework puts Forrester, Meadows and Beer together under complex and unitary. Peter Checkland assumedly fits under Soft Systems Thinking, incorporating a pluralist perspective ranging from simple to complex. Vickers, Ackoff and Argyris assumedly fit somewhere in between (unfortunately, the original creator Systemswiki is no longer in existence).

Ison’s chart places Jackson, himself, under Critical System Thinking which seeks to bring unity to the diversity of different systems approaches by combining systems thinking and participatory methods in addressing challenges characterized by large scale, complexity, uncertainty, impermanence, and imperfection.

By incorporating nonlinear relationships, feedback loops, hierarchies, emergent properties, it seeks solutions to the issues of inclusion, exclusion and marginalization as determined by boundaries and their consequences.

How Jackson influences the approach the NCP Fantasy Systems Thinking team takes in applying systems thinking to real world situations and systems is the question. Understanding needs to come before enabling.

Despite an admitted bias towards what could be considered hard or dynamic approaches to systems thinking with the intention of understanding or diagnosing problems and solving them, NCP has been exposed before to the soft systems thinking side, most directly through the newly revised Dialogue, Deliberation, and Systemic Transformation (DDST) which it needs to be confessed has, until recently, been left grossly neglected. As was said in Using Systems Practice to Unravel Complexity (Hands-on) in learning about a situation, one can expect new insights and expect to redraw (one's maps) to incorporate those new insights. Redraw, however, can refer to far more than just a map, it can also include correcting basic material and revising premises and conclusions.

DDST, originally in Hackpad is now in Dropbox Paper. NCP sought to provide and develop a concept map of the intentional transformational process to take a complex world through to what was seen as "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible."

Jackson's System of Systems Methodologies, again as discussed in Systems Thinking - Sailing through Wicked Problems on Complex Seas, suggested two potential pathways that could be created by following two different approaches, one hard systems thinking, Creating the Future and one a soft systems thinking approach, Transforming the Future.

These were then combined together under Bridging Creating and Transforming the Future (a multiple causes map), revealing where the maps intersected and where they diverged was with complexity appearing at the juncture at which obstacles could arise creating tolls to further progress or at which the two pathways could be bridged and further developed.

Previously though, the Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking Kumu map recognized that interactions would be done by groups of diverse, independent agents, not as single entities but would be pluralist, possibly conflictual and very likely often complex with two Casual Loop Diagrams, R1 Deliberative Democratic Dialogue and R2 Working with Systems Thinking. The process would be both ontological and epistemological in nature.

These two foundational reinforcing loops were later considered as creating a juncture between Design Thinking, Collective Impact and Systems Thinking with "Civic and Community Groups" being at the center in the blog post, The What, Why and How of Design Thinking and Collective Impact part 2 of 3.

The actual creation of community projects, programs or policies was envisioned being likely assisted with the use of design thinking, involving working with "Systems Thinking Facilitators" and other community government "Staff". The development of specific proposals for projects, programs or policies would come from the community or from democratically selected or assigned leadership in the community. It could also be useful in assisting in integrating Community Groups into a prototype system of Community Based Virtual Systemic Inquiry (influence map), again supported by the implementation of systems thinking in both a complex and participatory mode within Jackson’s SOSM Framework.

Achieving the challenge of actually implementing new community paradigms is far more complex. The paradox is that one has to deal both with the complexity of the situation being faced and the seeming complexity of finding the means of dealing with it through systems thinking.

The blog post The What, Why and How of Design Thinking and Collective Impact part 3 of 3 recognized that systems thinking alone is simply not enough. Systems thinking not only requires other disciplines and methodologies through which transformation and change can be implemented effectively, but should explicitly subordinate to a role of support, serving either as scaffolding for such efforts or strengthening the systemic infrastructure of such efforts.

As an example, the entire series of Systemic Design of Public Participation was seen as a viable vision for Solving Democracy’s Design Problem by addressing Public Participation Designed for Entrenched Incumbents as instances of espoused claims (examples of Stafford Beer’s POSIWID) being detrimental. Designing Public Participation Processes Map proposed to be a means of moving to a more viable, yet nonetheless more idealized system.

Serendipitous Events Lead to Emerging Possibilities

A little bit more than another month has passed since the last blog post. The time though was spent in an engaging manner. As the title of this post alludes, a couple of serendipitous events have allowed for the further exploration, using Kumu relational mapping, of the potential effects of incorporating systems thinking into systems of community governance that integrated democratic processes that included both participatory and deliberative aspects, opening the potential for emerging possibilities. While the phrase, “potential for emerging possibilities” may have a new-age ring to it, the pathway to it endeavored to be rational and as empirical as it could be. It involved multiple, sometimes even conflicting perspectives that needed to be synthesized.

This journey of exploration started over a year ago with Better Deliberative and Participatory Democratic Community Based Governance through Systems Thinking and the InsightMaker model Participatory Democracy with Systems Thinking. The model was improved with Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking, a relational map created with Kumu, which was featured in the blog post A Map for Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking. The previous blog post had begun to study community-based Virtual Systemic Inquiry, intended to provide a means of collaborative communication in developing a systemic approach to community challenges or wicked problems, and had been connected to the first two reinforcing causal loops of the Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking relational map.

There were though recognized limitations, which were discussed in Direct Democracy and System Thinking Map - Some Potholes on the Journey. Among those discussed was the need for an enhancement of deeper participation by stakeholders, the further consolidation between systems thinking and direct democracy involving a dual-track related to soft approaches and dynamic approaches to systems thinking, each serving different purposes and that it would need to be designed, as Vivien Twyford had discussed, as a means of Recognizing and Responding to Complexity. It could involve extensive use of the Internet, as would Virtual Systemic Inquiry, (GPS for New Community Paradigms?) in support of the previously established principle for the use of online communities to encourage direct democracy for on-the-ground communities. None of this could be tested in any sense, only theorized about.

Then the first serendipitous event occurred. Part of the improvement of the Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking relational map was including the concepts of What Are Dialogue & Deliberation? from the Resource Center of the NCDD or National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation. Near the end of last year, the NCDD went through a process that involved the identification of existing strategies and co-creation of new strategies to promote the NCDD’s mission of encouraging dialogue and deliberation. The process was done online using Codigital, an online program that provides, “evolutionary algorithm controls and coordinates the inputs of multiple participants in real-time to generate focused, optimized collaborative output.” by which ideas were generated, developed through editing, voted on and then ranked. A simple explanation of the process can be found here, a more in-depth one here.

Participation, in addition to expressing one’s own views on matters of importance, provided the opportunity to create a simulation of an online group voting process which was done with the Kumu relational map Using Systems Thinking as a Bridge between Democratic Issues and Democratic Principles, which was featured in a related blog post and discussed further in the last blog post Bridging Differences in Approaches through Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking.

This allowed for further examination of the Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking relational map, in particular, the reinforcing loops of R3 Group Facilitation for Systems Thinking, as well as R4 Maintains Respect for Individuals and Time and R5 Group Development Systems Thinking. These loops focus on either the element Dialogue Facilitation or the element Perceived & Defined Meaningfulness of Deliberation. It is where these loops meet that the incorporation of dialogue and deliberation as essential elements of democracy can be realized.

It also allowed some thought experimentation on moving from the more basically abstract ideas generated by the NCDD/Codigital approach to areas of application, to connecting ideas together for strategic application to begin overcoming what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton called the Knowing-Doing Gap.

However, while the individual online interactions comprising the Codigital vote ranking process were real-world based, the interactions making up the simulations comprising the Using Systems Thinking as a Bridge between Democratic Issues and Democratic Principles relational map were not but rather an abstraction.

Then the second event occurred, making the combination of the two events serendipitous, at least if one is on this current path of inquiry. The opportunity arose to participate in an online discussion that arose out of some of the issues generally dealt with in the actual NCDD Codigital voting project (Download the NCDD/Codigital report here). This meant that the interactions were going to be real in real-time.

The online discussion in question was "Dialogue, Deliberation, and Systemic Transformation" aka "DandDTrans," a community of inquiry and action regarding the role that dialogue and deliberation can play in addressing the mega-crises of our time. The discussions were held using the online program Hackpad, which is designed to “take collaborative notes, share data and files, and use comments to share your thoughts in real-time or asynchronously” (it was subsequently changed to Dropbox Paper) and involved three different modes of dialogic process, World Cafe, Bohm Dialogues and Open Space Technology that took place through MaestroConference and other means.

The most direct Kumu connection to the "DandDTrans," community though was Dialogue, Deliberation, and Systemic Transformation Community. This provided a rich picture/concept map of the intentional transformational process to take a complex world through to what was seen as "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible."

The process, including particularly relevant components, was mapped out through the Kumu project DDST Community with the relational map, Bridging Creating and Transforming the Future.

The title came from laying out and comparing the pathways that could potentially be created by following two different approaches, hard or soft, to systems thinking as classified by Michael Jackson's System of Systems Methodologies and discussed in Systems Thinking - Sailing through Wicked Problems on Complex Seas (unfortunately, SystemsWiki is no longer in existence).

There has been a bias towards hard or dynamic approaches to systems thinking, represented by the Creating the Future pathway, usually implemented with the intention of understanding or diagnosing problems and solving them. The "Transforming the Future" pathway involved the newly learned possibility for softer more participative approaches to systems thinking including Appreciative Inquiry, Ideal Design, and other soft system methodologies. Both the Creating the Future pathway and the Transforming the Future pathway was delved into more deeply revealing how they developed. Going back to the relational map, Bridging Creating and Transforming the Future showed the two paths together and reveal where they intersected and diverged which was at Complexity. Complexity appeared to be the juncture at which the two pathways can be bridged or where obstacles could arise creating tolls to further progress.

The conclusion arrived at is that efforts to create the future can be weakened if not enough is done to engage stakeholders in the process. Enough does not mean whitewashed attempts at community engagement but meaningful and at times deep engagement. At the same time, efforts to transform the future, while idealistic in their endeavor must still coalesce and be implemented in an effective and efficient manner. Together, both must work at making the complexity of wicked problems more coherent to those being tasked with the challenge of addressing them. The challenge will invariably involve the entire community to be successful.

As written in the narrative of the map, finding pathways to create these bridges will undoubtedly mean further journeying along the lines of exploration opened by the Dialogue, Deliberation, and Systemic Transformation Community and others, especially those who participated in the process and provided a number of different resources. The attempt was made to map out this dynamic process through a DDST Hackpads Map. It is another experiment and is and likely to be under construction for some time.

Participation in the DDST community was far more geared towards the soft side of systems thinking, to a far greater extent than I had experienced before. In some instances, it approached areas that I am unable to determine whether I consider them to be firmly within the boundaries of systems thinking or not. Most likely they are but I have yet to determine for myself, exactly how?

This involved my fairly recent introduction to the work of Christopher Alexander, the author of A Pattern Language. My initial impression was that he had developed another "soft systems" thinking approach which was rather compatible with design thinking. Further exposure made it clear that while the later could still be true, the former assumption was not, at least it is nowhere near that simple. Alexander’s methods or principles though do provide a means for very open, participatory processes for finding emerging possibilities. For the "DandDTrans," community this was done Group Works Card of the Evening! conversations involving selected Pattern Cards from the Group Works Pattern Language Deck.

These issues though will be left for future blog posts.

Systems Thinking as a Bridge between Democratic Issues and Democratic Principles

This blog post is on experimenting with ideas through a new Kumu relational map, “Using Systems Thinking as a Bridge between Democratic Issues and Democratic Principles” which could be placed within the process described by the Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking relational map in the last two blog posts.

Involving, in particular, the reinforcing loops of R3 Group Facilitation for Systems Thinking, as well as R4 Maintains Respect for Individuals and Time and R5 Group Development Systems Thinking from the Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking map. These loops focus on either the element Dialogue Facilitation or the element Perceived & Defined Meaningfulness of Deliberation. It is where these loops meet that the incorporation of dialogue and deliberation as essential elements of democracy can be realized.

Follow up discussions within LinkedIn, particularly the groups for Community Engagement and the Enabling a Better Tomorrow: A Systems Learning Community encouraged a broader perspective. Those involved in Community Engagement agreed with the possibility of including soft systems thinking approaches, such as Appreciative Inquiry to what could be called a creative condition for the generation of ideas or content. Those involved in Systems Thinking were more aligned with the approach of being capable of providing context to the ideas and potentially being able to provide causality through harder based methodologies such as Systems Dynamics.

The “Using Systems Thinking as a Bridge between Democratic Issues and Democratic Principles map is designed to simulate the potential outcomes from multiple and diverse group interactions involved in a direct democracy form of community governance supported by systems thinking.

The map tracks the parallel simulation of the virtual group interaction by four groups, each made up of 46 to 72 individuals, (some could belong to more than one group) addressing one of four sets of issues, based on a Codigital project (details) and initiated at the 2014 the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) conference in Washington DC, October 17 - 19, 2014, which dealt with the identification of existing strategies and co-creation of new strategies to promote the NCDD’s mission of encouraging dialogue and deliberation.

The ideas were generated, developed through editing, voted on and then ranked by a process developed by Codigital which through an “evolutionary algorithm controls and coordinates the inputs of multiple participants in real time to generate focused, optimized collaborative output.” A simple explanation can be found here, a more in-depth one here.

The appendix of the later, featuring what is termed a Fitness Landscape, was particularly interesting as a reminder of a set of lectures on Problem Solving and Innovation by Professor Scott E. Page, who has been featured before on this blog.

Participation for the purpose of generating the map occurred between October 20 to November 7, 2014. The map did not seek to replicate the Codigital system but instead to simulate the competition of ideas in a group setting.

The common factors were the ideas created through the NCDD process and the randomly generated pair-wise voting choices generated by the Codigital system. The difference between Codigital and the map was that for the map the vote between two ideas was recorded as both a yes vote and a no vote with yes being assigned 1 and no being assigned -1. The votes for each idea were then cumulated over the duration of the project. The result of the randomly generated up or down voting meant pushing ideas accordingly, some acutely in one direction, others bounced back and forth.

The map's final outcomes then did not match the Codigital final outcomes. The map, admittedly, had a bias for ideas in the NCDD online deliberation that I supported and a relative bias against the ideas that I had submitted, as I couldn't vote on the later.

The generated pairings did not always come from the same categories of issue and it did not seem that all pairing were made available suggesting that Codigital's algorithm used some form of sampling.

Regardless of the algorithm or methodology used, all ranking systems need to address certain concerns which are more a matter of the inherent mathematical nature of the universe rather than the rational or ethical nature of humans. One such issue is the creation of a winner through a Condorcet Paradox explained here by Professor Scott E. Page, which could give the designer of a voting mechanism a great deal of latitude.

The ideas generated by Codigital were then taken through four stages of development explained in more detail in the map. One, generation of a map of the ideas for each issue with each then assigned to a particular focus, Community, Civic, Organizational or Individual. Two, the recombination of ideas from specific areas of focus across the four issues into new maps. Three, the prioritization of those issues. Four, the creation of Kumu cluster maps to discover new relationships.

Perhaps a bit ironically considering the nature of this post but not unexpectedly, two of my submitted systems thinking based ideas did not survive the Codigital process.

"What are the structural barriers in our democratic systems? Is there a real or perceptual difference between structural barriers (static) and systemic bottlenecks (dynamic)? What are the sources and what are the points of leverage?” and "Use systems thinking and relational mapping to generate, develop and evaluate community intervention ideas for selection derived from soft systems thinking such as Appreciative Inquiry.”

Some of my suggested edits also did not make it. One failed suggestion was to replace the “and have fun.” at the end of, "Get creative and innovate, with new types of public space -- local places where a diversity of citizens can meet, bump into one another, share what is important and meaningful to them, and have fun!" with ...'Work with Project for Public Places http://www.pps.org.'

The point is that there was enough opportunity for input, competing ideas, along with some randomness (at least perceptually) and uncertainty to assert a claim that the process could mirror an actual, in reality messy, process. Mirror but not truly replicate, focusing only on certain parts from certain angles.

To be more functional, the map would have to be made capable of aggregating and potentially recombining input from a large number of participants rather than just one which raises the potential for greater complexity.

The Codigital process featured relatively little or only restricted dialogue and deliberation through group editing though the larger NCDD process did have online dialogues going on in other venues. The map obviously had in reality, none.

In the early stages of the Codigital process, there were a number of examples of what could be called pet projects and pet peeves, some quite good but not necessarily strategic in nature. Later, the ideas were more frequently of a broader nature of concern or focus and the input from others started to reveal different though perhaps not fully explicit choices in directions.

One such choice was to the degree that NCDD would focus its energies on established political power such as city councils as opposed to outside city hall and within the community itself. Optimally, it should be both but as this blog has continually argued many times there are city halls whose political power is entrenched. Another choice in a direction that seemed to be suggested was whether NCDD should maintain it focus on the principles of dialogue and deliberation, which is for the most part absent from our current political discourse, and focus more on particular political outcomes.

Would it be possible to find a meaningful ‘why’ that could then be translated into a ‘how’ perhaps through systems thinking causal loop diagram models? These types of questions were not addressed to any extent in the Codigital process and only alluded to in the map but are necessary to get over what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton named the Knowing-Doing Gap.

Of interest is the question whether it would be possible to combine the map with a Codigital-like process along with a Virtual Systemic Inquiry process and what sort of influence this might have on the dialogue and deliberation process if participants not only saw the ranking of ideas (aside - not sure a competition among participants is the most optimal means of evaluation) but then also saw visually how it related to other ideas and the principles that were driving the ideas on a continually updated basis.

Systems Thinking - Sailing through Wicked Problems on Complex Seas

Systems thinking helps us not to be so dependent upon linear thinking when addressing complex challenges. This sometimes means skipping ahead then coming back which is the course I am taking in completing the STW/STiA Systems Thinking Certification course, skipping over the segment next in line. 

The final two segments then, prior to certification, introduce us first to different dynamic systems and then to different soft systems methods. Both were referenced before as part of Michael C. Jackson’s System of Systems Methodology (SOSM) framework in the post Enabling a Better Tomorrow through New Community Paradigms via Systems Thinking. Jackson, as he explains in Critical Systems Thinking: Beyond the Fragments sought to, "relate developments in systems thinking to an increased sophistication in coming to terms with extreme complexity and an increased awareness of difficulties posed by the divergent values and interests of stakeholders."

Under Jackson’s classification, both dynamic systems and soft systems can be used to address simple, which we will skip over, to complex situations in which there are a large number of elements and subsystems with loosely structured interactions which can be non-linear. The difference is that soft systems are used when working with pluralist stakeholders meaning basic interests are compatible though participants do not share the same values and beliefs while dynamic systems are used when the participants are unitary in outlook, meaning the stakeholders all have similar values, perspectives and interests, at least on the relevant issue. 

Soft Systems Methods are generally employed for purposes of exploration and understanding, to obtain a compatible vision. Dynamic Systems Methods are typically employed for improving goal seeking and viability, once a compatible or finally determined upon vision has been obtained. Both could and should not only be used with systems of direct participatory democracy, they should usually be used in tandem.  This would be in keeping with an often cited concept that, “all hard systems are embedded in soft systems”.

As Dr. Mike Yearworth explains though in Hard Systems and Soft Systems this statement does not fully capture the differences between the two systemic approaches. It is an epistemic shift, as described by Peter Checkland and Susan Holwell that defines the differences between hard and soft systems perspectives. 

Soft systems treat the definition as a question of epistemology, as in what can we know or find out about the world? While the hard or dynamic system takes a more ontological approach. Yearworth provides a chart with bullets on the differences between the two approaches. 

There are many concepts and theories that embrace a Soft Systems perspective and are useful for exploratory purposes to attain a greater understanding and potentially draft a compatible approach to the wicked problem.  Appreciative Inquiry, Idealized Design, and Soft Systems Methodology are three offered in the segment because they each have a well defined approach for their use. These will be examined more closely in the future.

System Dynamics and Viable Systems Model are two dynamic systems featured in this segment because they also have a well defined method for using them. Dynamic systems and in particular Systems Dynamics is where the process can get all the more concrete. Systems Dynamics, a field also related to Cybernetics, goes beyond Systems Thinking which can be seen as a relatively qualitative modeling system. System Dynamics, in contrast, is a rigorous methodology employing the development and use of formal computer models based on three components which collectively define it.

1. Apply the accepted system dynamics theory of structure;
2. Are constructed following the scientific method; and
3. Use best practice tools and techniques.

The most adept advocate for Systems Dynamics is its creator, J. W. Forrester, Professor Emeritus of Management System Dynamics at MIT who upended the conventional thinking in management and redefined what growth means through articles such as System Dynamics, Systems Thinking, and Soft OR and Learning through System Dynamics as Preparation for the 21st Century. Professor Forrester has been deemed The Prophet of Unintended Consequences. 

Another dynamic system, Viable Systems Model (VSM), developed by Stafford Beer, could be considered more abstract. 
"It is an organizational representation of the elements and interactions considered essential for any system to be viable or autonomous".  It is  therefore not a method or process but a model of:

“A viable system being one that is organized and operates in a manner such as to survive in its changing environment. Adaptability is one of the prime features of systems that survive. (Adapted from Wikipedia)”

Beer, himself, narrates this video explanation on the Basis for the Viable Systems Model from Javier Livas - YouTube page.

A primary foundation for the Viable Systems Model is Ross Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety, or as is sometimes paraphrased," only complexity absorbs complexity”. 

"The Law has many forms, but it is very simple and common sensical: a model system or controller can only model or control something to the extent that it has sufficient internal variety to represent it."

Arguably #3  of Clemson’s Systems Laws considered valid for all complex systems (Clemson seems to have added more laws. Kauffman also came up with a set of rules of thumb for complex systems as viewed by systems thinking. My suggested rules for community complexity are here.) 

This could then be applied to Beer's environment, process and management as explained in the video, which would suggest that enhanced participation by community members would make the process more viable and sustainable from a community point of view.

The system though only has to survive, it does not have to reach any predetermined goals that we desire or that we may expect from the system. An entrenched city hall, often mentioned on these pages, can then be a viable system highly resistant, internally, to attempts to change it, externally. 

The challenge and the need for some type of virtual systemic inquiry are that complexity is inherent in all phases that should be undertaken by communities addressing a wicked problem. Not only the phases are complex, the transitions are complex. To simply understand a wicked problem is a complex challenge in itself as demonstrated by this Ted Talk by Gavin Schmidt, The Emergent Patterns of Climate Change. The next phase is understanding and developing an agreed upon approach to address the wicked problem. The final stage is implementing that program and ensuring that it creates the desired results.

If it does not then it means moving back to a previous phase. Perhaps the vision created in the second phase was not as unified or compatible as thought. Perhaps it was realized that a significant minority did not support the plan but it was not appreciated how important they would be in implementation. It could also be that the wicked problem system was not as well understood as it needed to be to come up with a viable strategy that was not only devised as compatible through collaborative efforts but could be implemented through collaborative actions. One question then is how viable over an extended period would a winner take all strategy be under such an approach?

The bigger question is how the community manages the complexity that arises in addressing the wicked problem from its own actions when complexity is seen as a massive problem in its own right. Systems thinking provides different means of navigation, with different ones better suited to the task at different times but these means often tend towards the abstract and more concrete means are needed to sail these seas. What is needed are more concrete tools of collaboration, compasses and sextants applied to systemic inquiry and these days it needs to include the virtual sea of the World Wide Web. Looking to the development of such a system is the next (previously skipped over) segment.

Enabling a Better Tomorrow through New Community Paradigms via Systems Thinking

This post is a ‘two-fer' covering the fifth and sixth segments of the STW/STIA Systems Thinking Certification course. At this point in the course, we are exploring ways to make things better. We are endeavoring to take the perhaps audacious step of Enabling a Better Tomorrow. This endeavor requires all of the segments which came before it and which could, unfortunately, only be summarized on these pages. Although Enabling a Better Tomorrow has an idealistic ring to it, the actual application to specific situations is more concrete.

The Kumu map for the segment follows basically the same path as the Enabling a Better Tomorrow approach. The creation of a unique model for a situation starts with assessing the overlaying Reality of the particular Situation. There are Assumptions by those involved in the Situation and Behavior Trends resulting from them. In creating a model of the situation in order to find some means of improving it, the systems thinker seeks to attain a deeper understanding of the system being studied by understanding the Stakeholders involved within the system, the Boundaries making up the system and the Leverage Points within the system that enable change. These are all then used to make a Strategy which through a process of Adoption is implemented by the Stakeholders creating a new pattern of behavior and hopefully attaining the desired situation.

This is still though only a template for any particular situation but it is important to get the template correct as possible before moving on to the actual situation with which you are dealing. A template is good because it can be applied to a variety of different situations. My situations of interest can be listed under new community paradigms but I knew that I wanted a fairly robust template so for the segment’s assignment I created a model on a Strategy Enabling a Better Tomorrow. The model is an attempt to map out a template for a general implementation plan or strategy for the Enabling a Better Tomorrow process. The difference between what I did and what was presented in the segment was classifying elements of the Enabling a Better Tomorrow into different categories, Underlying Reality, Overt Reality, Modeling Components and Change Management Factors and demonstrating how they could be interrelated differently at different levels. Each element of the model provides links to a deeper examination of that element.

The challenge in actually implementing new community paradigms is that reality is far more complex. Nobody is going to be able to give you the answers to complex problems, especially Wicked Problems on the pages of a blog. At best, they may be able to show you a path or a process that you must undertake for yourself. The paradox is that one has to deal both with the complexity of the situation being faced and the seeming complexity of finding the means of dealing with it through systems thinking.

To appreciate this complexity we are going to have to go back a couple of segments to Systems Thinking 2nd Segment - Striving for a Better Understanding. Understanding comes before enabling. The second segment provided an overview of systems thinking but the blog post covering that segment only highlighted the main points. Each Kumu segment map also offers additional information along ancillary pathways. One such pathway connector in that segment leads you to Michael C. Jackson’s System of Systems Methodology (SOSM) framework.

This section addresses the difficulties of integrating systems thinking, or in deciding which system thinking system to select in addressing the problems facing us. Part of the reason this is all so complex is because it involves people and people are complex, particularly in groups.

The short version is that all system thinking approaches can be categorized in two ways, first classifying the system as either simple or complex, and then by classifying the relationships stakeholders of the system as Unitary, Pluralist or Coercive. Community governance as envisioned by new community paradigms would fall under the Pluralist classification though could move at times to the other two. The Pluralist classification could include Appreciative Inquiry, Idealized Design, and other approaches.

This all goes back to Dancing through the Complexities of Thinking Systematically about Systems Thinking and looking at system thinking itself through a meta-lens.

When looking at the system and extending our boundaries of what we consider the system to be, in addition to thinking about the particular specific issues, we also begin thinking about meta-issues, the meta is the thing to focus on, higher levels of abstractness or about (its own category).

An experiential truth, one that you have to go through yourself, is that these different perspectives between the different systems being examined and system thinking itself, and between the various types of systems thinking and the different levels at which they operate are not as separate and distinct as they seem.

They may appear so when presented on the pages of this blog but in their consistent utilization, there is a tipping point at which the complexity begins to become more coherent. The uncertainty may remain because that is always a factor within the complexity and some may prefer to ignore both the complexity and the uncertainty. Unfortunately, this is usually unsustainable and leads to unintended and invariably bad consequences. The ‘Moonshot’ challenge is getting the members of your organization or communities willing to work past the hurdles to reach beyond that point.

There is a level of model creation between the empty template of Enabling a Better Tomorrow and the more specific but numerous choices subsumed under Jackson’s SOSM Framework but this one you have to create yourself using the resources made available from the other two levels.

This is the approach that I took in creating the model New Community Paradigms. It is based on the development template provided by the Strategy Enabling a Better Tomorrow model. It also followed a structure of a more specific example provided by the STIA Certification course. It is though only a rough approximation of what has been developed so far in creating new community paradigms. It still follows the basic principle of modeling pronounced by George Box, “All models are wrong but some models are useful” as discussed in Insight Maker - Understanding Systems Thinking and Systems through Trial and Learning.

At this stage in its development, the New Community Paradigms model is not a realistic facsimile of the New Community Paradigms endeavor nor is any of it applicable to specific situations. It is interesting though how systems thinking is able to incorporate all of the elements together into an organized and useful system that could enable greater understanding of how to create and implement new community paradigms.

We Need to Stop Sucking at Community Engagement

Over the course of this effort to create new community paradigms the discussion has often been focused on community governance meaning full involvement of the community in its own governance.  This is a substantial change from what is now the norm.  

However, despite providing organizational and information resources regarding community governance there is still a large gap missing in understanding this deeply enough to be able to think of it as a paradigm change.  When speaking of community governance, the main focus has been on the governance and the nature of community has just been assumed.  We need to take a deeper look at community itself and how it engages to see how that affects how new community paradigms will be initiated. For me this meant stepping outside my former professional comfort zone and exploring the world from a different perspective so I have been participating as a novice outsider in various group discussions at the LinkedIn Group Community Engagement.  This has provided a wide field of multiple perspectives from a variety of experienced practitioners.  Interestingly, the most engaging seem to come from across the Atlantic in the British Isles appearing to ahead of us in this aspect. I don’t know whether they are simply more advanced in these matters or have greater challenges forcing them to do so.

As a former economic development professional, I saw many instances where community engagement was seen as being more ‘required but not necessary’. The purpose of public hearings was very often getting the ‘buy in’ for a particular project rather than a desire for actual community engagement. 

This ‘engaging’ of the community by City Hall often had as its goal something beneficial to City Hall or those closely connected to it, but those in control also, in many instances, sincerely saw it as beneficial to the whole community even if they thought that sometimes the community wasn’t smart enough to know it.  Invariably though, these City Hall buy ins were seen as being of more importance than enhancing the capacity for engagement by the community.  

This is not to blame anybody in particular at any City Hall.  While there may be some who egregiously misused their power to disengage the community, this is in large part a systems problem.  We, the people with the luck to have enough resources so that we can help those in our own or other communities, have just not been that great at community engagement in any aspect. The general failure of community engagement by City Hall could be seen as a matter of motivation, if real engagement only has to occur every four years then limiting it to just enough for appearances, whether or not consciously, makes sense in a perverse way.  

There are also numerous examples of inadequate community engagement by outside organizations which supposedly do have the proper motivation.  Non-profits and other positive change-agent organizations come from the outside to impose solutions that were supposedly seen as highly desirable by the communities they served but ended up having an impact that was a less than appreciable long term on those communities when those outside organizations left. This angle on missteps in community engagement is addressed in this TED video by Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen! 

The focus through new community paradigms though is on self-reflective community engagement, arising from the community itself through an organic or grassroots approach. In examining community engagement arising in or emerging from the community itself, we need to start with an underlying concept of Civil Society which exists prior to government and nonprofit intervention.  The main source cited in the past has been the Centre for Civil Society, a social innovation and public policy institute for the empowerment of ordinary people and strengthening of civil society in Australia, particularly in the posts Civil society as a platform for new community paradigms and Community paradigms as a set of community relations.

Civil society can be seen as the source or connecting glue of good neighbors among ordinary people, coming from the heart of the community, often cited by those invested in community engagement by formally volunteering or professionally managing specific external programs.  Sometimes this type of organic engagement can work through City Hall and sometimes it can work through other avenues. Sometimes though these social connections break down or are strained and made to wither away.  Then explicit efforts at community engagement may be needed which at times can be addressed internally or organically by the community itself, but at other times require a helping hand. 

The challenge is that organic or grassroots community engagement can be difficult to make emergent within a community, particularly in a sustainable manner. The ways or potential processes may exist but the means or necessary resources required to bring them together and then subsequently work to achieve specific ends may require external organizational resources. 

The difficulty is not only a matter of internal creation but also a matter of overcoming any external forces that may be working against the process.  All too often roadblocks are put up by the same institutions that were practicing just enough faux community engagement to get ‘buy in’ but not enough to achieve true community empowerment. 

Before going further, a difference between community engagement and civic engagement needs to be established, at least as used here.  Community engagement refers to engagement by the community with itself or the institutions with which it interacts with or through, or other outside forces.  Civic engagement refers to the actual interaction of the community engaging with government institutions.  The goal is to enhance the level of community engagement to empower the community, working at the grassroots, neighborhood level of civil society, to have the locus of control when engaging on civic matters with local or other government institutions.  This means that people being engaged in their local community but not interacting with City Hall is community not civic engagement or participation. 

One new source for basic questions regarding community engagement is Graeme Stuart who writes the Sustainable Community Engagement blog.  His blog has been added to the “Recently Updated Community Building Blogs” under the right hand column.  It has been his questions raised in the LinkedIn Community Engagement Group that have been the source of my latest contemplations.  Graeme has a multiple perspectives approach, looking at both Vertical and horizontal community engagement, vertical referring to interactions between the community and separate, local government or outside organizations and horizontal referring to interactions between community members. 

Community engagement is sometimes primarily vertical, as with consultation by a government department or attendance at a public hearing and sometimes primarily horizontal, such as good neighbors organizing a street party.  While it is sometimes it is a mix of both such as with service clubs or a tenant management organization, it needs to be combined or synthesized better to make it more effective.  

Beyond being able to provide a forum for effective engagement and a platform for community governance, It would also likely require the provision for other avenues of interaction such as community dialogue and direct deliberative democracy, which has been discussed in the past or new ways of addressing common challenges such as systems thinking, which has been discussed in the last post and will be considered more in the future.

This convincingly asserts that we need not only look at community engagement vertically and horizontally, but externally and internally, holistically and at the individual level.  It would require another choice along with standard government institutions or advocacy groups.

A new type of community organization could be created that promotes the idea that "Community engagement has come to the fore as a policy and programme approach that seeks to connect citizens both with each other and with government" as Graeme has suggested in quoting Ryan, Head, Keast, & Brown (2006) in "Engaging Indigenous Communities"(pdf),  This could help to move away from the idea that community engagement only involves organizations whether external or internal.  It could assist in providing a community with an “approach that seeks to connect citizens both with each other and with government".  This approach means creating unity in people, communicating with people you live with, and listening actively to achieve what engagement should be all about.

As a vision of full community engagement, this involves, as one CE professional put it, "Ordinary people coming together to deliberate and take action collectively on public problems or issues that they themselves have defined as important and in ways they have decided are appropriate."  Great when it actually happens naturally, but that is often not the case.  Helping to ensure that it does is a goal of new community paradigms.