NCP Fantasy Systems Thinking "A" Team - Ackoff and Argyris

The next two team members on the NCP five-member Fantasy Systems Thinking Team again consists of one the same as the SP UK course and one new as with the previous post. The difference is that this time the course choice is featured more extensively in the course material discussed on these pages.

Jay Forrester and Systems Dynamics added to the team in the last post, provided what was seen as a clear, straightforward, and relatively uncluttered perspective on the basic internal mechanism comprising a system without a need for any additional lens or any particular overlaid specialized procedures. No doubt there are limitations and levels of complexity increase rapidly but it is inherent complexity not imposed layers.

Russel L. Ackoff's career provides us with insightful, overall perspectives on our approach to systems. It was Ackoff who admonished us to Never improve a part of the system unless it also improves the whole. It was Ackoff, cited in the SP UK course, who had us consider, Why Few Organizations Adopt Systems Thinking, and who, as discussed in Approaching a Systems Practice, Yet Again, contrasted “messes” with difficulties.

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. Problems are abstractions extracted from messes by analysis; they are to messes as atoms are to tables and charts …

Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.

Russell Ackoff (1979, s. 93) The

Future of Operational Research is Past

He also discussed messes in the paper, Systems, Messes and Interactive Planning - Modern Times Workplace, which dealt with the evolution of systems at a paradigm level, as well as extolling the benefits of Participative Planning as something done not for or to an organization but by it, and listing the four attitudes towards planning, Inactive, Reactive, Pre-active and Interactive. There is also the four principles of planning practice that Inter-activists have extracted from their experience - participative, coordinated, integrated and continuous.

More Thinking on Mastering Systems Practice, Dealing with Messes contrasted the SP UK course’s concept of Ackoff’s idea of messes with, for this blog, the more familiar concept of wicked problems, questioning how are "messes" qualitatively different from"wicked problems”?

In Toward a System of Systems Concepts, Ackoff spoke of concrete systems meaning a system that contains at least two elements which are objects. A so-called concrete result then is a supposed state within a moment of time of a concrete system. Jay Forrester and Systems Dynamics seem especially attuned to these types of systems.

Many systems though, such as explored in Digging Systematically Deeper into Designing for a Public Participation Process are mostly abstract, meaning that they are composed of concepts which are defined in large part by the relationships between them and preset assumptions, axioms or postulates. Forrester and Systems Dynamics could still provide valuable insight but more has to be considered.

Such systems also have agents involved in them. They are a purposeful system, which Ackoff defined as one that can, “…produce the outcome in different ways in the same (internal or external) state and can produce different outcomes in the same and different states". More importantly, it can be also an Ideal-seeking system (Kumu) requiring consideration of differences between goals, objectives, and ideals and some concepts related to them. They are also invariably non-linear.

In Creating the Corporate Future 1981, pp. 26–33, Ackoff, as featured in Systems of Complexity, Complexity of Systems Part 1, asserted that for a set of elements to be usefully viewed as a system, it was necessary that the behavior of each element of the set should have an effect on the behavior of the whole set and that their effects on the whole set should be interdependent. Each subgroup, regardless of how they are formed, should have the same effect on the behavior of the whole and none should be completely independent. It was the phrase “usefully viewed as a system” or purposeful that is pertinent here in my view. The solely mechanical aspects of a car (running the engine) do not necessarily require all subsystems of the automobile to work in unison towards a purpose but as a (personal) transportation system, it could be argued that they are so required.

The outsider is Chris Argyris whose ideas on Ladder of Inference, as well as his theories of action, single and double-loop learning and organizational learning in, "Teaching Smart People How To Learn” were cited in Systems of Complexity, Complexity of Systems Part 2 and previously by New Community Paradigms in addressing meta-issues discussed in Dancing through the Complexities of Thinking Systematically about Systems Thinking.

Argyris has been more predominantly featured in the exploration and experimentation done first through Insight Maker models and then in Kumu maps. New Organizational Learning Inhibited through Bureaucratic Over Complicatedness & Corruption (IM-16192) is an Insight Maker model with three reinforcing, repeating single loops which, as defined by Argyris, twist the entire system into knots, entrenching the system into the larger environment. The storytelling format (use the “Step Forward” button at the bottom right corner) moves through the model to assert that institutions within entrenched systems can result in the “Corruption of the System” through a “Status Quo Politically Based Corruption of Entrenched Institutions” (R3).

This model was later revised in the Kumu map Inhibited Community Learning Entrenched Institutions which explored How Institutional Entities Created to Benefit Public Organizations Becomes Entrenched to Benefit Only Themselves.

Defending the institutional system’s continued existence in its current form which means maintaining the system in its current form and status of power does not necessarily mean benefiting those individuals in or coming to power. New players may be brought in but the system will be maintained regardless of any well-meaning but ineffectual attempts to change it. A system exists beyond the individuals which are a part of it, the momentum of ongoing processes, the legacy of historical structure and the conscious and unconscious mental models can thoroughly entrench a system, particularly an institutional one.

There is also the ability of institutions such as public sector institutions like city halls to impose legally sanctioned constraints that benefit the few rather than the system as a whole. This is corruption of the system going beyond the usual idea of corruption as an illegal or unethical act by someone. Corruption of a system here is seen as anything that prevents a system from fulfilling its espoused and intended purpose. Well-meaning regulations that result in unintended and unfailingly detrimental consequences are therefore also corruptions of a system.

More recently, the post Active Digital Citizens Seeking New Community Paradigms pt. 3 saw “volunteering” through civil society as important to a community because the political institutions and market institutions cannot be expected to be able or to be trusted to fulfill all the needs of the community, especially in addressing Wicked Problems. Our community challenges are increasingly complex. Our responses to these challenges, therefore, cannot be merely simplistic but needs to be coherently complex.

The blog post Virtual Systemic Inquiry - GPS for New Community Paradigms? asserted that:

“Wicked problems have become so complex, incoherently complex, that they're broken down and perceived as complicated by not only the general public but also those tasked with addressing them with top-down complicated and reductionistic based management systems, sometimes tending to reach high levels of bureaucratic complicatedness."

There is still, however, the added value question regarding any additional complexity system thinking and systems mapping might have to a complex situation or system. It is not up to the system thinker to come up with the expert answer but to first facilitate the true community question and then have them provide the answer.

The Kumu mapping project Changing Assumptions was based on Argyris’ Ladder of Inference and involved both exploration and (thought) experimentation resulting in a presentation which while it still gets increasingly complex and remains hypothetical, hopefully, could be made to provide some helpful insights. It does not provide an out of the box, one size fits all answer, each community must find its own answer.

A systems thinking approach has the potential to take a significantly different path than one dictated by a command and control management approach. The systems thinking approach can call upon the stakeholders of the system in question to take an investigation resulting from a preceding exploration and craft a strategy which will use points of leverage to address the current situation in a manner that is beneficial to the whole system by changing stakeholder and organizational behaviors and avoiding unintended consequences to the greatest extent possible.

The perception is that systemic interventions will promote successful interventions and those successful interventions will result in a better world as well as promote the perceived utility of Systems Thinking.” (Ackoff?)

Kumu Map of New Community Paradigms Wiki

This blog post's purpose is to introduce the New Community Paradigms Wiki Map created with the Kumu relational mapping program. For more than five years, New Community Paradigms has been meandering meaningfully through a host of public, civil and community issues. It could be more truthfully called, "Explorations and Experiments in Discovering Potential Pathways to New Community Paradigms" (EEDPPNCP) but that seemed a bit long. It has been a means of interacting with new ideas of interest providing the opportunity to interact with some interesting people who propagate those interesting ideas. 

This blog has though been only one component of the journey, another is the New Community Paradigms (NCP) Wiki which serves as the storehouse for discovered online resources and created personal insights on these matters. Together, the blog and wiki are built upon concepts from the MITWorld video Media in Transition 6: New Media, Civic Media which put forward the idea (at 8:27) of “time-based” durable, static versus "space-based" ephemeral, dynamic in terms of storage and transmission. These were then blended with the ideas of Alex Bruns' in “Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage” page 102, of blogs being based on temporal organization, in which the most recent articles are placed in the most prominent position, making it difficult to serve as an in-depth platform for learning as contrasted with wikis, which implement a space-based structure seen as allowing both for deeper exploration of issues and an opportunity for greater collaboration. These differences are seen as being based on infrastructure versus interface. NCP attempts to combine these concepts together to create an expandable learning platform with some depth but still generally accessible. There isn't any claim of authority or correctness associated with the ideas gathered from either the blog or the wiki. Simply an offer to make them available so that they might be considered as to whether or not they could be beneficial. 

Through the explorations and experiments initiated by the NCP blog, the NCP wiki has grown encompassing a host of topics from Asset Based Community Development to Systems Thinking, many that were at first of little knowledge but one learns over time by engaging. The wiki is basically organized on a hierarchical basis, similar to the sections and chapters of a book. Wiki sections, involving broader concerns such as Economics, followed then by wiki chapters, composed of related wiki pages, such as Budgeting for Community Prosperity or Economic Growth and Equity respectively, extending to more inquiries leading to specific wiki focus pages such as B Corporations. 

It is within the designated wiki pages that the majority of the online resources are found. The other pages serve for the most part as organizational infrastructure for the wiki which has evolved over time. With each new exploration or experiment, new pathways have been forged and newly discovered relationships have altered the overall conceptual landscape. It becomes quickly obvious though that these relationships, particularly considered in total, become very difficult to visualize. Each wiki page is individually isolated and any connections to other concepts, within other wiki pages, are beyond the horizon of the page. 

Providing an expanding hierarchical landscape, however, was not sufficient. This form of organizing was too close to the institutional structures to which this effort was designed to find alternatives. An effort has been made then to discover and delineate relationships hidden by the standard organizational structures to assist in overcoming the conceptual silos often found in institutions. To this end, relationships between concepts that may not be seen as being directly subsumed under each other but still seen as being influential have been identified. 

Taking this approach a bit further, some new ideas or concepts were seen as being bridges between more traditional sectors found in most mainstream institutions. An endeavor has also been made to identify these bridges and new elements in a manner that makes clear their importance to the community rather than to the institution. 

Under this Kumu scenario, the New Community Paradigms Wiki is the territory and the New Community Paradigms Wiki Map, is obviously the map. The explanatory ability of this blog post is limited. The tour of the map provided below being in truth more seamless within the Kumu environment as each of the subsequent links would not open into new tabs. Another avenue for learning about the map is provided then through the New Community Paradigms Wiki Map Tour presentation in which nearly everything stays in one window.

An example of a wiki bridged connection is Participatory Budgeting which is seen as a bridge between economics and governance, more specifically in the wiki between Budgeting for Community Prosperity and the wiki focus on NCDD’s related resources under Governance through Community. Economic Growth and Equity is also seen as being related to the concept of Participatory Budgeting.  The Kumu mapped bridged connections of Participatory Budgeting are then graphically seen as a bridge between Budgeting for Community Prosperity and the wiki focus on NCDD under Governance through Community in the Main Wiki Map.

The map of the wiki is not designed to provide detailed information as does the wiki itself. Instead, it illustrates relationships across the entire wiki. It provides a different perspective allowing for the potential of new insights as suggested by the blog post, Sailing Complex and Wicked Seas with Icebergs (Systems Thinking) that latitude thinking is different from longitude thinking. It does though take some time to get familiar with this. 

In making the case that systems and systems thinking really are a thing that could be applied to these areas of change requires at the same time keeping true to the course with systems thinking principles. Both are needed, like using both longitude and latitude to keep a ship on course. Both are part of the same global grid but each is determined differently, together requiring new means of navigation. The danger is not in getting lost east and west or north and south but being either marooned by one's own limited perspective or being lost in a complex sea of interactions. A primary tool for navigating systems is the systems map. 

All of the different sections listed on the Front Page of the wiki can be found in the Main Wiki Map's narrative section (left side of the screen) under "Go to:", clicking on one of these sections will take you to a new map reflecting that particular section. The map section of the Main Wiki Map (right side of the screen) displays the major bridge connections between the primary concepts of the wiki. The specific elements (colored circles) comprising the Main Wiki Map and their relationships to each other are illustrated in the Wiki Bridges Map. Mousing over the bulleted elements of the narrative section of that map or any map will highlight that element within the map itself.

Each section, such as Places Map, when accessed from the narrative section of a map will open into its own map with both its specific and related elements being displayed in relation to each other. Mousing over the bulleted elements with the narrative section will again highlight the particular element within the map section.

With individual elements, such as Place as Social and Economic Engine, it can then be possible to see that element's relationship within other sections of the wiki, such as within Places, Economics or within the overall Wiki Bridges Pathways Map. It is also possible to open the actual wiki page using the provided URL link.

Relationships can be extended. Understanding  Participatory Budgeting and Microeconomics is seen as a bridge between Participatory Budgeting and Budgetary Discipline based on a premise that participatory budgeting should not be merely a wish list. Budgetary Discipline is also seen as being related to Homelessness - Seeking Solutions or being potentially related as more precise connections are yet to be made but a need for such a connection being seen as paramount for a community to be financially resilient and sustainable. 

Some connections are more constructed in nature. Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking has been a primary effort in finding pathways to new community paradigms serving as a bridge between Systems Thinking and (again) NCDD under Governance through Community. Other connections, such as under Asset Based Community Development, are more similar to hypotheses still being explored.

While the Wiki Bridges Map displays the elements and their relative positions, the Wiki Bridges Pathways Map is composed of wiki sectional bridges maps, such as the Places Wiki Bridges illustrating that section’s primary pathway of connections which in total extend across the entire wiki.

None of these pathways are set in stone nor is the relative position of concepts unalterable. They are also definitely not the only possible pathways. They are intended to serve as a means for coming up with new pathways to discover new ideas or relationships. All together, they may seem complex but starting from a single element one can hopefully begin to see undiscovered pathways for new community paradigms.

Systems of Public Participation - Ideal Design versus Entrenched Reality

The previous post introduced the Designing Public Participation Processes Map which includes all twelve design guidelines cited in the Designing Public Participation Processes article, by John M. Bryson, Kathryn S. Quick, Carissa Schively Slotterback and Barbara C. Crosby, reconfigured into four groups of system's aspects, all of which are interrelated. So far, nine of the twelve design elements have been addressed in the last three posts under Systemic Design of Public Participation.

The last post raised again the complex, inherent tension within a democratic system between an ideal approach to a system of deliberative democracy, having its own constraints and challenges to being effective, against a system designed to produce desired goods and necessary functions in a manner as efficient as possible, both being integral to the overall system but functioning on two different planes. The Designing Public Participation Processes Map could perhaps be seen as a compass or navigating system for trekking through that democratic system.

The remaining three design guidelines are seen as somewhat different being closer to the interface of design with community knowing and doing. The systems portion of the map itself was titled, “Formal System of Public Participation Design”. The article’s quote that, “design choices are not made in a linear fashion” by Tina Nabatchi can be extended to, “but rather ‘through an iterative and integrative process’ applies to the design of both the internal workings and the overall, evolving public participation system.

Interface Aspects

10. Ensuring that a public participation process is needed for the specific circumstances, fits the context generally and specifically, and is based on a clear understanding of the challenge.

11. Ensuring that stakeholder analysis informs the design and implementation of public participation processes and involves, at a minimum, key stakeholders in appropriate ways across all the steps or phases. Recognizing that specific stakeholders may be involved in different ways at different steps or phases of the process.

12. Clarifying and regularly revisiting the purposes and desired outcomes of the participation process and design and redesign it accordingly.

Potential connections between various aspects of the design for public participation system have been illustrated. This particular set of design guidelines making up the Interface Aspects of the system also illustrates some internal connections, inclusiveness, co-production, purpose articulation.

The article credits government administrators, officials, and community leaders for having long recognized the value of public participation for a variety of purposes, processes, and decisions. Not so well understood, it seems, is how to design participation processes so as to achieve desirable outcomes, including what those desirable outcomes are and who decides on them. The article turns to what they term design science as the means of accomplishing this.

Conversely, the article asserts that there is currently limited recognition, among public administrators, of design science as a viable means of promoting adaptation and change, likely due to a risk-adverse culture and structural barriers.

The explanation the article makes is that design science purports to involve a shift from typical social science, involving hypothesis to establish general patterns of causality, to a problem-solving approach adapting research-based evidence to context-specific, contingent, and emergent circumstances through a science framework for developing and testing conjectures. Design science principles are situation and context specific, meaning that they are somewhat general by necessity, requiring thoughtful adaptation to specific situations, and readapting in response to emerging conditions. This requires being less averse to ambiguity and allowing for the chance of failure though by design this should be during early prototyping phases.

Considering then the purpose(s) to be served by a design is important. Determining the full final defining purpose of the process at the start may not always be possible or even desirable. One, because the context may change because the act of articulating purpose is not a one-time exercise. Two, coproducing that purpose in collaboration with participants, through the public process may be desirable. The literature on collaboration tells us that it is important to include the full range of stakeholders when the seeking of consensus is the prime decision-making method and a durable solution is sought. These are two independent considerations though and achieving one does not guarantee achieving the other. Still, according to sources of extensive research cited in the article, the chances of a decision-making “blunder” increases dramatically on strategic decisions without first consulting with key stakeholders prior to finalizing purposes and desired outcomes.

Deciding who the appropriate stakeholders should be and what the corresponding approaches to engagement should be can be, according to the article, less clear with more general and less controversial participation processes. A basic strategy for engagement for informing, for collaborating, or for empowering should be based on a clear purpose of participation. Communicating with and involving stakeholders should use different approaches throughout the process even under a new community paradigm model.

Most basic technical or operational issues facing communities don’t require substantial changes in the applicable knowledge or technology base, stakeholder relationships, broad organizational strategies, or governance mechanisms. Reality requires making and living with choices in a world with limited resources and possibilities and not every community-based undertaking requires full community participation. It is when problems are more complex and politically divisive as they are with Wicked Problems that changes in the pertinent knowledge or technology base, new concepts, and different stakeholders and different stakeholder networks need to be included.

A common perspective though, raised during LinkedIn discussions, is that the 'public engagement' process is used by government institutions or organizations looking for a rubber stamp of approval of predetermined outcomes and are generally not truly open to meaningful discussion of alternatives or the opening up of new possibilities. Institutional planners are often uncomfortable when new ideas, not their own, are put forward. How can we then design public participation in policy making that is open to new ideas bubbling up? First, let's look at what arguably occurs more frequently today.

The Design map serves as a template for possible public participation processes but as actually manifested through different relationships with different social entities in the community environment could take on numerous forms. The Public Participation Designed for Entrenched Incumbents map includes all of the same design guidelines as the Designing Public Participation Processes Map but organized very differently through causal connections. The last post stated that causal connections or loops were not developed for the Design map. The term entrenched, as used in ‘entrenched city hall’ by this blog was also reviewed recently.

A question raised through discussions on LinkedIn was whether the Designing Public Participation Processes Map included institutions or organizations? It does not, except as how they might endeavor to fulfill a role or function within the process. The Entrenched Incumbents map does, though these roles or functions could change under different configurations.

Also different is that the Entrenched Incumbents map involves the design guidelines or elements organized into processes or pathways for the active accomplishment of some objective rather than as system’s aspects serving as a template. Though seemingly an obviously overall beneficial goal, it is not necessary for all processes to serve the same overall purpose.

The Incumbent Control Pathway provides a pathway for approval of projects and policies desired by the incumbents through control over these design elements and over the public participation project management team, in whatever form it may take. There are still other elements of the design elements intended to advance participation but the public participation project management only has to put in a weak or diminished effort creating perhaps not barriers but an Incumbent Restrictions Pathway difficult to pass through. This leaves an Advocacy Intervention Pathway which has positive elements, including Inclusive Processes, but will not prevail unless community resolve overcomes the systemic influence of Participation Goals and Purpose set by the incumbents. All three pathways together do not include the connection between Community and Government which is shown as delayed as the main form of intervention, elections, take place usually only every four years. Next post will take us back to the Amplify the Voices of Community Members map.

Digging Systematically Deeper into Designing for a Public Participation Process

So far, in digging deeper into a systemic approach to a Collective Impact effort, we have focused on a process to Amplify the Voices of Community Members through the concepts for Designing for a Public Participation Process system. We have looked, narratively, at both the overall aspects and the internal aspects of such a system.

This inclination to dig deeper into some of the material making up the Living Cities Collective Impact online course has led to the creation of a new map, using a different design to illustrate Designing Public Participation Processes, consisting of four different aspects of the system, suggested by the Designing for a Public Participation Processes article, with each including three of the article's twelve design guide elements.

The Overall Aspect or perspective is how the Designing for a Public Participation Process system works in achieving its stated goal or purposes. Mousing over the “Overall Aspects” text in the narrative box of the map will highlight that section of the map. Underneath it is the three design guidelines seen as being part of this specific aspect. These particular guidelines are seen as being closely related to each other. This is a different functional perspective from the “Internal Aspects” of the system. These and the other two aspects are all part of the same total system and it would make little to no sense to isolate any of them.

These are not the physical components of the system, like the engine of a car, but different perspectives of the functions of the system. A car has a subsystem which provides the necessary power for movement. It could be gasoline, electric or Hydrogen powered but to be mobile, the car needs a means of propulsion to be incorporated into its design.

The maps used so far have been composites consisting of elements, containing various resources, related or connected together. Each element, whether a blog post, journal article, video, organization, or other resource is connected to others based on a graphic organizing of the Living Cities Collective Impact course, with a few other resources added in.

The Designing for a Public Participation Processes map defines relationships differently. It reflects a single, integral system, taking different perspectives on various, separate functions of that system. There is more of a functional relationship between elements, either through belonging to common system aspects or active, mutual connections. What has not been developed are causal connections or loops as used in previous efforts.

There are no connections displayed from inside the system to outside the system. The nature of the outside boundary is defined both by the system and by the environment or community in which it exists. The boundary of the system is permeable but the exact manner of connections across it is not specified. Some individual elements can belong or relate to both within the system and outside of it. All elements or aspects of the system are directly or indirectly related to each other. Some, but not all of these have been identified and displayed.

Conflicts or breakdowns in connections are as important. Conflicts do not exist within the system, these would be better designated breakdowns. Conflicts, originating outside the system though could be manifested as intended breakdowns within the system. Conflicts, such as those cited by the article about the authenticity and legitimacy of the participation processes, which would cross the boundary of the system, could stem from different expectations rather than purposely attempting to manipulate the participation process.

In the past, this blog has railed against the notion of concrete results. Russell L. Ackoff in Toward a System of Systems Concepts spoke though of concrete systems. There is, however, no disagreement between the two. A so-called concrete result is a supposed state within a moment of time of a concrete system, meaning a system that contains at least two elements which are objects. The Design for Public Participation system is mostly an abstract system, meaning it is made up of concepts which are defined in large part by the relationship between them and preset assumptions, axioms or postulates.

There are also agents involved in the system. It is a purposeful system, which Ackoff defined as one that can, “…produce the outcome in different ways in the same (internal or external) state and can produce different outcomes in the same and different states". More importantly, it is also an Ideal-seeking system requiring consideration of differences between goals, objectives, and ideals and some concepts related to them. This puts it more in line with the Deliberative Systems map than with the Institutional Democratic Theory map cited in Creating Democracy is Complex, which means there is an inherent tension. How it could be integrated into the Deliberative Systems map and where it could be placed in the Integrative Deliberative Systems map would depend upon the final manifested design.

How this might play out, in reality, can be demonstrated through another systems thinking modeling tool, an InsightMaker model titled, New Community Paradigms Entrenched City Halls. The Design for Public Participation system could be seen as navigating between the Overt Reality and Underlying Reality of that process.

There also needs to be an aspect which provides foundational, infrastructure or support for the various elements, going beyond each separate aspect.

Foundational Aspects

7. Creating an appropriate set of rules to guide the overall work to be done, operational decision making, and a project management team structure to facilitate if needed. This, as the article asserts, involves recognition of rules, the substance of rules, and structures for enforcing rules.

Who gets to be involved in decision making and in what ways, regarding operational rules, general policies about the work to be done, and constitutional rules regarding who gets to make what kinds of decisions are based on influences prior to and outside the system. The rules, as part of the system, could help provide a pathway to the system's goals of allowing a process for participants, all participants not only a few, to build commitment among themselves, make or contribute to important decisions and self-monitoring.

8. Securing adequate resources and designing and managing participation processes to generate additional resources to produce a generally favorable benefit-cost ratio for the participation process.

Implementing a public participation designed to be inclusive of different self-interests and motivations to address problems, could generate unexpected resources, such as knowledge, commitment to follow-through, and enthusiasm, for decision making and policy implementation. Participants may provide new information and new ways of understanding issues generating better projects and policies, securing buy-in for decisions, limiting delays, mistakes, and lawsuits and enhancing government–community trust, social capital, and infrastructure for ongoing community action. These are difficult metrics to quantify and control though.

9. Establishing the legitimacy of the participation process, for both internal and external stakeholders, as an effective form of engagement and a source of trusted interaction among participants. The form that participation takes must be seen as:

1. Legitimate by key stakeholders 
2. Able to attract internal and external support and resources 
3. Producing interactions building trust and legitimacy among participants 
4. Promoting necessary communication 

The article cites the International Association for Public Participation or IAP2’s widely used community engagement continuum of goals, as featured in the first module and the nature of promises to be made to stakeholders and the community as first brought up in the post, Beginning an Exploration of Collective Impact.

For each strategy, regarding different levels of permitted participation, there are different kinds of engagement ranging from ignoring, engaging as a data source, informing, consulting, involving, collaborating, and finally to empowering stakeholders to make all decisions themselves. This also implies the use of different kinds of tools and techniques.

Logistically, a project management team, as mentioned above, could also be required for important, broader scale, and more time-consuming processes. This has been made a distinct element of the map. It could include sponsors, champions, and facilitators, as well as others. It would also lead to a need for adequate support staff and other resources to function effectively, depending on the scope and scale of the process, challenging a favorable benefit-cost ratio outcome. There will also be another aspect providing more of the actual interface with the community. Both will be examined more closely in the next post.

Systems Thinking as Infrastructure for Collective Impact and Community Engagement

This is the fourth blog post on the continuing construction of the Collective Impact - Living Cities online course Kumu map. The other blog posts related to this endeavor can be found at the Collective Impact wiki-page of the New Community Paradigms Wiki. The challenge is not only dealing with what is being presented but how it is being presented through experimentation with relational mapping as a means of accessing the material for better understanding. Kumu relational mapping is a web-based tool for tracking and visualizing relationships. This, however, also requires additional, new learning. It is the same Kumu maps, as used in the Systems Thinking Certification Program, to visually lay out the Living Cities Collective Impact course content as points on a map linking together the elements making up the five modules of the course. The question is whether this approach helps with understanding the material, not only academically but actually doing while understanding the complexity of implementing such a comprehensive undertaking?

Recently, a comment was received about Collective Impact and Kumu Relational Mapping - Creating New Ways of Seeing Our Community which saw Kumu maps as being neat and useful, although not the most efficient way to process content. This has to be recognized as being true, at least in the short term. Asking people to take on two different learning tasks at the same time is not immediately efficient, especially for individuals. Even more so if thrown in during the middle of construction of the mapping the system in question.

Too great an emphasis on efficiency, however, may not be the best course to take when dealing with complex, wicked problems requiring comprehensive approaches such as Collective Impact. The working hypothesis is that processing the content through Kumu mapping would be more effective in the long term, especially for groups, which could later be developed into more efficient approaches.

This blog has some differences with the Living Cities and Collective Impact approaches. New Community Paradigms is seeking empowerment of community members from the bottom up through deliberative democracy, scaffolded by systems thinking, and other means. It is a systems thinking aspect that has not been made sufficiently explicit in this effort. The similarities with systems thinking approaches featured in System Thinking - Concrete Wants vs Complex Realities and the Living Cities’ approach have been noted. The most explicit mention by the course of a systems thinking resource is the article “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System,” by Donella Meadows, though that doesn't appear until the last module. The incorporation of systems thinking, while arguably essential as a foundation, still needs to be done carefully depending on the group involved.

The use of Kumu mapping, as part of a systems thinking approach, is an attempt to take elements of the course and correspond them with the deepest levels of the systems thinking iceberg model as well as the most effective interventions of Donella Meadows' Leverage Points. In accordance with the systems thinking iceberg model, we are not only speaking of combining different methodologies or perspectives but more importantly in terms of combining different mindsets.

It is frequently cited that large, significantly abstract social systems can be difficult to understand because of the separation in the relations between various elements by time or by space. Events having a significant impact upon a community can arise from factors occurring far back in time or beyond the recognized boundaries of the system being considered, whether geographic or system's bounded.

Relational mapping can also make more explicit multiple, separate objective perspectives of a system within the same space and time. This is not the same as different subjective perspectives held by different individuals. It is looking at a system to emphasize different overall aspects of that system such as looking at a car from an engineering perspective as opposed to a design perspective. Both approaches would be dealing with the same car but would have different considerations. Each approach though is likely to influence the other approach and when combined would impact the final outcome. This means of examining a system can also occur at different levels of that system.

The last post Collective Impact and Kumu Relational Mapping - Creating New Ways of Seeing Our Community, besides focusing on some basic navigation, touched upon the element containing the journal article, Designing Public Participation Processes. It also saw the creation of a new bridge map between Module 1 and Module 2, including in this new context, the element for Designing Public Participation Processes. The remainder of this post will start fulfilling the promise to take a much closer look at the article and attempt to apply system thinking insights to the concepts involved in the designing of a public participation process. This will involve moving from the mapping of Collective Impact to dealing more directly and deeply with some of the specific territory illustrated by the map.

The Designing Public Participation Processes article provides a set of twelve design guidelines in creating a public participation system. This blog post takes those same twelve guidelines but flips their order, shuffling a few and then revamps them to better fit a new community paradigm perspective. To be clear, neither the paper nor this post sees the twelve guidelines as separate, sequential steps. The changes do though, it can be argued, influences overall design considerations.

Designing a public participation process that endeavors to reach new community paradigm levels in scope and scale would be an additionally complex effort. As with the journal article, it would involve the substantial challenge of effectively fulfilling purposes and achieving goals by engaging stakeholders in appropriate ways, satisfying all requirements, ensuring successful use of activities, methods, tools, and techniques within any constraints would require making use of interrelated design guidelines to produce a specific design, within a specific context. With systems thinking we can look further than the individual interactions making up such a process and examine some of the more abstract but still essential relationships.

The design guidelines provided by the article offer practical responses to process design issues arising due to inherent complexity. There are two general approaches, according to the article, to designing a public participation process. The first can be termed either deliberate or mandated. It is seen as a process of articulating the mission, goals, roles, and action steps and may most likely be used when such steps are all seen as key to success. This might suggest that it is the success of the project and not the process that is important. Mandated could also be defined as the institution is legally required to do it.

The second approach, using a term found in complexity science, is “emergent” involving emerging conversations between individuals, groups, and organizations, growing into broader networks of involved or affected parties to develop a clear understanding of mission, goals, roles, and action steps over time. This is more likely when participation is not mandated according to the article and the participation process Itself is the primary focus.

The purposes of a public participation process can include hard to measure intangibles. According to the article, explicitly stating the purposes of the process can help focus the design and management of participation toward the desired outcomes regarding the process. The first three revised guidelines are concerned with the system of the public participation process as a whole or overall.

1: Aligning participation goal and purposes; types of engagement; promises made to participants; engagement methods, technologies, and techniques; steps; and resources across the process reduces miscommunication, misunderstanding, serious conflicts and declines in public trust or increases in public cynicism regarding participation.

2: Developing participation evaluation measures and an evaluation process that supports producing the desired public participation outcomes. Evaluating public participation efforts by defining measures in step with deciding the purposes of engagement as opposed to whether the project was approved or not is seldom done by institutions, particularly entrenched ones.

3. Designing the participation processes to make use of information, communication, and especially other technologies that fit with the context and the purposes of the process. These technologies can include public participation geographic information systems, computer-generated visualizations, interactive Web sites, keypad voting, and strategy mapping tools. It would also include issues related to Open Data.

The next three guidelines, to be considered in the next post, are more concerned with internal dynamics of a system of the public participation process

Collective Impact and Kumu Relational Mapping - Creating New Ways of Seeing Our Community

Turns out that it is not just this blog offering a connection to the Living Cities online course to others after it has officially finished. The Harwood Institute also has it featured in an email from April 29, except they just provide the link to the first week and one is on their own after that. One then has the choice to go over the materials provided by Living Cities either directly or through these Kumu maps and blog posts. 

It has to be admitted, as someone pointed out, that these blog posts do contain a lot of material, basically because each Living Cities Initiative module contains so much material. Instead of presenting it in a more linear, narrative fashion over separate webpages, it is being presented here, at least initially, graphically on one map and that is more than one blog post of usually about four pages can handle. Even with a series, there are too many possible pathways that could be taken.

All of this might be made easier by just using the Kumu map without having to go through a blog post or the reverse. This is still in an exploring and experimenting phase right now. One experimental question being pursued is whether putting the major components of the course on a relational map, along with some new additional supporting ones, is an effective means of assisting in the learning of the material. Learning includes not only the acquiring of information but also enhancing the ability for perceiving aspects that could be questioned and finding new insights through previously unrealized relationships. 

In the last NCP post, we left connected to the Living Cities Kumu map centered on the Living Cities blog post How Can We Recapture the Spirit of Community Engagement that Built America? There are connections back to material already covered and to other written resources, a related organization StriveTogether which will reappear in weeks 3 and 5, and a number of examples of Our Work being conducted by Living Cities in this arena. Interested parties can read this material on their own now if they wish but this post will move on to other elements. 

We can now complete Module 1 by visiting Additional Resources (click to focus and double click to center). Actually, merely an empty placeholder, Additional Resources connects back to the Tamarack Institute, which was part of the Increasing Levels of Engagement focus of the first blog post of this series, and to the report, Putting Community in Collective Impact, which is part of the Harwood Institute, Community Rhythms discussion in the second blog post of this series.  We can finish with the webinar, It’s About Community, which helps tie it all together and taking a much closer look at the journal article, Designing Public Participation Processes sometime in the future.

We can start then with a different approach with Module 2. This time emphasizing some of the navigational and visual aspects of Kumu mapping. Going over with the map or clicking with the mouse will reveal related, connected elements rather than depending upon forcing the focus.  Clicking a selected element, the one in the circle will reduce the connections to one degree away and double-clicking will center the selected element. 

It may have been realized by now that it is not necessary to click each link in a blog post that connects to a portion of a Kumu map if you can see the relevant element in an already open map, reducing the number of open tabs.  The blog links are intended to help to more quickly locate relevant elements.  Other tips are revealed further down below.

Module 2 introduces ways initiatives can support community groups as they contribute to a collective impact effort. There is an Intro to the module and course, along with an introductory blog post, “Amplifying the Voices of Community Members in Collective Impact”. We will come back to this particular element later in this post. 

The Four Approaches  for Working with Communities, another junction but this time with a related video, connects to three Organizations that can be spotted on the Kumu map because of their yellow colored circle (mouse over the map to reveal) which in turn are connected to the four different approaches, through either Organization Resources elements in lighter yellow or through a bridge blog post, look for "Network building among community members" in purple.

The Harwood Institute from Module 1, connects to one of the Our Work elements for this module, Creating Shared Aspirations.  Trusted Space Partners, deals with Network building among community members. The third organization is Nexus  Community  Partners which connects to two approaches via Our Work elements, Leadership training  (Nexus; Urban Habitat)  and  Capacity building grants. 

Building the Field of Community Engagement is a large collaborative Initiative element colored in a darker yellow/orange, that includes Nexus Community Partners, as well as five other core organizations: Casa de Esperanza, Cultural Wellness Center, Hope Community, Lyndale Neighborhood Association, and Native American Community Development Institute. It connects back to the Week 2 element through two Report elements colored in red. One is Distinguish Your Work and the other is a Case study: Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI).

We can finish off this quick tour of the module with Additional resources, this time  on Asset Based Community Development, as a different type of methodology, element in a lighter green, and a related Journal Article element, in a darker red, “Effective Collective Impact: Through the Power of ABCD and RBA”

Here, once again, is the full Module 2 Kumu map, but hopefully this time it is easy to see and distinguish the different types of elements and how they all connect together.  Finding your way to a destination with the map though is not the same thing as exploring that territory. That still requires digging deeper into specific sources and materials. 

Here are some more tricks to make navigating easier in the future. Related elements, connected more than one degree away, can be revealed with the icon Focus button, which looks like a telescope sight, located in the toolbar at the bottom of the map. This can go out one, two or three degrees from the element being focused on or you can clear the focus to reveal the whole map, though you may still need to use the mouse on the map first. 

You can also click on a particular element with the control key depressed, which will reveal the next connected elements. Clicking on 'Nexus Community Partners' in this map, with the control key depressed will reveal 'Building the Field of Community Engagement'. This can be repeated with each revealed element until the end of the path is reached. 

If a particular element does not appear in a specific presented portion of the map, then you can place the name or even part of the name in the search box at the top left corner of the map. Try it here with - 'Distinguish Your Work'.  After locating the element, clicking with the control key pushed down will reconnect it with any other directly related elements. 

Two additional tips, there is an icon button, Zoom to Fit, that looks like two arrows heading toward each other in the toolbar at the far top right of the map. Clicking on that button will center and size the map in question to fit the mapping area. There are also three dots at the center of the line dividing the narrative section and the map section. Clicking on these three will either reveal or hide the narrative section, allowing the map section to become larger with the Zoom to Fit button.

The hope is that these posts help to begin making any inherent complexity related to Collective Impact a bit more coherent. Whether or not the effort is worth the trouble and for whom, cannot be said right now and very likely will take to the end of this series before that can be determined.

I have been following Collective Impact since last year but to be truthful have been somewhat ambivalent about it, thinking that it may be too good to be true and having some potential disagreements with a particular view of complexity. This series is my first time writing about it.

All of this fits in with a larger question or trend of large scale transformational efforts by non-government collaborative consortiums. Other examples include the newly arising The Next Systems Project sponsored by the Democracy Collaborative and another is NetGain: Working Together for a Stronger Digital Society lead by the Knight, MacArthur, Open Society, Mozilla, and Ford Foundations working together. I am wondering how this all fits together particularly within the seams between institutional government, civil society and individual community members. For most individual community members these are outside the normal political processes and administrative systems, crossing jurisdictional boundaries, and go beyond the usual civil society relationships. 

It was mentioned above that we would return to the introductory blog post, “Amplifying the Voices of Community Members in Collective Impact”. Under the narrative section for this element on the left side, in bold is Bridging Module 1 and Module 2.  Clicking on this link will reveal a new map. This map contains material and resources from both Module 1 and Module 2, along with additional new material and resources. Most of the various elements discussed so far are represented though there are a number of new Organization Resource type elements provided. Reading the actual blog post, Amplifying the Voices of Community Members in Collective Impact together with the Modules 1 to 2 Bridge map is intended as suggested above to strengthen the learning and future applicability in designing new Collective Impact Initiatives. 

So far, this has amounted for the most part to skimming the surface despite the amount of material contained in either the blog posts or Kumu maps.  It will be necessary to return, more than a few times. The final design currently being developed is intended to not only make it easy to return later for deeper exploration but to make it possible for others with a cursory understanding of the content and process to go on their own pathways of exploration to find new community paradigms.