Ostrom, the Commons and the Green New Deal

In the course of this effort to find new community paradigms, there has been an ongoing, albeit unexpressed, tendency to gravitate towards what can be viewed as a cluster of three thought leaders, all of whom are women. All three are seen as being clustered around the concept of positively addressing and engaging complexity.

They are Donella Meadows, who has an NCP wiki page, Jane Jacobs, for whom though I haven’t yet built a wiki page, is foundational to Placemaking and the work of Project for Public Spaces particularly her ideas on organized complexity and, although until now neglected despite growing awareness and appreciation, Elinor (Lin) Ostrom.

The initial resource for this post, through Marginal Revolution University, was Elinor Ostrom | Women in Economics. The reason for the current focus, in addition to an understanding that the environmental resources introduced in the last post are not enough on their own to face the wicked challenge of climate change, is due to a question asked on both Twitter and the Facebook group The Ecology of Systems Thinking, “Wondering how Elinor Ostrom's ideas could be applied to the Green New Deal and scaled up to be applied not only nationally but globally?” The result of which was several additional useful resources and an enlightened, educational discussion.

With the world’s climate being considered as the ultimate commons, Ostrom’s Eight Principles for Managing a Commons can be seen as a counter to Garrett Hardin’s more pessimistic perspective on the Tragedy of the Commons problem, which is a systems thinking archetype (number 2 in the list). ”Unnecessary tragedies, like ozone holes and national debts, greenhouse effects and urban air pollution are examples of the Tragedy of the Commons”. In these examples provided by Daniel Kim, two different Causal Loop Diagrams display how the archetype works. As he points out, “Perhaps the trickiest part of identifying a 'Tragedy of the Commons' archetype at work is coming to some agreement on exactly what is the commons that is being overburdened.”

Upon closer examination, Hardin’s approach seems less a top-down means of command and control to the benefit of greedy landlords and more an understandable concern regarding how to address unsustainable population growth. The primary point of disagreement is that Ostrom ”challenged the presumption that rational individuals were helplessly trapped in dilemmas.” 16:04

The above quote is taken from the primary resource for this post, Ostrom’s 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences lecture at Indiana University in which she goes over her basic ideas discussed more fully in her Nobel Prize Lecture paper, on polycentric governance complex economic systems, and the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (24:14) and of particular note, ”Demonstrated that complexity is not the same as chaos in regard to metropolitan governance” (21:13 & 22:13).

A number of her other ideas expressed in the lecture were found especially noteworthy.

“The rules that we use to govern a university, a private firm, a water resource, or any kind of problem need to fit the socio-ecological area or field that they are supposed to control. Having one kind of rule that will work everywhere is a ridiculous kind of thinking.” (17:05)

“The second is that polycentric systems with multiple scales enable a fit between human action situations day to day situations and nested ecological systems.” (17:34). Ostrom seems to use the term situations and the complex environments in which they occur in a manner similar to Russell Ackoff’s idea of messes and others in systems thinking.

So likely any top-down systems, even those well-intentioned such as the Green New Deal, at least in its present form without far more bottom-up policy and technical input, could be suspect.

“Panaceas are dysfunctional” 17:52 I have no doubt that she would have included any specific instance of her own systemic approach and any derivatives, directing attention to the first principle listed above.

“The internal would be actors who are in positions that can take action in light of information that they have and how much control they can take and their net benefits and outcomes and then choose outcomes.” (26:35)

“And when they made decisions anomalously and there was no communication, they did what the theory predicted Just as we found in the field that when it was very big and they couldn’t communicate they over-harvested. All we had to do was introduce the possibility of face to face communication, which is referred to in-game theory as cheap talk, doesn’t make any difference, that enabled them to increase cooperation greatly, and then we allowed them to design their own sanctioning system and they went up to 90% of optimal, a fantastically positive result…” (36:42)

What has to change then is the framework in which these complex interactions occur making the transformation into new paradigms for communities possible. The most important requirement, trust.

“We find that learning to trust others is central. You cannot have a small, medium or large or very large governance mechanism that works over time when people do not trust one another.“ (41:17) This point was also emphasized within the Ecology of Systems Thinking group. The issue considered by the participants is whether the networks of trust could be expanded or scaled up to be effectual against wicked challenges such as climate change.

“But the important thing was if it didn't work you could exit and exit turns out to be a very important, powerful, possibility for citizens and if you have only big units, how do you exit?” (19:52)

Ostrom finishes with the “idea of reform” (43:55) and in particular for me the idea “We must learn how to deal with complexity, not just reject it”. (45:01).

The Ecology of Systems Thinking discussion extended the political and economic perspective of the Tragedy of the Commons problem to a more biologically based orientation. A recommended article by Dr. David Sloan Wilson connects Ostrom’s work with evolutionary biology and in doing so establishes cooperation as a viable evolutionary strategy and points out major transitions becoming higher-level organisms in their own right, such as the rise of the first bacterial cells, multicellular organisms, eusocial insect colonies, and human evolution.

Part of the debate, delineated by the disciplines of physics and biology, was on the initial starting point and slope of the trend between population, population density, and food that brought us to our current predicament and applying that to predict a future course of either potential transformation or inevitable destruction. Having only cursory knowledge, I did not take a side. Another topic was on the increasing complexity inherent in wider circles, larger groups, or higher levels of polycentric governance which from my perspective I saw as similar to Dunbar's Number. Here is an RSA video of Dunbar explaining his theory.

Past NCP posts looked at the scaling of networks based on Dunbar's Number applied to Asset Based Community Development, as well as the concept of carrying capacity being applied to communities. These will be returned to for closer examination and likely some revision in future posts already begun raising new questions and some simmering old ones.

According to Cormac Russell, Managing Director of Nurture Development, the average person has fifty-one other persons in their associational lives but he argues that we each need one hundred fifty persons citing Robin Dunbar, the originator of Dunbar's Number.

The number of 150, according to Dunbar "refers to those people with whom you have a personalized relationship, one that is reciprocal and based around general obligations of trust and reciprocity." Cormac asserts that these need to be friends and neighbors, not other service users, professionals, or even family. “It comes down to how many unforced and unpaid for relationships of acceptance we have in door knocking distance.” Including ”family” in the latter group should have been questioned back then more closely as kinship is a primary basis for Dunbar’s number.

There is not, however, a single Dunbar Number but rather a scale of numbers, of ever-widening circles of connection constrained by a cognitive limit because this limit is a direct function of neocortex size, and this, in turn, limits group size where stable interpersonal relationships can be maintained. This cognitive constraint or gap needs to be overcome, logically to my mind, by some systemic means. The working hypothesis is that Asset Based Community Development can contribute to this but doesn't seem to solve it on its own.

Elinor Ostrom’s work cannot in my view be said to be mainstream which is actually part of the reason she appeals to New Community Paradigms. Her work continues through the Ostrom Workshop now the cornerstone of the beginning of a new NCP wiki-page.

Systems Practice - Practice Can Mean Making Mistakes and Repeating to Learn from Them

The latest Systems Practice project ”Jerusalem Vision” dealing with Jewish Palestinian relationships has been approached from around the edges in the last post and the two preceding. With this post we will begin zeroing in. As always, this blog is not intended as a substitute for the course. Instead, it takes more of a bird's eye view to see how it might relate to other aspects of new community paradigms.

For me, Systems Practice is basically applied Systems Thinking, thought experiments with pictures (graphic systems maps) using alternative forms of cognitive navigation to steer through challenges, especially wicked challenges. This again needs to be recognized as a sizable cognitive shift for many. Though it can be far more intuitive than might be expected. A favorite metaphor of mine for this new thinking is navigation during the Age of Discovery, a paradigm shift as notable as modern man’s mission to the moon as told in How We Got To Now with Steven Johnson / Time (Emmy Winner). We still need all of our existing “sailor skills” but we are adding a new layer of mapping skills based on a new way of looking at the world.

I still consider myself as having a limited background in Systems Thinking. Many if not most people taking the course though were even less familiar with Systems Thinking and far more familiar with the usual linear reductionist approach to understanding which means breaking things up into smaller pieces for ostensibly better control. The challenge then is developing a means of helping others to cross over to a more holistic, Systems Thinking approach or in the case of a systems practice approach through a group process. I still don’t believe that there is a strong enough foundation in Systems Thinking provided at the beginning of the Systems Practice course and introducing the systems mapping tool Kumu at the very start could help with that. Those with less experience in Systems Thinking may have problems with Systems Practice but those with that do have that experience will still need to be open to taking different perspectives.

Despite any issues raised in the last post with the article A Systemic View of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and its related systems map, its author David Peter Stroh is also recognized as the author of ”Leveraging Grantmaking: Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Social Systems”, concerning the Calhoun County, Michigan study, which used Systems Thinking to address homelessness. The report was cited in the blog post Learning to Apply a Systems Practice to the Wicked Problem of Homelessness and has also been cited in the past when discussing Collective Impact and other times since then.

The Calhoun study looked at the “whole system," not one system for funders, one for providers and another for everybody else. The community’s incentives structure existed to provide quick fixes to address the immediate problem, rather than creating sustained change. One study observation was “The most ironic obstacle to implementing the fundamental solution was the community’s very success in providing temporary shelters and supports.” Systems Thinking was used to determine where intervening with higher level approaches such as housing first could effectively occur. This approach worked even with rising unemployment in the area. Stroh also wrote an insightful article on “Exposing the Hidden Benefits of Business as Usual: Why the Status Quo is So Difficult to Change,” which can also be seen as being applicable to a Systems Practice effort.

This is the third completed Systems Practice project. Waiting this time until the end of the Systems Practice course before blogging allows for a bird’s eye view of the entire Systems Practice process. It also allows inclusion of the other past Systems Practice projects found in the New Community Paradigms Systems Practice wiki-page, which include “Addressing Homelessness in Portland, Oregon” and “Addressing Plastic Pollution in Thailand” as well as looking at Systems Practice from a more philosophical perspective categorized as ”Systems Practice UK”.

The SP UK course’s more philosophical indoctrination did help to realize some important insights more fully. One is appreciating the difference between people finding themselves in a complex system and those finding themselves in complex situations, recognizing that these aren’t mutually exclusive. People in the actual applicable problem situation will have different perspectives from those considering the relevant more abstract system in which those situations arise.

The project Plastic Pollution in Thailand and the UK Systems Practice more philosophical perspective gave rise to my own perspective that Systems Practice (SP USA) is not a philosophy. It is a playbook. They actually have a playbook, Systems Practice Workbook Omidyar Group that describes the process undertaken in implementing a Systems Practice approach to deal with wicked problems (the impossible of the course’s title). It has no issues with taking from any of the different Systems Thinking approaches, whether ontological, epistemological, soft or hard explored in the Systems Practice UK series that suits its pragmatic purposes.

The “Addressing Homelessness in Portland, Oregon” project was an extension of the ”Financial Modeling and Last Mile Homeless Food Truck” project and I was the team leader. With ”Plastic Pollution in Thailand, I joined a group, with an already established focus, which unfortunately broke up before the end of the course though I still brought the project to a conclusion. The most recently completed project was the one most in line with the ideas behind ”Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking.” The topic Palestinian and Jewish relationships in the City of Jerusalem was chosen democratically among the eight members of the group out of nine possible topics.

The greatest value the previous two Systems Practice projects brought to the Jerusalem Vision project is what was done wrong or went wrong in those projects. Before the first Systems Practice course, I had worked solo and still tend to do that. Systems Practice though significantly informed and induced me to substantially change the approach I took when working with a group.

My first mistake with Systems Practice was creating a systems map using Kumu far too early in the process before the course had barely started. I came with my cup perhaps too full, putting me out of alignment with the course and with being able to collaborate with the others on the team I was supposedly leading. It took a while to realize that the differences were due to Systems Practice's attempt to focus on group interactions in coming up with solutions.

A primary issue that Systems Thinking seeks to address, because of a tendency of a reductionist approach of breaking systems into smaller components, is to only look at factors in immediate or near-immediate approximation instead of following causal pathways further out to discover hidden relationships. What may be a positive causal force at one point of the system may then become a negative causal force at another point. Systems Practice does address this though perhaps not explicitly allowing its process to reveal any Systems insight.

This doesn’t mean the analysis by reductionism is completely abandoned. The first assignment of the SP course, USA Plastic Pollution in Thailand had us present our system challenge through a Complexity Spectrum, consisting of selecting within spectrums of polar choices.

• Level of Understanding: Well understood vs Not Understood
• Engagement: Consensus vs Diversity of Opinion
• Environment: Stable vs Dynamic
• Environment: Self-contained vs Interconnected
• Goals: Small Scale vs Broad Change
• Goals: Short-term vs Sustainable

Although any relational mapping with Kumu was delayed, using a different mapping program, Plectica allowed for the creation of a map which reflected the Complexity Spectrum’s hierarchical nature and that provided spaces for each of the members of the team to provide their individual input. It fitted rather well with the course assignment proving in this instance, more helpful than Kumu.

The latest “Jerusalem Vision” project didn’t repeat this Complexity Spectrum but we still had an analytical perspective brought to the team through our team leader Yoel Ben-Avraham who has a background as a Systems Analyst. With the latest Jerusalem Vision project, we used RealTime Board as suggested by our team leader Yoel. It had some features similar to Plectica and despite being spread across the globe, we were able to witness the movement of the different factors we had gathered into common themes while collaborating together in real time.

Factors and themes, as well as forces, enablers, and inhibitors, are among specialized terms Systems Practice introduces to help define their group-oriented approach to Systems Thinking. Before, however, getting into that the course first had us establish some common visions of the challenge we were about to address.

Reaching for a New Jerusalem Vision using Systems Practice

Recently, the first blog post in a long while was posted on the third effort to use Systems Practice to address a complex issue, this time Israeli/Palestinian relationships in the City of Jerusalem. This post continues in that vein. In truth though, little will be said about the issue itself, despite recognizing that its greater awareness generates greater attraction. Instead, the focus will be on the Systems Practice approach and how it could possibly be related to direct democratic governance.

Seeking to find solutions through collaborative dialogue and deliberations, which are aspects of Systems Practice, can also be seen as components of direct democracy as opposed to more competitive forms of interaction, such as debates within more representative forms of democracy through institutions. This is not to establish that one form of democratic governance is preferable to the other. The Systems Practice approach seeks to examine the system at a level foundational to such a determination. It is not the system though that calls for the resolution of differing perspectives. It is for people themselves to make such a determination.

Before proceeding further, certain points will need to be repeated or clarified. As has been said in other efforts of this type this is not intended to be a substitute for the course. If you become interested in the process then sign up to take the course. An added piece of advice for Systems Practice, plan to take it again a second time, one time will likely not be enough. This is suspected to be true whether you sign up as an individual or start off as part of a group. 

Blogging about this third project was held off until completion of the course. This creates new challenges in presenting the approach to addressing this or any complex issue. With previous projects,  the proverbial elephant could be served in small portions focusing on a specific component of the process. Taken as a whole, it becomes all the more complex. It will still be served in limited portions but there is a greater awareness that there are no aspects of the system that can't be considered from multiple perspectives.

A Systems Thinking/Systems Practice approach can assist in addressing what can arguably be designated as a Wicked Problem.  As has been noted before, if messes, as defined by Russell Ackoff are problems that can be thought of like Frankenstein’s monster then wicked problems are Godzilla. Wherein the potential sources of solutions can seem as complex as the wicked problem itself. 

The full systems map for this project will not be presented at this point.  First, this blog post or even series is not intended to provide a final answer or solution. The focus will be on the process of attempting to arrive at an answer. Primarily though because it is too complex, in at least three ways. 

We are requiring people to address the complexity of the issue itself, the complexity of a Systems Thinking approach to the issue as opposed to the more generally overly used and generally taken for granted reductionist approach and the use of general unfamiliar graphically oriented means of communicating these ideas through systems mapping. If these concepts are to be widely disseminated then all three must be considered together.

I had limited knowledge of the factors involved in the issues making up the system being considered. This was made all the more apparent by working with somebody embedded, as a stakeholder, in that system. It’s important to note that additional diverse stakeholder perspectives are still needed. When dealing with systems, especially detrimental systems, recognizing the particular realities and physical manifestations are as important as the underlying conceptual system of relationships. Without this, it’s impossible to understand the story behind people’s motivations.

The tendency to default to reductionist thinking rose even with the writing of this blog post which was rewritten a number of times to continually expand the scope to a more holistic perspective. The systems map for this Systems Practice project was created largely from other text which is more linearly oriented. Reinterpreting the map back to text doesn’t merely involve retracing steps. Hopefully, there is a solid, functional relationship between the two, though not necessarily direct, allowing for a global understanding encompassing both what has been considered longitudinal and latitudinal perspectives.

Systems maps on their own can serve different purposes, to either develop understanding or to communicate understanding but, at least in my experience, not both. There is, in my view, a sizable gap between the two that must be overcome before accomplishing that. Communicating full understanding is difficult and often the solution is to simplify and omit something. My past tendency has been to concentrate more on gaining understanding, admittedly mostly my own, and less on communicating that understanding to others. Systems Practice extends this potential for understanding to a group. 

There is also a danger with people, even if part of the Systems Practice process, getting the mistaken impression that maps, as presented, are complete discouraging additional input.  A systems map can be seen as being more extensive and coherent in describing a system than it is actually. How extensive a map appears can be an issue in making the challenge seem overwhelming without boundaries or with endless divisions. How coherent a map appears can help give the impression that the factors are related but not necessarily how. Together they seemingly suggest containing and controlling a challenge giving a false impression of finality. The maps, as a result, aren't examined closely enough to be properly tested and require having a guide to assist with navigation to do so. This arose during the process of developing a Systems Practice project dealing with Plastic Pollution in Thailand.

The often cited Systems Thinking principle established by George Box that all models (or maps) are wrong but some are useful needs to be retained. The question of where wrong and where useful must be continually asked. Explicitly contrasting those differences helps test the system to maintain authenticity but not to become over-elaborate.

As was said in the previous post, the particular issue being considered is both complex and controversial so one’s approach could potentially leave one susceptible to a charge of white-knight-savior hubris. So let me be clear, as said previously I did not start with any expertise in the issue. Our efforts did not result in a solution to the Israeli-Jewish/Palestinian-Arab conflict. We did not come up with any solutions. That was never an expectation. What we developed was a deeper understanding of what would become to be termed factors, forces and persistent patterns of causality of the system we were addressing. There are still though potential points of controversy remaining that will arise because of positions that are taken. 

This is not to suggest any intention to choose one side of an issue over another. Recognizing contrasts in perspectives can be seen as an essential component of establishing cognitive diversity. Cognitive diversity refers to the concept put forward by thinkers such as Scott Page. It's not meant as a panacea for a lack of other forms of diversity or to address any differences in the distribution of power. Cognitive diversity, particularly beyond my own, was considered to be an essential component in developing the project. The problem is when contrasts rise to the level of conflicts or coercion. Taking a more reductionist oriented approach, the opposing perspectives could be seen as different and separate competing systems. 

Systems Practice approaches these contrasting perspectives, even if to the point of being confrontational, as being a single system in a state of oscillation between those contrasting perspectives. Even so, positions by necessity must be established which will by their nature not be settled and will invariably be objected to by someone. 

It is not enough though to merely recognize arguments of opposing perspectives in an attempt to provide a so-called balanced view. What needs to be realized is how the different factors making up those perspectives interrelate with each other, creating causal influences beyond the point of direct cause-effect confrontation to attaining feedback so as to understand why the entrenched system despite being deleterious is maintained. 

As a means of transition, another systems map, on the same issue in general, will be considered first. The map being used for the purpose of comparison and contrast is A Systemic View of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by David Peter Stroh in the Systems Thinker. It is arguably far more accessible and comprehensible than our Systems Practice map and purportedly comes up with a solution. 

A large portion of the Systems Practice project to Create a New Vision for Jerusalem, especially for my contribution, was based on an article by Dr. David Koren, Advisor to the Mayor of Jerusalem for Arab and eastern Jerusalem affairs,  "Eastern Jerusalem: End of an Intermediate Era". The next blog post will go into more detail. 

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The NCP Fantasy Systems Thinking Team - Forrester and Meadows

The last two posts attempted to span the distance between the practice of using graphic means and different methods to communicate the relationship of aspects, conceptual or real, of a situation or system, and understanding the complexity arising from those aspects themselves. The former, mapping is being used to assist in the navigating of the territory of the later with both being important. There is a higher level of mental organization still possible, the creation of an overlaying architecture to a systems approach. This arguably moves from a conceptual level to a more philosophical level.

The course provides in chapter 6 a sampling of the background of five notable figures in the systems thinking pantheon, each with a different approach or philosophy about systems thinking, Jay Forrester, Stafford Beer, Sir Geoffrey Vickers, Peter Checkland, and Russell Ackoff.

It was decided to come up with NCP's own Fantasy Systems Thinking Team. The first two selections have one the same as from the course and one new, Jay Forrester and Donella Meadows.

The NCP Wiki incorporates Systems Thinking as a primary component or wiki section, distinguishing between systems thinking approaches, which include systems dynamics programs and systems thinking applications for change-making efforts, featuring the Donella Meadows Project.

Though the course selected the man it did not select his methodology stopping short of incorporating Systems Dynamics. As reported in the blog post, Systems Thinking - Sailing through Wicked Problems on Complex Seas, the most adept advocate for Systems Dynamics is its creator, J. W. Forrester, Professor Emeritus Systems Dynamics at MIT who upended the conventional thinking in management and redefined what growth means through articles such as, System Dynamics: the Foundation Under Systems Thinking and Learning through System Dynamics as Preparation for the 21st Century. Professor Forrester was deemed The Prophet of Unintended Consequences.

Donella Meadows, primary author of Limits to Growth, was a protege of Forrester. She is also a favorite systems thinker given her own wiki-page in the NCP wiki. Even though both Forrester and Meadows were from the systems dynamics school of systems, Meadows from an organic, environmental background can be seen as often being more accessible than Forrester coming from an engineering background though both are just as disciplined.

As reported in the blog post, Advancing Racial Equity Through Collective Impact and Systems Thinking, systems thinking is seen as a means of addressing complexity. We want pragmatic solutions without wasting too much time on theory, looking for something concrete to build upon. This, however, brings about a counterintuitive trap raised by Forrester, who demonstrates how problems can arise when these principles are ignored.

Policy improvements in the short run often degrade a system in the long run while policies producing long-run improvements often initially degrade the system at the start. Though the short run is more visible and more compelling, calling for immediate attention, its impact is not really more concrete, rather becoming more what I have called entrenched, or in Forrester's words:

“However, sequences of actions all aimed at short-run improvement can eventually burden a system with long-run depressants so severe that even heroic short-run measures no longer suffice. Many problems being faced today are the cumulative result of short-run measures taken in prior decades.”

The post asserts that an ability to adopt different perspectives is important to relational mapping and to systems thinking in general. It can also be important to a system of both deliberative and participatory democracy. Essential in questions of equity, particularly those questions asked in terms of community economic and empowerment equity requiring answers of the larger community.

According to Forrester, in navigating between our concrete wants and our complex realities, our own individual mental models are fuzzy, incomplete, and imprecisely formed, continually changing with time, even in conversations. Even with only a single subject each participant in a conversation can employ a different mental model with different fundamental assumptions never brought into the open and different goals left unstated. Our thinking is not as concrete as we would like to think.

The George Box rule, stated before, still applies, all models (including computer) are wrong, but some are useful or on Forrester advice, it's not having a computer but how the computer is used to create the model that's essential.

“With respect to models, the key is not to computerize a model, but, instead, to have a model structure and decision-making policies that properly represent the system under consideration.”

“A good computer model is distinguished from a poor one by the degree to which it captures the essence of a system that it represents.”

As Forrester asserts, though a community system is complex, which means the data coming out of it is complex, this does not necessarily mean the answer is more data.

“The problem is not shortage of data but rather inability to perceive the consequences of information we already possess. The system dynamics approach starts with concepts and information on which people are already acting.”

Forrester demonstrates the paradox of complex systems in our society in that, “Generally, behavior is different from what people have assumed” and how System Dynamics models can help us understand how difficulties within actual social systems arise, and why so many past efforts to improve social systems have failed.

"The country has slipped into short-term policies for managing cities that have become part of the system that is generating even greater troubles."

"Rather than face the rising population problem squarely, governments try to relieve the immediate pressures by more policemen, financial aid, busing to suburban schools, and subsidized health facilities. As a consequence, increasing population reduces the quality of life for everyone."

With simple systems, causes are close, whether arising from different parts of the system and in time to where or when the symptoms occur. This can easily mislead us into believing our actions to alleviate the symptoms to be concrete in nature.

The Donella Meadows Project (formerly Institute) has been introduced previously in this Systems Practice series in Approaching a Systems Practice, Yet Again as an example of an US-based systems thinking enterprise along with the Waters Foundation and the Institute for Systemic Leadership and in discussions regarding uncertainty related to messes, particularly irreducible uncertainty, as suggested by Donella Meadows in More Thinking on Mastering Systems Practice, Dealing with Messes. The uncertainty that is inherent in the situation itself, most notably, complex stochastic output.

Meadows definition of “A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something…. a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections and a function or purpose.”

She expanded upon these simple foundational steps to establishing open, positive interactions to bring about change through Dancing with Systems. More importantly, she identified points of leverage within systems in endeavoring to bring about the desired transformation. In a post on the US Systems Practice versus Systems Thinking it was suggested using Donella Meadows' Twelve Leverage Points at least as a systems thinking based background resource.

In the ABCD Conflict Consensus Debate and Systems Thinking posts, ABCD or Asset Based Community Development was seen as fitting the Meadows’ definition of a system. It is a system, a complex, human-based system, that must exist within, and by its purpose interact with the complicated, procedure-based institutional systems. It is a system though that focuses nearly entirely on the "territory" of community relations rather than more abstract issues of mapping. Institutions are also seen as being composed of multiple systems, with an espoused system often conflicting with the actual in-use system, or systems of administration contrasted with systems of organizational culture. The use of systems thinking is an endeavor to bridge these supposedly conflicting perspectives.

As discussed in Sailing Complex and Wicked Seas with Icebergs (Systems Thinking), there is always the question of what specific system are we defining? Are we all talking about the same system, in terms of scope, abstraction, complexity, understanding and potential action?

New Community Paradigms is seeking empowerment of community members from the bottom up through deliberative democracy, scaffolded by systems thinking, and other means. One means of understanding the world, featured before is the Systems Thinking Iceberg Model. 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. The use of Kumu mapping, as part of a systems thinking approach, is an attempt to take the deepest levels of the systems thinking iceberg model as well as the most effective interventions of Donella Meadows' Leverage Points with the intention of applying them to real world problems.

More Thinking on Mastering Systems Practice, Dealing with Messes

In the last post, the idea of what Russell Ackoff called “messes” as contrasted with difficulties was introduced. The course promised more on Ackoff in week six but additional background was provided in that NCP post. More will also be offered here, including a paper in which the term “messes” is used, Systems, Messes and Interactive Planning - Modern Times Workplace.

The course quoted Ackoff regards to messes:

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consists 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)

It has to be admitted that this is the first time being exposed to Ackoff’s idea of messes being more familiar with the concept of wicked problems. This raises the question though, are "messes" qualitatively different from"wicked problems”?

Judith A. Curry, American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, wrote about the differences between messes and wicked problems from which I borrow heavily here.

Russell L. Ackoff wrote about complex problems as messes:

“Every problem interacts with other problems and is, therefore, part of a set of interrelated problems, a system of problems…. I choose to call such a system a mess.”

Robert Horn extended the concept:

“a Social Mess is a set of interrelated problems and other messes. Complexity—systems of systems—is among the factors that makes Social Messes so resistant to analysis and, more importantly, to resolution.”
So a system of problems within a complex system of systems?

“Wicked problem” is a phrase originally used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.

Curry goes on to cite the executive summary of New Tools for Resolving Complex Problems, subtitled Mess Mapping and Resolution Mapping Processes.

Wicked Problems (equivalently, Social Messes) are seemingly intractable problems. They are composed of inter-related dilemmas, issues, and other problems at multiple levels society, economy, and governance. These interconnections—systems of systems—make Wicked Problems so resilient to analysis and to resolution.

Messes then seem to be Frankenstein problems while wicked problems are Godzilla. We will stick with just the course’s messes and difficulties from here on with the understanding we may need a bigger army.

The course seems to be breaking down its systematic approach by what I’ll call embedded bifurcations, difficulties with messes, emotional reactions with rational reactions, and systemic thinking with systematic thinking as part of understanding the “perceived complexity within situations”. The first dealt with being differences between difficulties and messes.

I am going to jump though and first consider problems, situations and systems. As suggested in the last post there are two types of problems, difficulties and messes. Problems, according to the course, are taken up by, not given to, decision makers and problems are extracted from unstructured states of confusion or complex situations.

These are my interpretations, so its necessary to take the course to see if one comes to the same conclusions. Problems, it seems are undesired situations. Situations are not systems but interactions between us and systems. I don’t see unstructured states of confusion and complex situations as being equivalent but a complex situation is different from a complex system. Can a complex situation, on its own be adaptive?

Back to the more basic and tangible ideas of difficulties and messes. Difficulties refer to simpler, more limited types of situations. A difficulty is fairly clear cut, easy to put a label on it and to explain to someone else what is the problem. With difficulty, the overall context and purpose of the activity can be taken for granted, determining how it can best be done is a relatively simple matter. A difficulty can be disentangled from the broader context of work and addressed in a more or less discrete matter. What a solution will look like is roughly known with a difficulty. Finally, one knows enough or knows what is needed to be known to be able to tackle a difficulty.

Messes aren’t seen as merely being ‘bigger’ than difficulties. They have a number of features that make them qualitatively different. A mess is harder to pin down or even to say what is the actual problem. Having no sure solutions, it usually doesn’t make much sense to talk about ‘an answer’ with a mess. It becomes more a matter of coping as best one can with the circumstances. The aspects of a mess are beyond one’s direct control and what factors are relevant to the situation and what aren’t isn't easily known. A mess is fuzzy. Because its different elements are closely tied to other areas of activity it’s hard to say who and what is involved in the problem and who and what isn’t. With a mess, one never knows enough and is uncertain even what is needed to be known.

Other attributes that distinguish between difficulties and messes concern their scale and the uncertainty associated with them.

The scale of the situation determines the ways in which messes tend to be ‘larger’ and have more serious implications than difficulties. More people are likely to be involved in a mess. Messes usually have a longer time-scale. They are more complicated making them more difficult to tackle. A mess calls into question how much weight to give to different considerations, assumptions and priorities as well as whether particular goals are realistic or not.

The second group of key features comes under the general heading of uncertainty. There is much more about which one is simply unsure with messes. Uncertainty that is inherent in the situation itself, most notably irreducible uncertainty, as suggested by Donella Meadows, or essentially complex stochastic output.

The next level idea best capturing the difference between difficulties and messes is the idea that difficulties are bounded while messes are unbounded in terms of both scale and uncertainty.

A bounded situation implies that it is fairly limited and that one roughly knows where are those limits. Although no single characteristic provides an essential criterion, to describe a situation as messy, rather than just a difficulty, it implies that in some important respects it is unbounded.

An unbounded situation is more extensive, though just how extensive can be hard to determine so it becomes a mess. Knowing that a messy situation may in some important respects be unbounded is useful. It is though ambiguous on an important point.

Elements of rational and emotional complexity must be considered, for practical purposes, as it is essential to remember that both are important in comprehending a messy situation.

What may be hard to pin down is whether this quality of being unbounded is a characteristic of a person’s experience of a particular situation, or is actually of the nature of the situation itself? Is a messy situation one that someone for their own particular reasons can’t see how to disentangle from everything else? Does it only appear to them to be unbounded or is it actually the situation that is unbounded meaning that the circumstances are such that the situation really has very extensive ramifications.

One of the properties of problems with which helpers have found it quite hard to grapple is the extent to which all problems are personal; different persons see different problems in what other people would take to be the same situation. This is an important point in our argument, and is fairly well accepted in everyday ‘common sense’. This point does not seem to raise much difficulty when it is expressed theoretically, but it is often rather more difficult to bear it in mind and act upon in practice.

In summary, difficulties and messes are general terms without clear-cut or categorical distinctions. Instead, they are on a continuum, with most problems lying somewhere in between.

Learning to Apply a Systems Practice to the Wicked Problem of Homelessness

This is the beginning of another online course sponsored by Acumen and another course in collaboration with Jo Foraker with whom I worked with on the Modeling the Last Mile to Feed the Homeless series. In that course, the focus was on financial modeling but systems thinking modeling was always included underneath near the surface. Again, only a flavor of the course is going to be provided here and not the course itself. Instead, the focus, as before, will be more on how the course connects with new community paradigms.

This course is more directly on Systems Practice and is being taught by Rob Ricigliano of Omidyar Group’s Systems & Complexity Team. It appears that it will seek a more pragmatic or on-the-ground application of systems thinking than did the previously taken systems thinking certification course. One new aspect will be how to launch a team. This course will also be using the often featured Kumu relational mapping tool. Here is a perspective on Kumu by Rob Ricigliano.

The course focuses on solving what it calls groundhog day, whack-a-mole and opposite day problems, a little imagination will paint a picture. Another more operationally viable term is "wicked problem". The trouble for those trying to communicate this reality to others is that this reality can be confusing, frustrating and messy. The course sees systems thinking as a necessary mindset in addressing this reality by providing clarity and insights into points of leverage within such systems at which the greatest impact with modest force is possible. It makes it possible to enhance an organization’s adaptability to changing environments. Making it more aware of causal ripple effects, those instances of cause and effect which are separate in time and space from the more ostensibly obvious events within our immediate reality. 

Homelessness is seen as a wicked problem, a complex problem involving large scale system inputs and outcomes having very close, personal and detrimental impact on those afflicted by it. It will arguably require then a wide perspective to find viable solutions. 

In particular with the issue of homelessness in which communities have spent a large amount of money on shelters in many large cities yet did not reduce the overall number of people living on the streets within those cities. 

The course explores why. With the homeless shelter question, the suggested answer is “Shelters were never meant to provide a path to sustainable living.” Beyond that, no one program can address all of the underlying challenges facing our communities. They are all interconnected and interwoven. It is a complex perspective on reality as opposed to an imposed complicated top-down perspective. 

One positive example cited by the course and in the past by this blog, is the Calhoun County, Michigan study which used systems thinking to address homelessness. They looked at the “whole system” under which the incentive for funders and providers had been to provide quick fixes, addressing the immediate problem, rather than sustained change. They used systems thinking to determine where they could effectively intervene with higher level approaches such as housing first. This worked even when unemployment in the area was rising.

1. Setting goals
2. Good Systems Analysis
3. Finding Opportunities for Leverage
4. Preparing to Learn and Adapt Effectively

The course considers how to do a systems analysis through a dynamic systems map of key forces affecting the system under study. How to identify opportunities for impact or leverage points within that system to create the desired change. How do we get started on the process of learning and adapting so that if we manage to do that very well in the context of the complex system (meaning constantly shifting) we are working in we are able to adapt?

1. Mindset for how the world works and how to create change.
2. A set of tools and processes as to how to actually design and implement actions for change.

Rob then goes into what they mean by a system or what makes a system, differentiating it from more tangible physical systems such as an automobile or the healthcare system. Complex social systems produce results or consequences such as homelessness or other social ills to use his examples. This type of system is made up of complex forces that affect each other and more importantly for one’s efforts the issue with which you are concerned. For example, the “things” that produce homelessness are likely diverse but not isolated, they are interrelated in a manner that I would deem organic and intrinsic. These relationships between the things or factors contributing to homelessness can interact in unpredictable ways. 

So a system has discrete and diverse components or elements that are interdependent and interact in complex ways that dynamically change over time. This makes predictability more difficult, not impossible but the ability is far more constrained as one needs to constantly reassess one's systems analysis and the time frame for an accurate prediction can be shortened. 

The Omidyar Group’s take on systems thinking consists of three key components. It is a mindset. A way of thinking about how the world works and how to work with that messy world to promote desired outcomes. It is a set of tools to do analysis and develop a strategy. It is a particular set of processes which demands collective intelligence and sense-making resulting in collective action. This requires certain specific processes, such as participatory deliberations and dialogue.

The course recognizes that there are certain problems that are not solvable by directly addressing the apparent symptoms of the problem. With homelessness, it was the notion that we build shelters but that didn't actually solve the problem. It may have gotten certain people off of the streets but they were replaced and increased by more people. It can be necessary to look at the entire system to determine what it is about the system that is producing that and other negative outcomes. The conundrum is that certain acute challenges cannot be ignored until a complete and permanent solution to the chronic problem is found.

The feeding of the unsheltered, isolated homeless (even in homeless camps there is still isolation) is one such challenge. Those that can’t find occupancy in the shelters can also find themselves isolated from the community's food systems.  The direct approach to the problem, getting food and taking it to the camps is already known to be a tremendous logistical challenge. The question is how to create a system, an enterprise that works most effectively and efficiently in the existing larger systems and that can also, hopefully, begin to change that larger system to not only stop whatever activities it is doing to create the problems but to also directly work on the larger system issues to resolve them.

1. The nature of the environment one is working in.
2. The nature of the goal you have set for yourself.
3. One’s ability to implement this type of approach.

Rob then goes into three criteria for determining whether a systems approach should be applied. First is the nature of the environment one is working dynamic and constantly changing? Have supposedly obvious approaches been tried before and failed? Can change be overwhelming, not just for oneself but especially for those one is trying to assist? Even solutions that may work in one case don’t work in another. 

The second is the nature of the goal that one is striving to accomplish. This one is more problematic. Rob speaks of relief efforts to feed a specific group of people for a specific period of time or to house them so that they don’t die of exposure which can be seen as a relatively mechanical process. However, I don't believe the distinction is so apparent or that the Last Mile program truly fits into that configuration. The relationship between doing A to get B is not as deterministic in dealing with the unsheltered homeless as it can be with other forms of relief aid. 

Now it is true that finding ways to permanently house homeless individuals or better to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place would be a higher point of leverage within the larger system. However, in focusing on the first approach of finding ways to permanently house the homeless, the status of those individuals in terms of health must also be considered and malnutrition and anemia will make helping them far more difficult. How all this will be addressed though will change from place to place. 

The third is what is happening with one’s self. Are you in an enabling environment, the ability, time and resources that allow you to step back and have the means and capability to think through the building of a strategy, say like taking this course then systems thinking is worth investing in. Rob warns, however, that it is not a magic solution. It does not make complex issues simple or worse yet if wrongly interpreted, simplistic. What it can do, from a new community paradigms perspective is make that complexity coherent.