Framing Intervention Martin Reynolds Open Systems Research Group

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Framing InterventionMartin Reynolds (Open
Systems Research Group)
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Critical systems thinking and social learning

• Rural Development for the XXIInd Congress of the
  European Society for Rural Sociology
• Wageningen, 20-24 August 2007August 2007

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Framework Directives

• Glendower
• I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
• Hotspur
• Why, so can I, or so can any man but will they
  come when you do call for them?
• From William Shakespeare (Henry IV Pt.1 Act III
  Scene 1)
• From shakespeare to project management cycles
• Frameworks
• Command-and-control models

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Intervention Whats wrong with the project
management cycle?

• Command-and-control mindset
• Comfortable
• Business-as-usual (BAU)
• Sanitised/ sterile
• Commoditised
• Depoliticised
• Corporate driven
• Disengaged
• Imprisoning
• Complacent
• Purposive
• Linear
• Stasis

Project state (Marsden Sonnino,
2005) Evaluative state (Parsons, 1995)

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Re-framing project intervention

• Making sense of change in complex
  interrelationships
• (holistic thinking boundary critique)
• Engaging with multiple often conflicting,
  perspectives
• (interpretivist thinking social learning)
• Challenging boundaries of practice and
  understanding
• (boundary thinking critical systems practice)

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Contexts of (re)framing

• (2001-04) SLIM (social learning for the
  integrated management and sustainable use of
  water at catchment scale) European Commission
  set of interventions (Ray Ison and Niels Röling
  others) examining SL as alternative to regulatory
  and fiscal devices for managing natural resources
  
• http//slim.open.ac.uk
• (2005-06) Systems Concepts in Evaluation Book
  and workshop intervention (Gerald Midgley and
  Richard Bawden others) examining ways of
  developing systems ideas for practicing
  evaluators in USA
• http//users.actrix.co.nz/bobwill/
• (2004-06) ECOSENSUS (Electronic/Ecological
  Collaborative Sensemaking Support System) Guyana
  focused intervention (Werner Ulrich others)
  exploring distributed process-orientated
  environmental management as an alternative to
  conventional project-orientation
• http//kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/ecosensus/

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1 Making sense of change in complex
interrelationships(holistic thinking boundary
critique)
Project management cycle 1969gt
Experiential learning cycle Kolb (1984)
Boundary critique Ulrich (2002)
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Real world interrelationships
Boundary critique Ulrich (2002)
From summative to formative evaluation
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2 Engaging with multiple often conflicting,
perspectives(interpretivist thinking social
learning)

From positional bargaining towards interest
based stakeholding development
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Multiple perspectives stakeholding development
SLIM framework

Constituents of situation

• One of the platform members, in frustration with
  the official process, has set up an informal
  multistakeholders group. They call themselves
  cake bakers, developing new recipes together,
  to distinguish themselves from the cutting up of
  the cake deals that seem to characterise the
  official platform process.

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• Challenging boundaries
• (boundary thinking critical systems practice)

• Two dialectical tension in critical systems
• Internal logic (fw)Practice and
  (fw)understanding (vertical axis)
• External logic Systems and situations
  (horizontal axis)

ECOSENSUS (Electronic/Ecological Collaborative
Sensemaking Support System)
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Critical systems (SSM CSH) ePAR framework
From purposive action towards purposeful
action www.open.ac.uk/openlearn
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Summary framing purposeful intervention
Conventional Project Management framing

• Inter-relationships and judgement
• "Only Connect ..... " E. M. Forster
• Formative evaluation

• Perspectives and interests
• A systems approach begins when first you see
  the world through the eyes of another C.W.
  Churchman
• Stakeholding development

• Boundaries and Action
• No problem can be solved from the same
  consciousness that created it. We have to learn
  to see the world anew. Albert Einstein
• Purposeful action