Designing Organisations
Stefania Strega
Saturday 11 June 2005
Summary
Stefania started by saying that designing invisible structures is very difficult, and this is perhaps why (even as permaculture designers) we don´t seem to design our organisations using the permaculture design process that we use for our gardens, or teach on our courses. Our design theory is excellent! and very powerful - we should try to apply it to designing EVERYTHING. When we don´t design consciously, we design unconsciously, and this means we often just do the 'lazy thing' and copy other forms we are familiar with. This can be disastrous for organizations, as there are several well known 'standard' forms, and most of them don´t work terribly well, especially in rapidly changing times. Going through the design process sistematically takes time, and in this case also quite a lot of imagination. But it´s worth the time: the worst that can happen is finding some new interesting ways of looking at familiar things .. the best that could happen is some very well designed organizations. This workshop was proposed in order to try and trace how the design process theory might go for designing an organization, step by step. Started by asking if there was an organization in particular the participants would like to design. No consensus emerged (and the time was quite limited), so we worked through the process without actually designing a new organisation.
Using SADI – we listed and discussed some of the tools available to us within permaculture design.
Survey - observe – how do we do this for people designs?
- Client interviews – people within and outside the organisation, particularly those that may have been excluded and/or at the bottom – they often have a better ‘view’
- Look at the results of the organisation - "actions speak louder than words"
- Emotions of people - not always rational, but always important - how to process them as a design issue%
- Gate keepers - aknowledge them and map them - they are there somewhere, best if named
- Decision makers – where does the power lay – visible and invisible power structures
- Who acts? Who are the doers.
- Information flows/communications - map them
Look for resources – use the scale of resources (ones which increase with use to ones which pollute with use - see manual) - human resources like enthusiasm & skills available are particularly important here of course (others are time, money, spaces, materials, etc.)
- Inputs/outputs
- Functions - official ones and unofficial ones, which most important? (eg- doing work and socializing)
- Context/boundaries – what’s happening outside
- Protocol and reputation
Analyse - what analysing tools do we use in PC?
- Guilds/constellations (in order to deconstruct them)
- PMI
- Inputs/outputs (explicit and implicit)
- Zones - don't limit this powerful tool to a spacial or geographical thing
- Connections/flows (sectors)
- Emotional responses (recognise them for what they are)%
- Characteristics/elements
Design - what design methodologies do we know of?
- Random assembly
- Process of elimination
- Options/decisions
- From pattern to detail (use pattern language)
- Apply principles
- Pragmatics – using what’s there, emergent design, intuitive design
- Wild design (or designing with the fairies)
- Incremental design
Implement - how doable is your design? strict pragmatix needed (start small, etc.)
- Participation – who
- Designed implementation – succession – incremental
- Sustainable - essential! If it´s not sustainable, it ain´t permaculture..
- Must have the resources to implement - good guiding principles to transmit like "don´t volunteer anyone", etc.
Maintenance … didn’t quite get there (one comment at the end was that this workshop should run over 3 days..)
(see http://www.rc.org/ for more information)
[Scribe: Anita Aggarwal]