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Implications for seeing networks as complex adaptive systems
Blog by Steve Waddell - May 25 2010
Networks are more productively approached as living systems, rather than as engineered and built structures. But what does this really mean, and what are the implications? Some of this is described in a wonderful report I read last week titled Capacity, Change and Performance. This report came to my attention through The Change Alliance and Jan Ubels at SNV. and Marianne Hughes, Executive Director of the Interaction Institute for Social Change. We were discussing the barriers to realizing the potential for multi-stakeholder change strategies, and Marianne commented:
The report nicely summarizes four key points about a complex adaptive system (CAS) perspective. CAS begins with individuals or organizations guided by some higher inner principles ...
Power, politics and network competencies - Blog by Steve Waddell
Last week I spoke with Ger Berkamp, Director General of the World Water Council (WWC) and later with Peter van Tuijl, Director of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). Each conversation turned to the question “What knowledge, skills and capabilities does your network need to be really successful?”
In both cases, we turned to the competencies framework in Figure 1. And in both cases when the question arose about what may be missing in this framework, Ger and Peter brought up power and politics.
“The political management of the network…it needs taken care of as a political process,” said Ger.
“Capacity to deal with power differences,” said Peter. “It misses the political edge – for the ...
Strategic mapping for networks
Strategic mapping for networks - Blog by Steve Waddell
We can easily be overwhelmed by the complexity of large networks where there are many different organizations and people involved. Clearly “seeing” relationships between organizations, people, and key concepts is important for successful network strategies.
To vastly enhance and speed understanding of these relationships, I’ve worked with various forms of “mapping”. Network maps are diagrams of lines or arrows (representing connections) and nodes (representing individuals, organizations, ideas) that can visually communicate tremendous amounts of information much more easily than volumes of text. Here are some approaches I’ve found useful:
Web crawls
This approach maps and analyzes relationships between URLs. This gives a picture of how organizations and issues are connected ...
Organizations Vs. Partnerships Vs. Networks
Organizations Vs. Partnerships Vs. Networks - Blog by Steve Waddell
When participating in a seminar on partnerships sponsored by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, I noticed that people were using the terms “network”, “partnership” and “organization” inter-changeably. This created a lot of confusion. Consequently I developed the table below to help distinguish between the concepts and identify important implications for organizing.
Others may use the terms differently. Some may consider what are here referred to as “partnerships” as what I mean when I write “network”. Partnerships are defined as task oriented – they have a relatively limited and well-defined objective such as producing a report or constructing a water system. The main rationale ...
Networking Action- a blog by Steve Waddell
This blog is written by Steve Waddell
Developing Scenarios for Big Change
Scenario development is a leading tool for moving large, seemingly intractable issues…and particularly useful for large change networks. I have revisited the progress of the methodology over the last couple of months with the guidance of Rafael Ramirez at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society of the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
Rafael is lead editor of a new version of the business bible on scenario development – Business Planning for Turbulent Times. The concept of “turbulence” is one highly relevant to Global Action Networks…indeed, it may be said that they are structures to manage turbulence: when “the shared ‘common good’ is in motion ...
Networkingaction - blog by Steve Waddel
This blog is written by Steve Waddell — February 2, 2010
If you want to know more, see http://www.networkingaction.net/
Governments in Change Networks?
… GWP, TI, GRI, TAI, Global Compact, IUCN
In a new new study of four Global Action Networks (GANs – multi-stakeholder change networks), Pieter Glasbergen concludes that involving government is key to success. “First, mainstreaming of concepts can only be realized by governments or by their recognition of the private governance mechanism as an alternative tool to solve a collective action problem. Second, governments are also important because most GANs operate in an issue field with many competing private and public initiatives.”
However, governments are usually more difficult than businesses or NGOs to involve in networks as ...
“Private Sector having a high responsibility in improving access to medicines”
MSP workshop for MeTA pilot countries
Jordan, January 2010
“Private Sector having a high responsibility in improving access to medicines” and “Less is Better”, provoked fundamental discussions between the different stakeholder groups. More of these kind of conflicting perceptions were expressed and shared during the MSP workshop for MeTA pilot countries. Making explicit and sharing different views on how to improve access to medicines is already a step forward into improved multi stakeholder collaboration.
75 participants from Civil Society, Government, Private Sector and MeTA engaged actively in discussions about the improved access to Medicines through Transparency & Accountability. In order to achieve this, Multi Stakeholder Processes have been started in Jordan, Uganda, Ghana, Zambia, Philippines, Kyrghizstan & Peru.
The Country groups analysed ...