Collective Intelligence Through Structured Dialogue

Collective Intelligence through Structured Dialogue

A methodology for tackling complex challenges with multiple stakeholders

INCOSE UK Bristol Local Group, 11 th March 2019 1 Overview

Systems Engineers often need to engage with Collective stakeholders and address complex or wicked problems. Intelligence Structured Dialogic Design is a methodology that evolved from the field of Interactive Management in the US, through starting in the 1980s. In its various forms (and under different names) it has been widely applied across the Structured globe in enabling groups to tackle wicked problems and complex challenges, but is not well known in the UK, Dialogue despite applications in MoD, Rolls Royce and the NHS. This presentation will outline the methodology, it’s provenance, and the current state of practice.

2 Applications

In today’s world many of the problems are not complicated, they are complex and wicked. The methodology delivers consulting redesigned specifically for these situations.

Complex and wicked problems can only be resolved by bringing together people with the necessary variety of perspectives and expertise in a collaborative setting where their ideas are freed, protected, and equally Forecasting an Unknown Wicked Problems and Future and Strategic Planning Complex Challenges considered with all others.

3 The Demosophia Methodology

Discover Diagnose Design Define Do Discover Diagnose the Design the Define strategic Implement required system at work path forward priorities and adaptively diversity of develop plans perspectives

Colabs

4 Colabs

A Colab is a gathering of stakeholders who together share, learn, and create a deep understanding of a complex problem using the Structured Democratic Dialogue (SDD) process.

• A unique and powerful type of facilitated meeting

• Specifically designed to address wicked problems

• Efficiently tapping into the collective wisdom of a wide variety of stakeholders

• Harnessing cognitive diversity (knowledge, experience, worldview etc.)

• Enabled and supported by technology

5 Colab Principles

1. A diversity of viewpoints is essential when engaging stakeholders in a dialogue for defining and resolving a complex issue. 2. Dialogue must be structured so that participants can think clearly by ensuring they are not overloaded with too much information. 3. Each idea must be protected so that its independence and genuineness remain. 4. Participants will understand the relative importance of their ideas only when their ideas are compared with others. 5. Through understanding how different people’s ideas relate, participants become wiser about the meaning of their own ideas. 6. The whole group learns and evolves as each participant sees how their ideas influence those of others.

6 7 8 9 Factor 85: More Positive Programs At my school we only have two positive programs – Gear Up and Bridges. We need more programs like that. The Gear up club helps expose kids to college at a very young age. At the age of 14, for instance, if they are in the Gear up program, they learn about college. The Bridges program teaches kids how to have a strong homework ethic. These kids go right to the cafeteria and do their homework as soon as possible. Adults assist them with homework.

10 Capital School District Five-year strategic planning Shaping the future for tomorrow’s Senators

A few months after hiring a new Superintendent, a new five-year strategic plan was needed for the Capital School District. The Board of Education placed a significant emphasis on the importance of truly engaging a wide-variety of stakeholders in the process of creating a vision, determining strategic priorities, and implementing the plan.

“The Capital School District has made tremendous strides in bridging gaps between the district and community during its strategic planning process with the help of Demosophia and Structured Democratic Dialogue. We focused on the ideas that would have the greatest impact on students and families and create positive changes that will ultimately improve our students’ performance, health and positive impact on our community.”

Dan Shelton, Ed.D., Superintendent/Chief School Officer

11 Air Force Research Laboratory Collaborative Strategic Planning

The Air Force Research Laboratory plans technology investments in the context of a 20-year strategic R&D horizon. This study evaluated collaborative, bottom-up strategic planning as a complement to the traditional top-down process.

A structured dialogue approach was applied as the bottom-up methodology, enabling a greater number and variety of stakeholders and technical experts to participate in ideation, reasoning and structured planning. The process visualizes planning outputs in a structural influence map revealing systemic relationships, supporting a list of planning priorities.

Case Study

“Comparison with a parallel strategic planning and foresight initiative validated that the SDD methodology achieved a superior planning product with wider organizational consensus.”

12 Chronic Kidney Disease Initiative Enabling major systemic change over more than a decade

The Council of American Kidney Societies (CAKS), composed of the president and president-elect of six major renal organizations, determined a need to coordinate and more rapidly advance numerous programs pertinent to chronic kidney disease (CKD). An initiative was formed (the CKDI), with a nine-member Steering Committee. A workshop for CKDI “stakeholders” using Structured Democratic Dialogue was held in February 2003 to clarify the issues to improve outcomes for patients and create an action plan.

In 2017, these recommendations are now a reality as CKD identification and evidence-based care is now delivered at scale across the country. Today there is acceptance of the importance of treating CKD in the medical community; a universal definition for CKD; appropriate screening measures; evidence-based care guidelines; and a change in the workforce, allowing many more of the 11 to 30 million people with some stage of the disease to receive quality care.

“When I gather with colleagues who led the work over the years we mention how effective the process was, and that despite the shifting leadership, we are really pleased with how it turned out.” 13 Dr. Thomas Parker III The process in more detail

14 Structured Democratic Dialogue

• A rigorously validated collaborative design methodology • Integrates tacit knowledge from diversified perspectives • A diverse group co-creates a shared understanding of: • A vision • A problem • An action plan • Designed to tackle wicked problems • People learning together to develop a common language • People co-developing a ‘systems view’ • People collectively owning the problem and the solution • A process supported by an enabling software toolset • Specialised facilitators focused on the process • Technology supporting clear thinking and preventing overload

15 Colabs - Types

• Visioning Co-Lab: • This is an opportunity for the group to DREAM, free of constraints (including time and money). If nothing existed and you could design anything to address the issue, what would it include? • Challenge/Barrier Co-Lab: • This phase identifies and prioritise the Barriers to achieving the vision • Action Co-Lab: • This Co-Lab focuses on identifying Actions to overcome the identified barriers and get as close to the ideal as possible

16 Demosophia Colabs - Stages

1) Statement Generation • Participants will silently and independently generate very concise responses (think newspaper HEADLINE) to a triggering question, with each statement containing only one idea • These statements should capture the essence of what you mean 2) Statement Clarification • Each author clarifies what is meant by his/her statement and these statements are recorded to ensure the intent of the author is maintained • The goal is ensuring everyone understands the intent of the author • The process does not allow for disagreement (or agreement) at this stage • Participants can request additional clarification if they do not understand the author’s intent

17 Demosophia Colabs - Stages

3) Classification • Ideas will be categorised according to similarity of meaning (based on author’s intent) • Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the meaning based on similarities. The name of the category will be based on the meaning of the ideas in the category • (vs. having pre-determined categories that you fit ideas into) • Participants will have opportunity to review and amend the categories 4) Prioritisation • Each participant will be provided 5 dots to vote on what they perceive to be the most important ideas (what resonates in the context of the Triggering Question) • Votes will be for individual ideas (vs. categories or clusters of ideas) • A subset of ideas, based on number of votes, will be included in the influence mapping

18 Demosophia Colabs - Stages

5) Influence Mapping • Participants look at two ideas and make a judgment regarding the influence relationship of the ideas • Participants have an opportunity to persuade the group by sharing their rationale for how they voted. During this stage, participants engage in deeper dialogue, agreeing and disagreeing with one-another, and often re-voting to determine the level of consensus • A lot of learning occurs but, as with every other stage, the authenticity of the author is protected • A “Yes” vote requires a super majority (typically 75%) consensus • Ultimately an “Influence Map” will be generated based on the consensus voting of the group. The influence map will identify deep drivers – ideas that are likely to have significant influence on the overall system - and helps to determine where effort should be focused 6) Develop Narratives • Groups of participants sharing a common perspective (e.g. organisational function) develop their own specific narratives based on the Influence Map 19 A Real Project

Reimagining the Michigan School for the Deaf

20 Provenance

21 Provenance

• ‘The Systems Approach’ • C. West Churchman, 1968 • The Club Of Rome, ‘The Predicament of Mankind’ • Hasan Ozbekhan, 1970 • Interpretive Structural Modelling • John Warfield, 1974 • Interactive Management • Warfield & Christakis, 1980s • Process variants developed and widely applied • Structured Dialogic Design, Synplex etc., 1990s, 2000s • Dialogic Design Science • Alexander Christakis, 2011

22 The Club of Rome • In 1968 the Club or Rome was created, by Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist, and Alexander King, a Scottish scientist, to address “the tidal wave of global problems” • Hasan Ozbekhan published the Club or Rome prospectus in 1970 with the title ‘The Predicament of Mankind: A Quest for Structural Responses to Growing World-wide Complexities and Uncertainties” • It lists “49 continuous critical problems” spanning poverty, warfare, education, environment and prejudices • At that time, the systems science required to tackle these problems was in its infancy. Ozbekhan proposed the development of a systems model, but this was rejected. • Jay Forrester proposed System Dynamics,which was was adopted (the ‘World3 Model), but subsequently only addressed a few of the original 49 critical problems • Ozbekhan eventually joined the Social Systems Sciences program at the University of Pennsylvania with other leaders in the development of systems thinking • e.g. Russell Ackoff, C. West Churchman 23 John Warfield

• 1966 joined Battelle Memorial Institute, an early member of the Club or Rome • 1973-4 developed Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) • Algorithms to efficiently compare ideas and then visually map their influence on one another • Uses a software tool to augment human capability and avoid cognitive overload • 1980s developed Interactive Management • With Aleco Christakis • President of the Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society of the IEEE • President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences

24 Interactive Management

• ‘Sigma-5’ methodology • Facilitator • Computer • Participant Group • Consensus methodologies • Demosophia (the ‘situation room’) • Combining a number of consensus methods: • Nominal Group Technique • DELPHI • Interpretive Structural Modelling

25 Alexander (Aleco) Christakis joins Warfield

• 1972 – Aleco Christakis joined Warfield at the Academy for Contemporary Problems • Ohio State + Battelle • 1981 – they set up the Center for Interactive Management at the University of Virginia (UVA) • 1984 – they transferred the Center to George Mason University • Together they worked with many clients, including • US Department of Defense • Ford Motor Company • Tata Consulting • IBM

26 Alexander (Aleco) Christakis

• Set up CWA Ltd as a commercial channel • Tackled a wide range of challenges around the world during the 1990’s and 2000’s • Evolved the Interactive Management methodology into Structured Dialogic Design • Emphasising social aspects such as the emancipation of stakeholders and importance of equitable power relations • In 2002 set up the Institute for 21st Century Agoras • “a globally networked non-profit organization dedicated to the democratic transformation of society and culture” 27 Bill Rodger

• Developed ‘Synergistic Solutions’ methodology, based on Interactive Management • 1990s set up Desyma Decision Technologies Inc, based in Ottawa • Multiple projects, primarily US-based clients • 2000s set up Complexity Solutions Ltd with Peter Miles in UK, renamed methodology as Synplex • Projects with the MoD, Rolls-Royce, NHS

28 ‘Synplex’ applications

Further information on ‘Synplex’ applications, including case studies 29 ‘Synplex’ Client Feedback

• Ann Barnes, Deputy Chief Executive, Stockport Foundation Trust “I found both the process and the delivery of the workshops, high quality with tangible outcomes. I would, and have, recommended the methodology to colleagues faced with resolving complex problems with multiple stakeholders.” • Sue Assar, Project Director, NHS North West “The process works so well as it is immediately engaging and involving. Collectively we quickly gained insight into the significant issues that we needed to resolve to ensure successful implementation of a major service change” • Charles Cuddington, Chief Commercial Officer - Large Engines, Rolls-Royce plc "It would have been difficult to achieve a successful outcome without such a highly focused and expertly facilitated process." • Rear Admiral Ian Tibbitt, Royal Navy “… allowed us to effectively turn an aspirational concept into a deliverable process and organisational construct in just a few days… for deciding what the process and structure are to be when only an idea existed before we found the methodology powerful.” • UK MoD internal assessment report “The process appears to be sufficiently flexible to deal with a myriad of complex issues and problem types…It appears ideally suited to support any future … restructuring work.”

30 Current Activity

31 Active Today - Yiannis Laouris

• Chair of the Future Worlds Center, Cyprus • “…aspiring to harness the power of emerging technologies and the science of structured democratic dialogue to accelerate positive social change” • Video: personal experience of structured dialogue

• Structured Dialogic Design programmes: • List of programmes organised by Future Worlds Center

• Reinventing democracy • Video walls – using the social media era to collect ideas and develop action plans, engaging 100s of people

32 Active Today - Benjamin Broome

• Worked with Warfield & Christakis at Center for Interactive Management • Arizona State Uni + Future Worlds Center • Focused on conflict resolution & peace building • Also working with Dr Mike Hogan at NUI Galway

33 Active Today – Andy Hegedus & Demosophia

• Demosophia LLC formed in 2012 • Linked to and supported by Aleco Christakis and a network of practitioners • Multiple projects for school districts • Strategic planning • Capital planning • Leadership transitions • Recent work with New England Consortium for Deafblind Technical Assistance and Training • Four states come together to collectively determine how to improve the educational outcomes for children and youth who are deaf-blind.

34 Active Today

• Jeff Diedrich • Owner and developer of Logosofia • Recent projects: Michigan Dept. of Education - Program Finance reorganisation • Current projects: Equitable Education; engaging communities around the issue of gun violence • Peter Jones • OCAD University, Toronto • Emphasis on Design • Aleco Christakis • Currently working with Americans for Indian Opportunity • Ken Bausch; Kevin Dye; Tom Flanagan • Writing and supporting projects

35 Active Today – Dr Mike Hogan

• National University of Ireland Galway • Working to extend the pragmatic systems science and collective intelligence methods developed by John Warfield • Includes basic and applied collective intelligence research and the creation of a new approach to systems science education • Working on a variety of EU projects that use ‘collective intelligence’ methods • Mike Hogan is currently working on a book: Facilitating Collective Intelligence.

36 The Sea for Society Project - Promoting Marine Sustainability

• Multidisciplinary partnership of 21 partners from 8 EU countries engaging stakeholders, citizens and youth on societal issues related to marine sustainability • 249 stakeholders participated in consultations across eight countries • In total, the project partners organised 159 mobilisations activities reaching close to 500,000 people in Europe

37 Contemporary References

• The Talking Point • Thomas R. Flanagan, Alexander N. Christakis, 2010

• How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom And Power to Construct the Future • Alexander N. Christakis, Kenneth C. Bausch, 2006

38 Coda – Collective Intelligence & the Magic of Interpretive Structural Modelling

39 Recent Publications on Collective Intelligence

40 Why and how we think

• Why we think: for Action • Evolution – thinking beings were more likely to survive, because they were more likely to take actions that benefitted them • Allowing us to select from a set of possible actions by predicting the effects of each action and imagining how the world would be if we had taken different actions in the past • The purpose of thinking is to choose the most effective action given the current situation • How we think: Causal thinking • Predicting the effects of action requires reasoning about how causes produce effects • Figuring out why something happened requires reasoning about which causes are likely to have produced an effect • This is what the mind is designed to do

41 Individual Ignorance

• The Illusion of Explanatory Depth (Keil, Rozenblit) • 3-step test for studying ignorance • On a scale from 1 to 7, how well do you understand how X works? • How does X work? Describe in as much detail as possible • Now, using the same scale, how well do you understand how X works? • Memory capacity • ~1Gigabyte (Landauer) • People are surprisingly ignorant, much more ignorant than they think • We tolerate complexity by failing to recognise it

42 The Community of Knowledge

• Collaboration • Division of cognitive labour • The Knowledge Illusion – we fail to draw a line between what is inside our heads and what we have external access to • We (often) let our group do our thinking for us • Storytelling • Our natural way of making causal sense of sequences of events • We use our understanding of causal mechanisms to build alternative worlds to think about • ‘Community of Knowledge’ • Vygotsky

43 Reasoning – fast and slow, forward and backward

• Intuition and deliberation • Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 • Plato’s passion and reason • Reasoning forward and backward • We are better at reasoning forward – from cause to effect; than backward (diagnostically from effect to cause) • But there is a kind of error we make with predictive reasoning • We ignore alternative causes when reasoning from cause to effect because our mental simulations have no room for them • How Interpretive Structural Modeling helps groups to think: • It embodies causal thinking • The process engages System 2, and modifies System 1 ‘causes’ • It also reveals alternate (or multiple) causes

44 Peter Miles

@ComplexitySol

Contacts [email protected]