This webinar will present a recent paper from the authors, which tells the story of developing, collaboratively, a visionary whole system transition architecture within a UK regional transport context in 2021. It is writ- ten, in the first person, by the two authors whose focus of interest is in complex living systems, characterised by emergence, abundant creativity and surprise. They view design as an inherent aspect of ongoing change, which can be built intrinsically into the living system, not as a stage in a sequential procedure. They view themselves as participants in the system as well as providers of the under- pinning methods.
The objective of the work was to enable evolutionary systemic change, which holds the potential for transformation. The overall approach was rooted in collaborative visioning. The authors see vision as an aspirational and yet responsIble sense of the future which is shared by multiple people, and acts as a reference point for developing agreement and coordinating action. The architecture was developed iteratively in an outside-in approach starting from the systemic con- text and aims to enable everyone to be both choreographers and dancers, find- ing and optimising their contribution based on their unique capabilities and characteristics.
The approach reframes boundaries as opportunities for mutual learning, in contrast to barriers to be overcome or connections to be engineered, and it raises questions of where boundaries could be designed, including the boundaries around organisations themselves. It enables collaborative activities to be identified which cannot be handled by transactional interaction alone.
The authors welcome dialogue to feed a process of mutual learning with others.
