Ed Mitchell: Platform neutral » management

End of project report for Transition Network web project

edmittance — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:47:49 +0000

This is as brief as possible a report on the Transition Network web project, specifically funded by Tudor Trust with £50,000 in 2008.

This report covers the period of January 2009 until December 2011. It is made up of some contextual background, brief outlines about the central project elements, two key stories, some figures, and a budgeted timeline. There is much more behind this report; to dive into more detail read Ed the author’s blog, or contact him directly with questions.

It is a big thank you to our funders, Tudor Trust, for giving Transition Network £50,000 for an unspecified and unknown web platform. We feel that we have used the money sensibly to build the new platform and open up new channels for the movement, and hope that Tudor feel that they made a good investment.

Another purpose of the report is to encourage other people responsible for web projects to do it themselves; take ownership of their project, accept the unpredictable outcomes and have a more resilient, affordable web system than an external service provider could produce.

(Picture: Most of Transition Network staff and board after web project approved, June 2009)

This blog post has the introduction and the context and role sections (without the nice pictures). It does not have the other sections on:

The central project elements (Technologist group, core information directories, webhosts, content strategy, community emergence, web survey results, the Sharing Engine)
Two case studies (Ingredients directory and Social Reporting ‘Stories’ project)
Budgeted timeline
Achievements and figures
The big last thank you

For those you need to download the documents below:

The whole report

Just the case studies sections

Introduction

Working in complex situations on multi-stakeholder systems can be like being dropped into an intimidating forest, but seeking others to do your work isn’t the answer! In this sense, the report hopes to be like a breadcrumb trail in the forest, left by a group who mapped their context, and want to support others who doing the same thing.

The big lesson from our experience is that it would not have been possible to have predicted where we would be now, then. Because so much changes as you progress.

If we had produced a detailed and fixed project plan with a product roadmap (which we could have done) it could have felt reassuring in ‘the deep in the dark forest days’ of early 2009, but it would have been wrong for late 2011.

The web project we see now has grown out of experiences and connections from all of the stakeholders, working together in a ‘constellation’ on and offline, facilitated rather than project managed, in iterative technical and social loops hung together with communications and agility, rather than control at its core.

(Picture: Transition Technologist group meets for the first time, November 2009)

This is illustrated with the two case studies which show that our two biggest products were at best just twinkles in peoples’ eyes in 2009, and the result of exploring the connections between people and ideas and technology, rather than having a big vision, then trying to predict, control and micro-manage the future and the unknown.

This is also a thank you to all the staff at Transition Network, the Transition Technologist group, and all the Transitioners who got on board with the project, all of whom worked on an un-defined project that deliberately tried not to control the future, but share responsibility for understanding and optimising the present.

“It gives a wider perspective on transition activity than the local group can achieve. I think it is important to continue showing the bigger picture and offering encouragement to local groups as it can sometimes be a struggle to remain upbeat.”

“Helps us remember that we’re not alone, because it can be hard to keep up the big effort required.”

(2011 web project survey response)

Context and role

A great deal has changed since the web project officially began. Indeed it could be argued that ‘change’ itself is accelerating in a world that seems to get more and more bizarre and challenging every day.

Amid this context, the Transition Towns movement has grown rapidly in numbers and matured broadly in concept. Every day there is something new from somewhere new. Initiatives are springing up all over the world facing different challenges with different people trying different projects in different cultures, with different needs.

Needless to say, Transition Network offers pragmatic support for the emergence of the movement; it is grassroots led so we do not seek to control it. It is a highly charged and creative environment, making for intense professional and personal challenges. There is never a moment at which things are quiet, or ‘the same as yesterday’, or something is not urgent, or brand new and requiring immediate action.

Thus the web project began in an endlessly changing context. Unlike a standard organisation, it is keeping up with a movement that is moving too fast and unpredictably to second guess. This is a challenging situation, particularly if you try to predict what ‘web product’ a movement will need in the future.

In light of this, the web team focused on three interconnected things:

Identify the boundaries. Build a shared view of a Transition web ‘constellation’ or ‘field’ with all the various initiative websites, social networks, blogs, etc. and the flows between them, and do not put Transition Network in the middle
Work with the ‘field’. Build relationships with all types of users and facilitate the emergence of supportive social groups (editorial, technical, facilitation) across the field to share roles and responsibilities as they spring up
Produce a robust, flexible technical platform that any reasonable developer can learn about, and work on without too much trouble. See it as a hard working shared bicycle rather than a specialised work of art!

In this plan, the platform could be extended in many directions with a facilitation model to handle the social requirements arising and share the power among the users. Then, ultimately, the Transition Network ‘website’ could move from being a highly visible, central website owned by Transition Network toward a transparent web service, moderated by Transitioners to support and promote the initiatives websites.

(diagram to explain the wide array of Transition related activity on the internet, and how the Transition Network website is not in the middle of it, preferring to see itself as part of a ‘constellation’ supported by a ‘Sharing Engine’ using web standards and services)

This worked for us. Transition Network is comfortable with navigating the unknown, and changing plans when the need arises, rather than sticking to one grand plan.

Importantly, it also promotes the concept of accepting responsibility for unknown outcomes, successful or not successful, without blame. This means that individuals carry great responsibility in the team, but not fear of blame in case of failure; indeed ‘failure’ is seen as an entity where no learnings were extracted from an unsuccessful piece of work.

This is common sense to us, but we found that it is contradictory to most organisations’ web strategies, which are there to reflect a central institution’s self-image, and indeed, many people’s expectations; we are trained to respect centralised power. Our plan had been from the start to challenge centralised power – especially our own.

(Picture: Charlotte (Stories editor) and Mike (Newsletter editor) at the 2011 Transition Network conference)

After an initial burst of work to get the platform up, technical work was handled in focused phases with small budgets, delivering required enhancements and maintenance, identified by the users and prioritised by the web team.

“… It keeps me well intentioned, to create something that the world can believe in. I am so excited when I see my project featured on the side of the projects map, after adding content to my page. This keeps my project exciting, that there is a global network which my project is connected with, despite its small size. This is good, I believe, because despite its small size, the potential is there for great ideas to spawn. thanks, so much”

(2011 web project survey response)

…

For more, please download…

The whole report

Just the case studies sections

On constructing rules of engagement

edmittance — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:58:47 +0000

I’m thinking a lot about distributed networks at the moment, decision-making, conversations and how much community ‘platforms’ have moved on.

I’m not sure I even believe in the ‘platform’ concept any more as it so loaded a word with so many centralised implications. As well as this inherited value, so much of our activity is now so widely distributed across the web and physical world that we as individuals can now behave in any way we choose and share our stuff with whichever network we fancy, on our own terms.

The diversity is astounding; which makes me think that any sustainable distributed community support platform isn’t just one thing any more. It’s a ecology of patterns that members experience in different places at different times to achieve different community goals. I’m thinking a lot about Ron Donaldson‘s ecology of web2.

When you think about it, this means that any ‘platform’ should be doing more listening than publishing, aggregating and making sense of distributed activity, than telling people how to behave and forcing them to adopt set rules of behaviour in one walled garden.

It’s the patterns that make up the networks and communities that we need to identify, not the technological platforms. And to get to the patterns, we need to develop common languages, which lead to shared mental models of the purpose of the ‘platforms’.

There is a particularly interesting post from George Oates of flickr about some of their community stuff, and this particularly jumped out at me:

Any time you construct specific rules of engagement, they are instantly open to interpretation and circumvention, and we want our members to negotiate their place with each other, not with The Authority.

Read the full article here

What an interesting thing to say.

In a corporation, or organisation with pre-existing centralised structures there remains some reason for centralised control (largely to the benefit of the organisation).

How about across a huge emergent expanding bottom-up relatively structure-less movement of people?

CoP research with K.I.N.

edmittance — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:33:00 +0000

The Knowledge And Innovation Network is looking for organisations to partner up in its ongoing Community of Practice (CoP) benchmarking research project. There are a great range of organisations associated with this network, and the first round of benchmarking was a great success. Here’s the blurb:

Networks and communities of practice (CoPs) have increasingly become referred to as the ‘killer app’ of knowledge management and one of the few genuinely value added activities.

This is the second phase a major cross-sectoral study of the performance impact of such networks. In a preliminary study (Phase I), the Knowledge and Innovation Network at Warwick Business School collaborated with some of the world’s leading organisations to benchmark the impact their networks and Communities of Practice had on organisational performance.

Phase 1 revealed some key factors that appear to be strong predictors of high performing communities and networks. Phase 2 will focus on validating these key factors and through interviews and focus groups identify good practices related to each factor.

A full guide to high performing networks and communities of practice will be produced for all participating organisations.

Sounds interesting? Drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch.

Download the KIN CoP benchmarking flyer

Skillswap report on project management

edmittance — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:07:13 +0000

(thanks for the space, Pervasive Media Studio!)

We had some good talks and discussion around the topic of ‘Project Management’ at last week’s Skillswap:

Joe Leech talked about being a small cog in many bigger systems: Presentation
Laura Francis talked about how she uses Agile
Fraser Stephens discussed the ‘what to’s of Prince2: Presentation
Eben Halford talked about Scrum: Presentation

Peter Ferne and the Jiva crew produced plenty of free drink and snacks; thanks all!

Thanks for the excellent space, and good work to all attendees.

skillswap project management

edmittance — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:39:48 +0000

Joe Leech and I are convening March’s Skillswap in the Pervasive Media Lab. It’s called ‘Project manage this!’, and is about project management. I was a project manager once; there wasn’t enough human in it for me and way too much detail, but I remain deeply impressed by a good intelligent emotionally sensitive (but not wiffling) project manager.

We’ve got a good range of PM types to kick off conversations, and, as usual, attendees are expected to bring their brains, experiences and other stuff like that. Huge thanks to the Pervasive Media lab crew for the venue.

Here details:

Bristol Skillswap: Wednesday 19 March 2008
Title: Project manage this!
What: Project Management tips and tricks
Who: Joe Leech, Laura Francis, Fraser Stephens (and more)
What’s happening:
Our three presenters will stand up and give us some background and stories from their experience with project management tools and stuff like that in different sectors. Then we will talk about it.

Group page with information on it