Structuring Community Issues working with community members to identify and (re) structure local problematic issues and support community co-ordinated responses.

EURO 2012Dr Rebecca HerronLincoln Business School

The University of Lincoln, UK

Introduction

Problem Structuring Methods (PSMs) often take as their starting point a stakeholder group and an issue (or groups of related issues) requiring exploration.

The overall rationale for participation is that doing so may create new understandings and insight that can enable participants to make improved decisions and responses to these issues.

Focus on ‘improvement’ (UK OR – ‘Science of

Better’) Action-oriented learning

Background: …. Blackett (1935) Thunhurst (1973) Ackoff (1974) Rosenhead & Mingers

(2001)

Introduction

At a very generic level of description this process involves employing various methods or strategies that:

• engage relevant stakeholders

• surface and structure latent knowledge

• help the group to organise their resources and responses in order to make informed choices in light of this

What is happening when we use a Problem Structuring approach?

Mess structuring (Rittel & Webber,1973)

Learning / Organisational Learning (Argyris, 1999)

Bryson, J., Ackermann, F., Eden, C., and Finn, C., (2004)

Friend, J. and Hickling, A. (2005)

Community Operational Research

Community OR specifically works with groups of community members taking as one of its meta-goals the establishment of community-based activities that explore and develop problematic notions such as ‘the common good’; developing public spaces, strengthening communities and challenging inequalities.

historical perspectives / introduction to COR / how is COR part of the OR debate?

Ackoff (1970) Rosenhead (1987) Jackson, M.C. (1987)

More recently…. Midgley G. & Ochoa-

Arias A. E., eds. (2004) Herron (2012)

Developing Practice – what does a COR ‘intervention’ look like?

The task is by definition conceptually vast, but the practice is often developed at a very human scale …

working with local groups to generate enhanced insight on issues of local (even sometimes global) concern and encouraging participants to organise themselves in response to what they have learnt through the process.

The difference between practice and idealised theory?

Messy problems, wicked problems, rational problem structuring…?

Difference between applying a method and helping a group to structure their thinking?

Illustration

An example is presented here from a rural fenland community in Lincolnshire, UK.

Community participants in this example (all linked to their local parish churches) wanted to reflect on their own responses to social need and the priorities and possibilities for action in their local communities.

The illustration is intended to highlight how workshops can be developed flexibly in community settings to explore (‘structure’) responses on problematic community issues.

Community Workshops?

2 Evening Workshops at the Market House Offered as part of our partnership working based on University Short Courses (adapted as

introductory sessions) Community participants from local parishes

c.15 participants Interested in meeting together to:

reflect on local social issues discuss current responses and begin to discuss

possible future actions Workshops well received - further workshop

requested in May/June & Sept 12

Emergent Themes from workshops

Several themes were identified through the 2 workshops.

They are similar (but not identical) to those already coming out of the written survey conducted earlier.

concerns include: Loneliness Community Spirit Poverty Use of Buildings Use of gifts (human

resources) Working with partners Understanding the

changing environment

Loneliness and community spirit:

Poverty & identifying and using resources:

Use of Buildings & working in partnership:

Other Issues:

Structuring Community Issues ? (why the long title?)

Working with community members

to identify and (re) structure local problematic issues

and support community co-ordinated responses

Identifying Processes (adapted from Herron, 2012)

Ethical dimensions: likely impact on multiple stakeholders Locus of control: who has ownership of the goals? processes?

outcomes? Surfacing issues: creating models that participants find

authentic & insightful Increasing understanding and fairer dialogue Collective improvement: critical reflection from different

perspectives Consideration of side-effects and issues of robustness and

sustainability Increasing individual and collective control and agency Supporting vulnerable people, addressing inequalities and

rethinking the client Exit strategies: building community capacity for learning,

analysis, and reflection

Need for flexibility of method

Working with community groups often highlights the need to employ very flexible approaches and adapt and combine established methods to suit the context and interests of community members.

This has led to a shift of focus away from extended discussion of ‘methods’ to a broader meta-narrative of community knowledge-structuring and the creation of facilitated learning spaces.

PSMs as facilitated learning processes…

PSMs could be considered to be facilitated learning processes in which participants engage in active dialogue about …

their differing views (‘models’) of the world, the systemic relationships within this, the resources that might be mobilised and the processes and structures that

constrain and enhance desirable courses of action.

The impact on the ‘original problem’

It also seeks to highlight another key issue for the wider PSM community:

how can we measure (or at least begin to recognise) the impact of our interventions on the lives and ‘organisations’ of those involved? How do we do this already? How can we get better at it?

Questions to the Stream [EURO 2012]:

Have we reified the method discussion at the exclusion of discussion of the impact on the ‘problem’ situation?

How can we go about meaningfully assessing the impact of PSM interventions. (i.e. what is the external value of this work, not just value to the researchers?!)

What metrics are in use by other researchers (to explore the impact on the underlying system itself?) What are the challenges?

Further Reading Ackoff, R. L. (1970), A black ghetto’s research on a university, Operations

Research, 18, 761-771 Ackoff, R. L. (1974), Redesigning the Future: A Systems Approach to Societal

Problems, Wiley, New York. Argyris, C. 1999. On Organizational Learning, 2nd ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell

Business Bernal, J. D. (1939). The Social Function of Science, Rutledge, London Blackett, P.M.S. (1935), The Frustration of Science, in Hall, D. et al. (eds.) The

Frustration of Science, Allen and Unwin, London, pp.129-144. Bryson, J., Ackermann, F., Eden, C., and Finn, C., (2004) Visible Thinking:

Unlocking Causal Mapping for Practical Business Results, Wiley, Chichester Churchman, C. W. (1979), The Systems Approach and its Enemies, Basic Books,

New York Cook, S. L. (1973), Operational Research, social well-being and the zero-growth

concept, Omega, 1(6) Friend, J. and Hickling, A. (2005), Planning Under Pressure, 3rd ed.,

Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford Herron, R (2012) Community OR, in The Encyclopedia of Operations Research

and Management Science, 3rd Edition (Eds. Saul I. Gass & Michael C. Fu) Herron, R. (2006) Editorial – Special Issue for Community Operational Research,

OR Insight vol.19, issue 2, 2-3

Further Reading

Jackson, M.C. (1987), Community operational research: Purposes, theory and practice, Dragon, 2(2), 47-73

Jones, S. & Eden, C (1981) OR in the community, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 32, 335-345

Mar Molinero, C. (1993), Aldermoor School: The operational researcher on the side of the community, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 44, 237-245

Mar Molinero, C. (1992), Operational Research: From war to community, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 26, 203-212

Midgley, G. & Ochoa-Arias, A. E., (1999), Visions of community OR, Omega, 27, 259-274

Midgley, G. & Ochoa-Arias, A. E., (eds.) (2004), Community Operational Research, OR and Systems Thinking for Community Development, Kluwer Academic / Plenum

Midgley, G & Reynolds, M (2004), Community and Environmental OR: Towards a New Agenda, In: Community Operational Research, OR and Systems Thinking for Community Development, Midgley, G. & Ochoa-Arias, A. E., eds., Kluwer Academic / Plenum

Ochoa-Arias, A. E., (1994), The possibilities for community OR in a third world country, International Transactions of Operational Research, 1, 345-352

Parry, R & Mingers, J. (1991), Community operational research: Its context and its future, Omega, 19, 577-586

Further Reading

Ritchie, C., Taket, A. & Bryant, J. (eds.) (1994), Community Works: 26 Case Studies Showing Community Operational Research in Action, Pavic Press, Sheffield

Rittel, H. J. W. & Webber, M. M. (1973), Dilemmas in a general theory of planning, Policy Science, 4, 155-169

Rosenhead, J. (1987), From management science to workers’ science, In: New Directions in Management Science, Jackson, M.C. & Keys, P.,eds., Gower, Aldershot

Rosenhead, J. V. & Mingers, J. ,eds. (2001), Rational Analysis for a Problematic World Revisited, Wiley, Chichester

Taket, A.R. & White, L.A. (1994), Doing community operational research with multicultural groups, Omega: International Journal of Management Science, 22(6), 579-588

Thunhurst, C. (1973), Who does OR operate for?, Presented at OR Society Conference, Torquay,

Thunhurst, C. (1987), Doing OR with the community, Dragon, 2, 143-153 Ulrich, W (1983), Critical Heuristics of Social Planning, Paul Haupt, Berne White, L. & Taket, A (1993), The death of the expert, Journal of the

Operational Research Society, 45, 733-748 Wong, N. & Mingers, J. (1994), The nature of community OR, Journal of the

Operational Research Society, 45, 245-254

Thank you

Contact: rherron@lincoln.ac.uk