This the sixth in our series from Chaordic Commons describing a their process for creating synergic organizations. I recommend using their process with ORTEGRITY for maximum leverage. See: 1) Purpose 2) Principles 3) Participants 4) Organizational Concept 5) Constitution

The Chaordic Design Process

Practices

Definition: Practices are the activities, products and services through which the Participants pursue the organization’s Purpose and create value. The possibilities are infinite, so special attention is placed on Practices that cannot be achieved without a new organization, or those that are essential to making the organization a coherent yet flexible working whole.

Practices – In Context: With clarity of shared Purpose and Principles, the right Participants, an effective Concept and a clear Constitution, Practices will naturally evolve in highly focused and effective ways. They will harmoniously blend cooperation and competition within a transcendent organization trusted by all. Purpose is then realized far beyond original expectations, in a self-organizing, self-governing system capable of constant learning and evolution.

Work on this dimension of the chaordic design process results in a prioritized list of Practices or activities that the new organization – or its members – might undertake.

When the work takes place within a single organization, rather than inter-organizationally, the focus is often on innovative approaches to collaboration that cross established boundaries or on activities that help the organization redefine itself by engaging a much broader community of participants.

Work on Practices usually occurs throughout the chaordic design process, almost as a counterpoint to other phases. Skillfully done, without prematurely narrowing participants’ focus to a small set of activities, it can illuminate the search for a powerful Purpose, compelling Principles, an inclusive definition of Participants and an innovative Organizational Concept.

Processes and Approaches

We have found simple and straightforward questions to be most useful when inviting a group to identify potential practices. In this realm, the creative intelligence of the design team – or any others involved in the process – is typically hungering to be liberated.

We will initiate the exploration of Practices with such questions as:

• What are we currently doing that we want to do better, more effectively or more efficiently?
  
  
• What opportunities do we envision that we cannot currently pursue? These may be opportunities to collaborate in new ways, or they may be new activities that take the organization into entirely new areas.
  
  
• What kinds of innovative Practices or activities are required by current or emerging trends in our community, field or industry?
  
  
• What critical functions are necessary to ensure organizational coherence while fostering self-organization on the part of all participants?

Having identified a diverse set of potential Practices, most groups find it useful to prioritize them. A variety of approaches can used. Sometimes a simple list is adequate. A complementary approach involves categorizing Practices using a matrix such as the following:

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Potential Practices	Can be done by smaller parts	Requires some mid-level coordination	Must be done collectively
Must do
Adds significant value
Nice to do if possible

Exercises such as this are most effective if the choices do not become overly complex. At this point, the aim is not detailed organizational planning but clarification of that which needs priority attention – and by whom – if the new organizational design is to be implemented effectively.

Actually undertaking the Practices identified during the chaordic design process is not a formal dimension of the process itself, except to the extent that activities occurring while the design process is underway can usefully illuminate the work on Purpose, Principles, Participants or Organizational Concept.

Yet it is vital that the organization be supported during launch and implementation of the new Concept – and new Practices – to ensure that habitual patterns of organizational behavior do not reassert themselves. The notes in Tab NN discuss additional phases of organization development and transformation that must be encompassed by any comprehensive change initiative.

Process Notes

Conceptually, making Practices the sixth lens of the chaordic design process is both pragmatic and provocative. Most importantly, it emphasizes the importance of beginning with Purpose and Principles. It also enables creative thinking about Organizational Concept without participants focusing on a single business objective and organizing only to do that. If any are inclined to do so, it serves as a spur to examine the assumptions underlying ordinary approaches to business development and organization design.

Practically, however, we often find it useful to engage design team participants in thinking about potential Practices throughout the chaordic design process. This can be done more or less formally, depending on the needs of the group at any given point. Sometimes, for example, a simple brainstorming exercise might be helpful as participants are working on Purpose or Participants. At other times, a more sustained effort can be made to help capture important ideas or strategies that emerge.

Learning by doing can also inform the design process. In working in an existing organization, the experience gained from actually trying things out can be very informative for those involved in conceiving or reconceiving the organization. This can also be the case if participants in an emerging organization are already undertaking initial activities in parallel with the organization design effort.

Sometimes the hardest thing for participants to grasp with respect to Practices is the nature of the entity they are trying to create. Chaordic organizations, especially when they involve inter-organizational participation, are fundamentally enabling entities. They are primarily designed to help participants to do things for themselves, and easily to join with one another to pursue common purposes. Core staff will tend to be responsible primarily for functions that are common to the whole. These might include:

• Coordinating participants’ activities so they support and enrich one another, and creating synergies by fostering connections among participants.
  
  
• Managing any common properties, such as a shared technology infrastructure for communication and collaboration.
  
  
• Educating participants about the nature of and potentials for self-organization in a chaordic organization.
  
  
• Nurturing the capacity of the whole by helping grow capacities for leadership and innovation among participating individuals or institutions.

In a chaordic organization – an enabling entity – understanding the implications of the right to self-organization is key to thinking strategically about Practices. In effect, participants have a right to create new parts of the organization or network, to pursue specific aims, as long as they do so in ways conforming to the core Purpose and Principles. These self-organizing “fractals” are a microcosm of the whole and carry the full power and authority of the whole in exercising their chosen function. They are the entities through which most of the work of the organization will actually be done.

Most participants will focus on Practices that address immediate challenges and opportunities within their current sphere of concern. Over time, as greater possibilities for connectedness become apparent, they may create more far-reaching initiatives and enterprises. In forming fluid connections with others to pursue specific aims, however, they give up no freedom or autonomy except that required for organizational coherence. The common elements of the Constitution guarantee it.

What You Need
For Work on Practices

• Familiarity with the current structure of the organization, industry or field.
  
  
• Sensitivity to trends that are or will be impacting the organization or industry.
  
  
• A keen eye for emerging opportunities.
  
  
• An entrepreneurial mindset and a willingness to take risks.
  
  
• Leadership – individuals willing to “go first and show the way”.
  

Illustrative Practices
Conceived During Chaordic Organization Design

Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance

Current activities include:

• Managing conflict over fisheries issues – NAMA is facilitating resolution of a state fishery controversy involving northern shrimp, primarily in Maine, and an international fishery controversy related to herring.
  
  
• Community-building activities – NAMA has begun forging new relationships with its Canadian neighbors to further develop community-based fisheries management ideas.
  
  
• Participating in the regulatory process – NAMA is helping develop a major regulatory amendment to the Multispecies “Groundfish” Management Plan.
  
  
• Assisting fishermen with federal disaster funds – NAMA has assisted numerous fishermen in applying for several million dollars in federal disaster funds aimed at providing relief for losses due to declining fish stocks.

Proposed activities include:

• Sea sampling – Taking advantage of the potential to use sea vessels as platforms for science
  
  
• Data management – Developing data management systems to simplify the collection of landing figures
  
  
• Education – Promoting understanding and responsibility among fishermen through class work in applied ocean science, fisheries biology, critical thinking and problem solving techniques
  
  
• Gear technology – Creating accessible programs on gear technology and refinement
  
  
• Environmental science – Introducing scientific knowledge to the fishing industry
  
  
• Environment – Encouraging fishermen to become leading advocates for marine resources
  
  
• Management – Developing incentives for management to promote harvesting with more selective and less destructive gear and to avoid wasteful discarding
  
  
• Aquaculture – Promoting the development of this new source for food and employment
  
  
• Funding – Develop funding for promotion of seafood as a primary source of protein in line with the funding given to other proteins, grain and vegetables
  

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Illustrative Practices
Evolved Within A Chaordic Organizational Structure

Society for Organizational Learning

SoL activities are gaining in public attention and academic importance. A list of current SoL Working Papers and Publications, available from their website, contains nearly 125 working papers, learning histories, publications and theses. Other SoL activities include:

Community Building

• The annual “Systems Thinking in Action Conference” enables cross-organizational learning among SoL members.
  
  
• The SoL annual members’ meeting elects SoL’s Governing Council, sets direction for the membership as a whole, and develops SoL’s capacity for self-governance.
  
  
• An interactive website is designed to elicit widespread feedback from members and nonmembers.

Capacity Building

• The “Learning Organization Core Competencies Course”, a program to provide experiential exposure to organizational learning concepts, methods and tools.
  
  
• The “Executive Champions” program for top managers, who gather to explore strategic issues and the challenges of being effective champions for organizational change.
  
  
• The “Foundations for Leadership Workshop”, which emphasizes the disciplines of personal mastery and systems thinking as foundations for leadership at all levels.

Governance

• Coordinating meetings of SoL’s Governing Council to deliberate key strategic issues, establish an integrated research agenda, admit new members and reflect on the current governing processes.
  
  
• Holding Liaison Officers meetings to integrate and align all members.

Research Initiatives

SoL supports research initiatives in the areas of large system change, leadership, sustainability, and learning assessment. Each initiative includes a research component, a capacity-building component and a practical application component.

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Illustrative Practices
Conceived During Chaordic Organization Design

United Religions Initiative

The URI commits to serving as a moral voice and a source of action grounded in contemplation in each of the following areas:

• Sharing the wisdom and cultures of faith traditions – actions to promote dialogue and kinship among the diverse religions and spiritual traditions of the world.
  
  
• Nurturing cultures of healing and peace – actions to develop cultures in which all people can live without fear of violence.
  
  
• Rights and responsibilities – actions that uphold human rights.
  
  
• Ecological imperatives – actions that uphold the welfare and healing of the entire Earth community.
  
  
• Sustainable just economics – actions to bring a spiritual perspective to the tremendous gap between rich and poor.
  
  
• Supporting URI – local, regional and global actions that support all URI activities.

Notable activities so far have included:

• 72 Hours of Peace-Building – The new millennium was ushered in by URI groups all over the world who used the 72 hours from December 31, 1999 to January 2, 2000 to celebrate peace in their own ways. This effort involved 160 projects in some 40 countries, with each project involving more than one religion or faith.
  
  
• Interfaith Youth Corps – The Interfaith Youth Corps (IFYC) is a bold and innovative program that offers young people supportive space in which to: 1) express their spiritual ideals through service to another community, 2) build deep relationships among people of diverse traditions and religions, and 3) develop compassionate, global leaders with a profound interfaith experience.
  
  
• The Spiritual Leader Friendship Group – There have been numerous meeting between the URI and religious leaders of all faiths.

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Illustrative Practices
Conceived During Chaordic Organization Design

GeoData Alliance

Foster Trustworthy, Inclusive Processes

• Create inclusive, trustworthy processes for problem solving and conflict resolution, at multiple levels.
  
  
• Provide forums for public, private and independent sector participants to express and coordinate their diverse views, to explore how best to address common needs, and to pursue emerging opportunities that call for collaboration.

Create or Support Transactional Systems

• Create (or support development of) transactional systems to move data among producers, integrators, disseminators and users, including public, private and nonprofit sectors as well as citizens.

Enable Data Creation and Integration

• Facilitate widespread and equitable access by all citizens to geospatial data and to the tools for using it effectively.
  
  
• Develop model data sharing and joint venture agreements; create and streamline licensing processes.
  
  
• Develop and disseminate tools to help states, counties, companies, citizen groups and others create telescopic, integratable geodata.
  
  
• Facilitate development, adoption and implementation of essential standards, especially those required to establish a nation-wide network of framework data.

Undertake Education and Outreach

• Provide public relations, public education and outreach services, including web-based services, at all levels.
  
  
• Illuminate both the opportunities for geodata development and use, and the barriers to its effective, equitable flow or beneficial use, including wasteful policies.
  
  
• Influence the scientific and library communities to develop and share data, and to create digital library networks.
  
  
• Maintain and disseminate state-of-the-art knowledge about advances in geographic information, related technologies and “proven practices” in the field.

General Aims and Activities

• Create contexts in which changing relationships among government agencies, quasi-governmental entities, private sector companies and nonprofits can be embodied in innovative partnerships, regional consortia and other collaborations.
  
  
• Collaboratively develop strategies and plans for the realization of the NSDI vision.
  
  
• Develop brands and marks that facilitate the development of new markets and further the effective production, sharing and use of geographic information.

Administer and Guide the Organization

• Provide essential organizational administrative services and organizational governance.
  
  
• Provide “coaching” for Alliances, Members and others learning how to participate most effectively in GDA or in emerging geodata fields or enterprises.

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Illustrative Practices
Conceived During Chaordic Organization Design

Community Alliances for Interdependent AgriCulture

Education

• Integrating aspects of Food and Farming Systems with educational school programs
  
  
• Increasing awareness of Food and Farming Systems among the general population
  
  
• Encouraging community-based, self-organizing governance and new forms of decision making within Food and Farming Systems
  
  
• Arranging farm visits by diverse groups

Community-Building and Networking

• Building linkages among rural communities
  
  
• Connecting rural and urban residents
  
  
• Developing integrated information systems for CAIA members
  
  
• Exchanging information regarding best practices and financial/fundraising opportunities
  
  
• Supporting a new approach to capital formation that encourages circulation of currency within local communities

Youth Mentoring

• Ensuring participation of young farmers in community-based, self-organizing governance
  
  
• Providing activities for youth that sustain family farming and protect land for farming
  
  
• Instilling pride and enhancing quality of life in farming
  
  
• Supporting farming as a viable career path for young farmers
  
  
• Exposing young farmers to new and broad ideas
  
  
• Nurturing relationships among young farmers

Agricultural Innovations and Research

• Promoting decentralized food processing and distribution systems
  
  
• Supporting innovative cooperatives
  
  
• Encouraging research to improve community-based farming and processing activities
  
  
• Developing innovations that enhance local and global markets for CAIA members
  
  
• Creating new technologies for sustainable agriculture

Farmland Protection Trust

• Creating an endowment for revolving loans
  
  
• Acquiring land that becomes available for young farmers
  
  
• Facilitating transfers of land from older farmers young farmers
  
  
• Assisting communities with land use planning

Product Promotion

• Creating a unique consumer identity for CAIA members’ products
  
  
• Protecting CAIA trademarks

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