Pro Action Café

The Pro Action Café is a space for creative and action oriented conversation where participants are invited to bring their call / project / ideas or whatever they feel called by and need help to manifest in the world.

Dare to Ask

The intention of this exercise is to a) open up and dare to ask any kind of questions concerning your project/enterprise and b) receive as many suggestions as possible in a short period of time. You will be surprised and overwhelmed about the collective wisdom of a group.

Letter to Myself

This is a useful supplementary tool to be used in goal achievement, because when you write the letter to your future self, it helps crystallize your ideal vision for yourself in the future.
When you read the letter in the future, you can assess how many things match up (or not) vs. your expectations in the past and consider why that’s the case. Often times, the goals we set and our goal achievement process are subjected to a lot of changes along the way, due to varying obstacles, unanticipated circumstances and changing priorities. The letter gives you a macro-view of your initial vision and lets you recognize how your current vision differs from the past.

Open Space Technology

Open Space Technology is a method for dialogue in which the participants themselves set the agenda. It provides an opportunity for people to engage deeply and creatively around the issues that are most important to them, by allowing them to self-select according to what interests them most.

Discussions take place in small groups. A number of different discussions take place simultaneously on a variety of topics, which are connected in some way to the central theme of the event. A series of these small group conversations happen over the course of the event.

Anyone is welcome to suggest a topic for discussion, and participants can choose which conversations they partake in.

Guiding Principles & Shared Agreements

Guiding principles are a defined set of statements or intentions that represent the ethos and culture within a group, community, organisation etc. They are precisely worded and ideally concise, while epitomising the values that the group’s mission and vision are based upon. They provide clarity for new members joining, as well as for existing members when navigating challenges or making major decisions that affect the direction the group will go in. Depending on the group, these can be reviewed and adapted over time if appropriate, or they can be non-negotiable fixed points to anchor the group in what they’ve set out to achieve.

Scale 3D

SCALE 3D stands for Strategic Capacity development, Leadership and Evaluation for transformation in 3 Dimensions.

It consists of a framework (way of seeing) and a tool (a sheet and a canvas) that can be used to apply this framework in practice.

The 3D framework, has three layers and three dimensions: These consist of (1) network leadership, supporting and enabling the development of (2) transformative capacity, which contributes to realizing (3) transformative impact, across three dimensions: depth (structural & cultural embeddedness), width (wide-spread & coherent influence) and length (persistent & evolving reproduction).

Essentially, these three dimensions constitute a lens for understanding and shaping the network leadership roles and transformative capacities needed for scaling social impact that is wide-spread, fundamental and long-lasting.

Each of the three layers in the 3D framework consist of more specific elements, which are shown in the complete overview of the 3D framework below.

For example, co-organizing conferences with partner networks, offering courses and trainings, and coordinating research and advocacy projects are network leadership practices that can enable the spread and adaptation of social innovations across the world (widening), while also working towards changes in policies and mental models (deepening) and generating resources and resilience that support continuity of the efforts of social innovators and the institutional changes they seek to achieve (lengthening).

The SCALE 3D tool can be used to guide people in network leadership roles to develop strategies for scaling social impact and evaluation of networks and projects. That is, it can help to clarify strategic goals and actions for developing transformative capacity, and to develop indicators for evaluating progress and assessing achievements.

The sheet version of the SCALE 3D tool can be used for an in-depth understanding of the elements of the tool and for applying it for strategy and evaluation. The tool can be tailored to case-specific objectives, indicators and data collection approaches.

The canvas version of the tool can be used in a virtual / blended workshop setting.

The 3D framework was initially developed by building on Transformative Social Innovation theory resulting from the TRANSIT project, which studied 20 transnational networks in Europe and Latin America, including the Ecovillage and Transition movements, Basic Income, Slow Food and Impact Hubs. The framework was further refined and tested in a variety of cases, resulting in three articles, as part of Tim Strasser’s PhD thesis:

revised version 3 dimensions of transformative impact and capacity
revised network leadership roles and practices
the results of testing the tool in practice

Email tim.strasser (at) yahoo (dot) de if you have any questions about how to use this tool, want to receive guidance in the process, or have feedback on the tool itself.

Design Sensing

Design sensing is a good alternative to Design Thinking or the U process of Theory U as it combines the advantages of both approaches. The Design Sensing process guides an innovation team from the perception of a problem or challenge to the tested and implemented idea. It is a very structured and straightforward process yet at the same time gives space for intuition, sensing and refined perception.

In order to call it Design Sensing, the following are important in the process:

Appreciation of all that is good: Starting from gratitude, ending with gratitude.
Human Centered Approach: exploring the needs of the target group with empathy and a real interest in their lives. We design for them and with them. We include their thoughts, ideas, and needs in a very early stage. We keep close contact with them throughout the whole process, checking again and again if the ideas are in alignment with them.
An ideation phase which gives space for intuition and emerging solutions instead of “having” ideas – accessing more realms of ideation than just the brain.
Prototyping and testing before the implementation in order to allow mistakes and playfulness and thus to keep ease in the process.

The process can be run through several times, each cycle with more focused questions, based on the insights from the previous cycle. The pace of one cycle can vary from one day to several weeks, depending on the complexity of the challenge, time and resources of the innovation team. Generally we recommend to run through the cycles several times but at a fast pace.