Background

• Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project. In part 6 of this RealKM Magazine series, I discuss the 1998-1999 Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project¹ as an example of how tacit knowledge engagement and deliberative conversations can be used to facilitate ways forward in the face of complexity.
• Stakeholder resistance and denial. As I discuss in part 6, some stakeholders expressed strong opposition to the Helidon Hills project² in its early stages, and this was symptomatic of community disenchantment with mainstream government in the wider area and in some other parts of Australia at the time. There was also denial by some stakeholders of the negative impacts of a range of land use activities on the significant natural values of the area. To achieve the successful implementation³ of the Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project, I needed to overcome this stakeholder resistance and denial in the relatively short time of just a few months.

Why it’s complex

• Multi-layered with complex interactions and inter-dependencies. We could think that stakeholder resistance and denial is simply because they are “reacting against our project or initiative.” But this thinking considers our project or initiative to be one-dimensional and linear, when in reality it is multi-layered with complex interactions and inter-dependencies between the layers. In the case of the Helidon Hills project, the simple statement “sustainable management” presents a complex situation to stakeholders.
• The example of private landholders. For example, just looking at the situation of private landholders (among the wide range of stakeholders), the issues they are confronted with in regard to sustainable management include: Does my land have significant natural values? If it does, how do I deal with these values? Will they prevent me from doing other things on my land, and will this impact on my livelihood? Will governments just impose rules and regulations on me? Or could they even resume my land and turn it into a national park? How will this affect my family and community, now and into the future? Will a decision that seems right at the present time end up being wrong in the future in a world of constant change? Do my neighbours share my views, or do they have very different ideas about how to use and manage their properties? Or, will they criticise me for the way I want to use and manage my property? What if I have compatible neighbours now, but in the future, their properties change hands to people with very different views? How will increased extreme weather due to climate change affect my property? How do I deal with the feral animals and environmental weeds that are progressively invading the area? When my children inherit my property in the future, will they think about things the same way I do? And so on…

Approach

• Two effective approaches. To overcome stakeholder resistance and denial, I have long used two approaches that I learnt over 30 years ago: problem-solving communication skills and lateral thinking.
• Problem-solving communication skills. The three aspects of problem-solving communication skills have been identified by Bob Dick as “expressive skills for stating a point of view non-defensively; listening skills for learning another’s point of view; and process skills for managing the overall interaction.” He summarises these skills⁴ as part of his action learning resources. Further detail can be found in his unfortunately now long out-of-print book Learning to communicate⁵ which was the workbook for his subject that I completed at The University of Queensland in 1991. Through the application of problem-solving communication skills, knowledge can be successfully communicated to stakeholders in an effective and non-threatening way, and emotion can be overcome to gain an accurate understanding of the perspectives and issues of concern of stakeholders (such as those listed above). This greatly reduces stakeholder resistance and denial. Problem-solving communication skills were used in the tacit knowledge transfer and deliberative conversations steps of the Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project, as described in part 6 of this series.
• Lateral thinking and “win-win” outcomes. I first experienced the effectiveness of the lateral thinking approach in the Ipswich Heritage Program, which is discussed in part 2 of this series. The term “lateral thinking” was coined by Edward de Bono⁶ in 1967, and can be defined⁷ as “a way of solving a problem by thinking about it in a different and original way and not using traditional or expected methods.” Too often, the proponents of an initiative or a project and their stakeholders will become locked in a battle between option A and option B, when through the application of lateral thinking an option C could be identified that addresses everyone’s concerns. Note that option C isn’t a compromise solution between options A and B, where both sides suffer some degree of loss. Rather, option C is a new, creative and innovative solution that addresses everyone’s issues, so I often describe it as a “win-win” outcome. This greatly reduces stakeholder resistance and denial. Lateral thinking was used in the deliberative conversations step of the Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project, as described in part 6 of this series.

Outcomes

• Problem-solving communication skills outcomes. Problem-solving communication skills greatly assisted the tacit knowledge transfer and deliberative conversations steps of the Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project, as described in part 6 of this series.
• Lateral thinking outcomes. Two examples of lateral thinking outcomes in the Helidon Hills are the establishment of environmental tourism enterprises and working with the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society (ARCS) to establish the Centre for Native Floriculture at the nearby University of Queensland Gatton Campus.
• Environmental tourism as a win-win outcome. Environmental tourism enables landholders to derive an income from their property through a land use that is sympathetic to, rather than competing with, the natural values of their property. Option A was to impose conservation measures on landholders without any consideration of livelihood, while option B was to do nothing to address land uses that were incompatible with the natural values of the area. Option C, environmental tourism in the Helidon Hills⁸, addresses both livelihood and the conservation of natural values.
• Native floriculture as a win-win outcome. The wild harvesting of native flora was one of a number of activities identified as having a detrimental impact on the natural values of the Helidon Hills. Option A was to ban wild harvesting, or to at least try to regulate it with measures that would have been very difficult to monitor and enforce in such a large area of forest with rugged terrain. Option B was to allow the impacting practice of wild harvesting to continue. However, option C was to look at bringing wild plants into cultivation, which was already an emerging enterprise in the area⁹. To advance this, I worked with Dr. Aila Keto of the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society (ARCS) to secure funding for the Centre for Native Floriculture¹⁰ at the University of Queensland Gatton Campus as part of the South East Queensland Forest Agreement (SEQFA). The SEQFA addressed the conservation of the natural values of the state forests in the Helidon Hills, and as it was being negotiated at the same time as the Helidon Hills project I established links between the two initiatives.

Lessons

• Repeatedly effective. In my work, problem-solving communication skills and lateral thinking have repeatedly proven to be effective in addressing stakeholder resistance and denial. Further examples will be the subject of future articles in this series, for example, the win-win solutions achieved through the Gatton Shire Biodiversity Strategy¹¹.

Editor’s note: This article was first published on 6 January 2016 as “Case Study: How to overcome resistance and denial when engaging stakeholders.” It has been revised and updated for inclusion in the case studies in complexity series.

Header image source: Knowledge sharing in the Helidon Hills. © Bruce Boyes, CC BY-SA 4.0.

References:

In May 2009, the Australian Government announced up to $77.4 million of funding for the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Recovery Program with the aim of improving the health of an iconic river system in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The program comprised seven projects carried out by six different NSW Government agencies.

I commenced in the role of overall Program Manager in June 2009. The program concluded two and a half years later, having exceeded its intended outcomes. It was completed on time and under budget, despite significant challenges, and subsequently won two major awards.

Pivotal to the success of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Recovery Program was the overall program management approach that I used, as well as the project management approaches used by the six project managers.

In this article, I discuss this approach, with the aim of stimulating the further development and application of agile methods to program management.

Agile methods

An agile method relies upon incremental and iterative completion of goals with a self-managing team. It is often presented in opposition to a “waterfall” process (Figure 1) that sequentially gathers requirements, completes a design, and then builds a final product.

Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka proposed the core agile concept of iterative, continuous delivery in 1986¹. They are acknowledged² as the inspiration for Scrum (Figure 2), a popular methodology for delivering IT projects today.

Co-created by Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, John Scumniotales and Jeff McKenna, the term “Scrum” is often used interchangeably with “agile”. However, properly speaking, “Scrum” is a specific methodology whereas “agile” can be any technique that focuses on iterative delivery and empowerment. Agile primarily focuses on efficiently segmenting the business processing cycle of the problem-solving pattern into “chunks” that can be executed in parallel.

While initially focused on IT projects, agile methods have now been extended to wider business and management applications. For example, the late Mike Beedle, an Agile Manifesto signatory and described as a business agility visionary, developed Enterprise Scrum which “offers a way to agilize and entire company from top to bottom (hierarchy), or from “side to side” (collaboration), or even in subsumption (dependent knowledge levels).”

Program management vs. project management

Before exploring the application of agile methods to program management, an understanding of the differences between program and project management is necessary.

As discussed in the paper Program and Project Management: Understanding the Differences³, the terms “program management” and “project management” are often used interchangeably, but the two are actually distinctively different disciplines. The three most important differences are:

1. Program management is strategic in nature, while project management is tactical in nature … program management focuses on achievement of the intended strategic business results through the coordination of multiple projects.

2. Program management is entirely cross-functional, while project management focuses on a single function, or limited cross-functional alignment at best.

3. Program management integrates the individual elements of the projects in order to achieve a common objective.

Additionally:

Coordinated management of multiple projects means that the activities for each project are synchronized through the framework of a common lifecycle executed at the program level. If an organization is using a phase-gate lifecycle model for example, all projects within the program pass through the phases and gates simultaneously. Program management ensures the effective coordination and synchronization of the multiple projects through the lifecycle.

This article focuses on the application of agile methods to program management rather than project management, in this case an agile approach to the overall program management of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Recovery Program rather than any of its seven projects.

Applying agile methods to program management

With the degradation of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River having been the focus of considerable media attention, both the Australian and NSW Governments were keen to ensure that the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Recovery Program was delivered successfully in accordance with its original objectives.

Consistent with this, the Australian Government required three-monthly progress reporting, rather than reports on the normal six-monthly cycle. The reports were required to be reviewed by a Program Steering Committee before being submitted to the Australian Government. I recommended that the Program Steering Committee primarily comprise the project managers of the seven projects, and determined that the three-monthly reports the project managers submitted to the Program Steering Committee at the review meeting would include more than just the basic reporting of progress.

I also included the following additional requirements in the three-monthly project reports:

• An explanation of any delays that occurred in the reporting period and the actions to be taken to address the delays

• Risk assessment review, involving the review of the project schedule of the comprehensive risk management report prepared at the beginning of the program, as discussed in part 7 of this series

• A detailed explanation of the work to be undertaken in the next reporting period

• Any potential difficulties, issues or risks anticipated in the next reporting period and the actions that would be taken to mitigate these potential difficulties.

These requirements have parallels with the three questions asked in the daily meetings that are a fundamental part of the Scrum framework mentioned above.

The additional requirements had the effect of turning each three-monthly reporting period into an incremental and iterative agile stage. Breaking down the overall program timeline into the smaller iterative cycles meant that the project teams were focused on reaching immediate and much more readily achievable goals, rather than feeling overwhelmed and highly stressed by everything that must be achieved in the overall program.

To emphasise the three-monthly cycles, they were also tracked through Basecamp where information from across the program was also shared.

Critically, through the three-monthly iterative approach, unexpected “Black Swan” events that could otherwise have derailed the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Recovery Program were identified and addressed at the earliest possible opportunity.

In his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable⁴ Nassim Nicholas Taleb proposes what has become known as “Black Swan Theory”.

He uses the unexpected discovery of black swans to highlight the limitations of knowledge:

Before the discovery of Australia, people in the old world were convinced that all swans were white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence. The sighting of the first black swan might have been an interesting surprise for a few ornithologists (and others extremely concerned with the coloring of birds), but that is not where the significance of the story lies. It illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans.

He describes such “Black Swan” events as having three attributes:

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.

He states that rather than trying to predict such events, we should instead build resilience against the impacts of negative “Black Swans” and be poised to take advantage of positive ones.

There’s no shortage of examples of programs that have failed or run over time or budget due to the occurrence of unexpected events. However, because of our tendency to concoct explanations after the fact, we draw the wrong conclusions about what went wrong, for example we believe that our risk management was inadequate. But while risk management can often be done better, Black Swan Theory tells us that it is impossible to anticipate outlier events. Rather, we need frameworks that enable us to quickly respond to such events when they do occur.

An example of a “Black Swan” event experienced during the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Recovery Program is delays in the water sharing plan for the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment, which created serious problems in regard to securing water savings from the program. The three-monthly incremental and iterative cycle created the drive to quickly identify this issue and resolve it through an interim legislative amendment.

As Program Manager, I was located within the former NSW Office of the Hawkesbury-Nepean, a separate entity to the agencies responsible for the projects. I was not the line manager of the project managers, rather having the role of a central coordinator. The recommendations of the Final Report⁵ of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Recovery Program include that:

Future programs should appoint a central coordinating body with overall responsibility for the program. The Office of the Hawkesbury-Nepean played a critical role as broker and coordinator for the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Recovery Program.

The Program Steering Committee always met face-to-face for its three-monthly meetings despite being widely dispersed, and for much of the program the meetings were followed by one or two days of field visits to inspect sites from all seven projects. This further enhanced both the three-monthly cycle emphasis and knowledge sharing across the projects of the program.

Cycles shorter than three months at a program management level would negatively impact on the effective management of the projects, and cycles longer than three months would make issue identification and resolution too slow.

See also: Does discomfort help to explain the effectiveness of agile and other incremental / cyclic methods?

Editor’s note: This article was first published on 3 March 2016 as “Case study: An agile approach to program management.” It has been updated and added to the series of articles on knowledge management (KM) in project-based and temporary organisations.

Header image source: Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash.

References:

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Header image source: Background image created by Bruce Boyes with Perchance AI Photo Generator..

Background

• Helidon Hills. The Helidon Hills¹ is located about 100km west of Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. It is one of the largest areas of mostly continuous native forest still remaining in the southeastern region of Queensland, and has a large number of rare and threatened flora and fauna species. This includes a large number of species that are found only in this area, for example Eucalyptus helidonica².
• Sustainable management project. Recognising the values of the Helidon Hills and the need to conserve them through the sustainable management of the area’s various land uses, the Western Subregional Organisation of Councils (WESROC) implemented the Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project³ in 1998-1999. I was appointed as Project Coordinator, with support from two part-time staff seconded from Queensland Government agencies.

Why it’s complex

• Competing and conflicting objectives. The Helidon Hills area is one-third National Park and two-thirds private freehold land. The approximately 250 freehold landholders were engaged in a range of pursuits including timber harvesting, sandstone mining, ecotourism, nature conservation, and farming. Some of these pursuits were competing or in direct conflict with each other. The area also has Aboriginal and European cultural heritage. Management policy for the area was the responsibility of various local governments and state government agencies. This divergent array of objectives and perspectives made it very difficult to find a way forward that would not be opposed by at least some of the landholders and/or land managers.
• Lack of understanding and awareness. Compounding the complexity of widely divergent objectives and perspectives, it was apparent at the commencement of the project that most stakeholders lacked important knowledge in regard to the Helidon Hills area. Many stakeholders had a poor understanding of the natural values of the area and what needed to be done to conserve them, and a low awareness of the activities and issues of concern of other stakeholders. (In nature conservation in Australia, the term “stakeholders” is used to collectively refer to the people within an area or with an interest in an area, and in this case included landholders, government agency representatives, and members of the wider community).
• Landholder rights and disenchantment with mainstream government. At the commencement of the project, some landholders expressed strong opposition to it. Particularly strong feelings were evident in regard to private land ownership, with the view expressed that people should have the right to manage their land as they see fit without any government influence, control, or intervention (Figure 1). This opposition was symptomatic of community disenchantment with mainstream government in the wider area and in some other parts of Australia at the time, with the project coinciding with the rise of the controversial One Nation political party⁴. During the course of the project, the Lockyer State electorate, in which most of the Helidon Hills was located, elected a One Nation candidate as its local member. This community disenchantment with mainstream government added to the complexity faced by the project, for example, early in the project I experienced acts of attempted intimidation including death threats and the spiking of the rear tyres of my car (Figure 2).
• Rural decline. A number of authors have attempted to explain⁵ the voter support received by One Nation. However, from my own experiences and observations, the support for One Nation in the Lockyer electorate and associated values position against government programs such as the Helidon Hills project was due to the declined emphasis on agriculture since the 1970s⁶, the impacts of the recession of the early 1990s, and government programs that had not adequately involved the community. Most of the farming families in the Lockyer were second or third generation, and adapting to the decline of agriculture from the heydays they had previously experienced was difficult. The recession of the early 1990s compounded the difficulties. Further compounding the pressure that the community was feeling were government programs such as the mid-1990s Regional Open Space Scheme⁷ which triggered a backlash because it had not effectively engaged the community.

Approach

1. Protecting nature conservation and cultural heritage values. An initial action I took was to decide that the nature conservation and cultural heritage values of the Helidon Hills area must be protected as a non-negotiable given, based on studies and assessments by ecological scientists and cultural heritage experts in consultation with First Nations representatives. There are very sound evidence-based reasons for this. Environmental management in Australia is extremely poor, with the country having one of the world’s worst biodiversity conservation records⁹. Protecting the conservation values of areas such as the Helidon Hills is essential if Australia is to halt and then ultimately reverse its worsening biodiversity crisis. Similarly, Australia has a shocking record of Indigenous heritage destruction¹⁰ that needs to be halted.
2. Recognizing and respecting landholder rights. A further initial action I took was to commit to recognizing and respecting landholder rights in the project, in response to the strong concerns expressed at the commencement of the project in regard to private land ownership (as discussed in the “Why it’s complex” section above). Consequently, the management plan (see below) devotes an entire chapter to the issue (Chapter 3).
3. Tacit knowledge transfer. In addition to convening twice as many public meetings as had been originally planned, I then talked directly with as many people within the area and with an interest in the area that I could. This involved discussions individually (such as with individual landholders and state and local government agency representatives) and in groups (such as with the sandstone miners and people with an interest in ecotourism). These direct discussions had the purpose of two-way knowledge transfer: me educating stakeholders in detail about the nature conservation and cultural heritage values of the area, and, very importantly, them giving me an in-depth and nuanced understanding of their land use and land management intent and issues. As discussed in part 7 of this RealKM Magazine series, I used problem-solving communication skills to significantly increase the effectiveness of the discussions. To the greatest extent possible, I met people onsite – such as on their property, at their sandstone mine, or at their timber mill – because tacit knowledge can’t be effectively transferred using just words. Collectively experiencing the nuances and intricacies of land use and land management issues directly facilitates tacit knowledge transfer. To encourage people to engage in the public meetings and direct discussions, landholders and other stakeholders were sent newsletters inviting participation and contact. The newsletters included “Have your say” forms so that people could provide written input if they preferred. The forms could be mailed back or returned at comment stations established in public locations in towns adjacent to the area. Copies of the newsletter were placed at the comment stations to enable members of the wider community to provide comment and/or make contact to request discussions. The public meetings used the nominal group technique¹¹.
4. Deliberative conversations. Finally, I facilitated numerous deliberative conversations to chart agreed ways forward that both protected the values of the area and maximized stakeholder land use and land management objectives. This included bringing people with conflicting issues together to work through and resolve their concerns in creative friction. The conversations created space for the emergence and development of win-win solutions to address the issues that were identified in the tacit knowledge transfer step above. All of the deliberative conversations were facilitated on-site in the Helidon Hills because, as with tacit knowledge transfer, emergence can’t occur using just words. Collectively experiencing the nuances and intricacies of land use and land management issues while seeking ways forward in addressing them facilitates emergence. A notable aspect of the deliberative conversations was that many people ended up having far more common ground than they had first expected. As discussed in part 7 of this RealKM Magazine series, I used problem-solving communication skills and lateral thinking to significantly increase the effectiveness of the deliberative conversations. For example, to address the rural decline issue discussed in the “Why it’s complex” section above, the win-win solutions identified through lateral thinking included establishing new environmental tourism enterprises in the Helidon Hills and a Centre for Native Floriculture at the nearby University of Queensland Gatton Campus.
5. Draft management plan. The Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills Draft Management Plan¹² prepared from the above process was different to what might be expected for such a plan. Rather than specifying outcomes, the plan recognized that outcomes were a long way off, and instead describes a framework and ongoing tacit knowledge processes for achieving sustainable management that is sensitive to the diverse interests of the area and creates space for the adaptive ongoing emergence of win-win solutions. Direct quotes of stakeholder knowledge appear throughout the plan.
6. Coordination body. Recognising that the tacit knowledge processes described in the management plan needed ongoing human coordination, landholders established the Helidon Hills / Murphy’s Creek Landcare Group at the end of the project to coordinate the ongoing implementation of the plan.

Outcomes

• Significant praise. The Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project was very successful, receiving significant praise from the local government that had hosted the project, as shown in the newspaper article excerpt below (Figure 3).
• Pioneering work on tacit knowledge engagement and emergence in the face of complexity. The approach I took in the Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project was innovative pioneering work at the time. It was inspired by my earlier such work on the WWF South-East Queensland Vineforests Project (1996-1997), which had in turn been inspired by my experiences of collaborative knowledge co-creation in the Ipswich Heritage Program (1991-1994) and my earlier experiences with complexity in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) (1982-1991). The approach I took was several years ahead of similar approaches to complexity that would be documented later: probe, sense, respond¹³ in organizational knowledge management (KM) (2007), collaborative learning and governance¹⁴ in environmental management (2009), decisions from deliberation¹⁵ in international development (2011), and multiple knowledges and multi-stakeholder processes¹⁶ in KM for international development (2013).

Lessons

• Not transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. In KM, there is a misguided view that organizations and managers should always seek to transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Contributing to this view has been Nonaka’s SECI model¹⁸ which is unfortunately accepted as a universal fact by many, despite serious criticisms¹⁹. To have sought to transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge in the Helidon Hills project would have been an inappropriate reductionist response in the face of complexity. Tacit knowledge is dynamic, involving multiple ever-changing and adapting sources and users of knowledge that are in a constant state of flux. This creates the space for ideas and ways forward to emerge. Trying to turn this tacit knowledge interplay into explicit knowledge kills the adaptive and emergent capacity. Most of the explicit knowledge that needed to exist in the Helidon Hills project already existed before the project: in-depth ecological surveys, resources studies, land use planning overlays etc. But that explicit knowledge will achieve little because sustainability happens through the decisions of a myriad of human decision-makers, and those decisions are primarily driven by tacit knowledge. The project acted to have that tacit knowledge better informed by explicit knowledge, but not the other way around because for ongoing success it’s vital to stay in the tacit knowledge space.
• Top-down vs. collaborative consensus. In KM, there is a view²⁰ that in the face of complexity, “instead of attempting to impose a course of action, leaders must patiently allow the path forward to reveal itself.” However, as this Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills case study shows, there are some key actions that leaders can and should readily identify and impose before then patiently allowing the remaining path forward to reveal itself. In this case, these actions were that the nature conservation and cultural heritage values of the area must be protected as a non-negotiable given, and that landholder rights would be recognized and respected. A further example demonstrating the success of this layered decision-making approach in the face of complexity is China’s Loess Plateau recovery, where environmentally destructive grazing was banned on the fragile Loess landform while rural communities were then engaged in processes that enabled a new sustainability pathway to reveal itself. For further insights into this layered decision-making approach, see the RealKM Magazine article “Top-down vs. collaborative consensus: using the most appropriate approach for the decision-making level.”
• Inspiration. Just as the approach I took in coordinating the Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project had been inspired by my previous experiences, my experiences in this project in turn inspired me to further develop and apply similar approaches in numerous other environmental programs and projects. These case studies will be the subject of future articles in this series.
• Undemocratic power plays. Towards the end of the Sustainable Management of the Helidon Hills project, the Queensland Government agency responsible for mining strongly objected to the high level of stakeholder ownership over decision-making processes. The agency did this in reaction to having had their desire for the entire Helidon Hills area to be declared a mining reserve rejected by nearly all other stakeholders. In response, project sponsor WESROC (see “Background” section above) sought to dismantle the community ownership through the appointment of a new project coordinator above me. I then took what I considered to be the only morally responsible action, which was to resign. As a Helidon Hills landholder discusses in the paper “The Human Factor in Biodiversity Conservation” on pages 38-39 of the Proceedings of the 2000 South-East Queensland Biodiversity Recovery Conference²¹, this action derailed WESROC and preserved the success of the project. Having learnt from this experience, I sought to try to prevent such undemocratic power plays from affecting future projects. However, as a future article in this series will reveal, I would later experience a far worse case of this, in which the actions of a very powerful individual in the media would destroy a project that would have both saved a now nearly extinct ecological community and provided significant community benefits.

Editor’s note: This article was first published on 29 October 2015 as “Case Study: Knowledge transfer and sharing through collaborative learning and governance.” It has been revised and updated for inclusion in the case studies in complexity series.

Header image source: Knowledge sharing in the Helidon Hills. © Bruce Boyes, CC BY-SA 4.0.

References:

RealKM & KM4Dev (represented by Bruce Boyes) were the challenge owners for Challenge B. Many thanks to Mohamad Faiz Selamat and the KMGN team for this opportunity, which has proven to be a pivotal point in regard to planned action to address human-centred/tacit knowledge in the sustainable development goals (SDGs). KM4Dev and RealKM look forward to further valuable collaboration with KMGN!

As discussed in the following outcomes article, the KM4Dev Core Group is now advancing the implementation of the Challenge B outcomes.

Further below, you can also review the Challenge B session inputs, and records of the Challenge B discussions. Background information on KMGN HacKMthon 2023 can be found in the earlier news item.

HacKMthon 2023 outcomes

Click the image to open the outcomes article:

Challenge B session inputs

Records of Challenge B discussions

Challenge B Session 1 – Video

Challenge B Session 2 – Video

Challenge B Session 1 – Understanding of problem

Challenge B Session 1 – Practical & implementable solutions

Challenge B Session 2 – Understanding of problem

Challenge B Session 2 – Practical & implementable solutions

References:

In an inspiring i2insights blog article, Lelia Green talks about her experience in using creative writing as a means of accessing unconscious knowledge and understanding. Lelia Green PhD is Professor of Communications in the School of Arts and Humanities at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia.

She writes that:

The electric experience of things falling into place is a well-recorded outcome of ‘writing to find out what you want to say.’

The article reminded me of an activity that I’d previously been involved in using for this very purpose as part of the sensemaking step of our knowledge strategy process for Australia’s 56 natural resource management regions.

This activity is the “story spine.” While not facilitating the longer focused periods of concentration that Lelia Green encourages, the story spine provides the other favourable conditions for revealing insights that she lists, being:

• allowing an internal, less-conscious process to take over, as part of an
• intense engagement with a bigger picture, that
• enables the minutiae of detail to fall subconsciously into place
• revealing itself as it does so.

Indeed, the way in which Lelia Green has written these points is actually very reflective of the story spine structure, as you’ll see.

The story spine

Playwright Kenn Adams is acknowledged as the creator of the story spine, which he introduces in the video above.

The story spine is described as a remarkably useful way to think about stories. It looks like this:

Although very simple, such is the value placed on the story spine that former Pixar story artist Emma Coats has listed it as one of her 22 rules for telling a great story (number 4).

Using the story spine to access unconscious insights

The book Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership and Learning¹ describes how a wide range of improvisation activities, including the story spine, can be used in an organisational context, including “to enhance the creativity and communication skills of managers and individual contributors.”

After learning about it from this book, facilitator and trainer Viv McWaters documents her successful use of the story spine with groups for reflecting, celebrating, and planning. She describes it as “one of the best planning tools I’ve used.”

Drawing on earlier advice from his colleague Andrew Rixon, Shawn Callahan from business storytelling consulting company Anecdote describes how he also introduced the story spine to our knowledge strategy process in response to what happened in the sensemaking workshop for one of our pilot regions:

My first opportunity was at a workshop in Tasmania where we were helping natural resource managers develop a knowledge strategy for their region. We had reached the point in the workshop where we had identified a set of issues that were either working well or needed some attention so I asked the groups to grab an issue and tell a story explaining what happened. People busily jumped into the activity but I noticed they were just writing dot points detailing their opinions about what had happened. No one wrote a story.

It seems that they didn’t know what to do to write a story. I had just assumed that everyone else thinks about stories like I do and has a sense what one looks like. Big mistake!

My next opportunity was at another knowledge strategy workshop but this time with a government department in Canberra. I had remembered Andrew introducing us to story spines so I dug out the blog post … Rather than use “Once upon a time” I instructed people to start their stories with “Way back when”. I find the fairy tale beginning too foreign for business people.

Well, the groups took to the tasks with gusto and in a very short time (30 min) we had eight stories that described various aspects of what was happening. Each group recited their story to great applause.

This is an effective way to get people primed for intervention design and we found that the groups were more aware of the subtleties and multiple viewpoints by going through a set of sensemaking tasks, this being just one.

Following on from his successful use of the story spine with government department in Canberra, Shawn included it as a step in the sensemaking stage of our knowledge strategy process, where I was then able to experience its effectiveness.

Figure 1 shows an example of one of the story spine stories from our knowledge strategy workshops, while Figure 2 shows another of the stories being communicated to all workshop participants.

Why not try it?

So far we’ve really only scratched the surface of the potential for the use of the story spine as a means to access unconscious knowledge and understanding in planning, strategy development, learning, communication, and evaluation.

Why not try the story spine for yourself, and tell your story?

Reference:

The paper is the first in the Knowledge Management for Development Journal Special Issue “Uncomfortable truths in international development: approaches to the decolonization of knowledge from development practice, policy and research” which was also launched at the 9 May 2023 event.

Adopting “We have a dream” as the slogan of the sixth generation reflects both the common aspirations of the authors and the wider KM4Dev community for a fairer development knowledge system/ecology, and that this new generation was formally proposed and launched at the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library.

The decolonization of knowledge focuses on dismantling fundamental inequities of the knowledge system in which coloniality and past colonization interact with neo-liberal economics to exclude knowledge and knowledge holders from the peripheries of society. The sixth generation of KM4SD has six highly interrelated features: epistemic justice, anti-racism, indigenous and local knowledge (ILK), diversity in KM approaches, new knowledge partnerships, and new knowledge practices.

The sixth generation of KM4SD follows on from the five earlier identified generations of knowledge management for development (KM4D). Moving to use the term ‘sustainable development’ rather than just ‘development’ reflects the importance of development which is sustainable in terms of people and planet, in the context of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We invite you to read the paper and join us in further developing the sixth generation of KM4SD and its features, and in doing so, help to make the dream a reality!

References:

A group of researchers has published the article “Are nudges sinister psychological tricks? Or are they useless? Actually they are neither” in The Conversation, and I have republished the article here in RealKM Magazine.

The article seeks to refute criticisms of both the effectiveness and use of “nudging.” These criticisms have been raised by a number of authors in various forums, including in the article “Is this finally the end of the road for nudge theory?” that I published in RealKM Magazine in October 2022.

It’s good to see that the “Are nudges sinister psychological tricks? Or are they useless? Actually they are neither” article acknowledges the recent research which finds the real effects of nudging to be far less than many academics and nudge advocates have claimed. However, the article unfortunately also has a number of significant shortcomings:

1. The article seeks to refute concerns about the potential for nudging to be manipulative and deceptive on the basis of media claims made in this regard in the context of COVID-19 responses. However, as I’ve detailed in a previous article, concerns about both the effectiveness and manipulative and deceptive use of nudging have come from a wider range of voices than just the media. This includes criticism from academics¹ and government members.
2. Even if the claims made in the media alone are considered, the article references material published in only two media outlets. Both of these sources will be immediately identified by many readers as sources of potential bias and misinformation: The Daily Telegraph² and The Epoch Times³. However, concerns about the use of nudging in COVID-19 responses have also been published in other media outlets that are highly trusted, for example, in the UK edition of The Guardian⁴. This apparently selective referencing has the potential to bias readers into thinking that only less reputable media sources publish criticisms of nudging.
3. The article states that so-called nudge units “are publicly accountable.” This might be the case, but accountability doesn’t stop them from giving bad advice with serious negative consequences, as discussed in items 96-114 of UK Government House of Commons Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees report “Coronavirus: lessons learned to date⁵.” More than 600 behavioural economists had been so concerned about this advice that they had written an open letter⁶ to the UK Government questioning the coronavirus response that the government implemented based on the advice.
4. The article describes nudges as “benign”, and states that “Portraying them as manipulative and deceptive seems to have less to do with reality than with the desire to paint particular COVID policies, and government actions more generally, in an unfavourable light.” This opinion overlooks the fact that one of the biggest sources of concern in regard to the effectiveness and use of nudging is the spectacular fall from grace of one-time nudging celebrity Professor Brian Wansink. In a Cornell University investigation, Wansink was found to have committed academic misconduct in his research and scholarship. This reality has been completely omitted from the article.
5. The closing statements of the article are “If a nudge supported a bad policy then, yes, the nudge would be bad. But those seeking to nudge us to towards that view ought to make their case on the merits of those policies, not on misinformation.” This suggests that if a nudge policy is bad, then it is the fault of the policy, and not the associated “benign” nudge. However, the cases put forward in points 1, 4, and 5 above clearly show that nudges themselves can be ill-conceived, and therefore, bad.

At the end of the article “Is this finally the end of the road for nudge theory?,” I stated that, based on the evidence I had reviewed, extreme skepticism is advised in regard to the effectiveness and use of nudging until both the evidence base and transparency are greatly improved.

The significant shortcomings of the article “Are nudges sinister psychological tricks? Or are they useless? Actually they are neither,” as put forward above, justify the continuation of that extreme skepticism.

References:

However, there are other emerging innovative concepts that should also be an important focus for KM practitioners, but these are not yet receiving the attention they deserve. These concepts can be seen in a paper¹ presented by Johannes Schenk at the recent 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. This gap between research findings and practice reinforces the need for KM practitioners to use research evidence in their work.

In his paper, Schenk documents the findings of a systematic review of relevant research literature. From a database search and screening, 37 relevant articles dealing specifically with innovation within the discipline of KM were identified, consisting of 26 journal articles, 10 conference papers, and a book.

Eight innovative concepts in KM

Analysis of the 37 relevant articles revealed eight reoccurring innovative concepts within the discipline of KM. Schenk defines “reoccurring” as being where an innovative concept was found in multiple (at least three different) articles. The concepts vary in their scope and level, from applied methods to comprehensive models.

As shown in Figure 1, Schenk then categorized the eight concepts into a VENN diagram, based on the following KM innovation categories:

• technological KM innovations – these deal with information and communications technology (ICT) in KM systems (e.g. intranet platforms for storing information)
• social KM innovations – these involve the human factor and the interplay between individuals (e.g. motivation incentives for knowledge sharing)
• organizational KM innovations – relate to structure and hierarchy (e.g. breaking up knowledge silos through interdisciplinary knowledge exchange groups).

The often-discussed concepts of AI, big data, and gamification are among the eight. However, so too are the concepts of open innovation, digital artifacts, and virtual reality, but these are much less discussed in KM communities. That these concepts are receiving much less attention from KM practitioners is a significant concern.

For example, as highlighted in previous RealKM Magazine articles, the additional external perspectives that open innovation brings to decision-making² can lead to much better organizational outcomes than the inward-looking focus of dangerously flawed first generation KM programs, such as those of Boeing and Toyota.

Furthermore, while another of the eight concepts, Communities of Practice (CoPs), has been long-established as important aspect of KM, the emerging concepts research reviewed by Schenk shows that CoPs have great relevance to open innovation, as discussed below. The open innovation case study of Xiaomi linked from the paragraph above is a clear example of how CoPs can function as open innovation intermediaries between organizations and their wider online communities.

The reviewed research also shows that while AI is often talked about as having considerable potential in KM, there are so far very few tangible initiatives in this regard, as discussed below.

Findings from the reviewed research

The findings from the reviewed research in regard to each of the eight reoccurring innovative concepts in KM is summarized as follows:

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is a range of computational innovations that uses human-like intelligence to answer more complicated decision-making issues. Current research considers AI to be able to transform and fundamentally change knowledge processes in our working environments, society and economy. However, most of the reviewed articles regarding AI are of conceptual nature, with just one study being quantitative. Schenk advises that this conceptual focus shows that there is still plenty of room for applied research to make AI initiatives more tangible in the context of KM as a discipline.
• Big data analytics is the process of capturing, acquiring, and sharing large volumes of explicit knowledge. This knowledge can be interpreted through tacit insight to produce conclusive outcomes for organizations. Big data may likely contribute to and/or be a component of KM in the future, and a theoretical framework of how KM systems can facilitate the incorporation of big data into strategic decisions has been proposed³.
• Communities of Practice (CoPs) are groups of people who share a joint domain of interest, which connects them. CoP members have social relationships and share their knowledge, and are practitioners with a shared set of common resources, like tools or methods. The concept of CoPs is closely related to the concept of open innovation (see below).
• Digital artifacts are provisional products or outputs of teamwork that rely on continuous inputs by contributors, so are often work in progress. Examples include email messages or documents. Knowledge coordination within KM heavily depends on digital artifacts. Knowledge coordination is defined as the management of individually-held knowledge and respective knowledge requirements across boundaries, which includes processes like sharing and utilizing knowledge in order to solve complex multi-faceted problems. It relies on the continuous production and reproduction of those artifacts.
• Enterprise social media refers to web 2.0 social software, including blogs, wikis, and communication platforms. Despite some doubts regarding the future of enterprise social media, it is still considered to carry great promise for KM.
• Gamification involves applying game elements in a context which would not normally be associated with fun, for example monotonous work, unpopular tasks, or complex challenges. Hence, gamification can be a great motivator for monotonous tasks in KM, such as knowledge preservation, or for improving knowledge transfer in production and logistic environments like the industrial shop floor. Game-based learning is also a renowned gamification application area.
• Open innovation has received considerable attention in attention in the research literature. It is a concept beyond internal KM processes, in which organizations acquire external knowledge and innovation resources. Hence, the goal of open innovation is to combine internal with external knowledge and open the barrier between internal and external knowledge flows. This drives competitive advantage for organizational sustainability in an integrated way. Communities of Practice (CoPs) have great relevance to open innovation. Open innovation and KM can be integrated into virtual CoPs for improved knowledge creation and acquisition, and CoPs can be seen as open innovation intermediaries between organizations and wider online communities.
• Virtual reality (VR) is implemented using head-mounted displays such as computer displays in or on a pair of glasses, which can convey a comprehensive illusion of reality. In addition to the main application areas of gaming and training, VR is used in medicine and healthcare, sports, architecture, real estate, and even tourism. Virtual worlds in which people can interact in realistic ways by using avatars may enable KM processes due to their social and collaborative potential. Other potential applications include for example design thinking workshops conducted in VR.

Header image source: Gerd Altmann on Pixabay, Public Domain.

References:

The 2008 publication of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness¹ saw the rapid emergence of the idea of using nudge theory² to change human behaviour:

Nudge theory is a concept in behavioral economics, decision making, behavioral policy, social psychology, consumer behavior, and related behavioral sciences that proposes adaptive designs of the decision environment (choice architecture) as ways to influence the behavior and decision-making of groups or individuals. Nudging contrasts with other ways to achieve compliance, such as education, legislation or enforcement.

In 2010, David Cameron, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, established³ a “nudge unit” in the Cabinet Office with the aim of using nudge theory to improve government policy and services and deliver cost savings. Known formally as the Behavioural Insights Team⁴, the unit took advice from Richard Thaler, co-author of the Nudge book. Stimulated by the UK nudge unit, other national governments and international organisations have similarly adopted nudge theory.

However, as documented in a RealKM Magazine article series, nudge theory began to be criticised almost as soon as it emerged. In the first article in that series, I summarised three key initial criticisms of the UK government’s application of nudge theory that had been put forward in the academic literature. These criticisms, as put forward by their authors, are:

• nudge theory ignores the full range of determinants of behaviour⁵
• the policy recommendations of the UK nudge unit are not actually in accordance with nudge theory⁶
• nudging is paternalistic, manipulative, and sometimes deceitful⁷.

I subsequently provided a case study related to two of these criticisms in the article “Nudge initiative creates confusion and undermines trust.”

Despite the academic criticism, nudge theory continued to remain popular. But in 2018, a significant and startling series of events started to turn the tide. This was high-profile Cornell University food researcher Brian Wansink’s spectacular fall from grace. Wansink was well-known for his landmark research showing that altering food environments could nudge people into healthier eating, for example through reduced serving sizes – the idea that “small plates lose weight.” Only Wansink’s research didn’t actually show this – he is responsible for one of the worst cases of academic misconduct in recent years, as I document in the article series “Simplistic solutions to complex problems turns behavioural science into a dangerous pseudoscience.”

In the time since, further critiques of the application of nudge theory have been published in the academic literature, for example as reported in the nudge theory series articles “Does nudging always result in better decisions?” and “The high failure rate of behavioral nudges.”

UK COVID-19 nudge groupthink

A further and even more significant crisis of confidence for nudge theory came in 2020 and 2021. In early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic erupted globally, the UK Government initially sought to control the spread of COVID-19 through a behavioural nudge approach rather than the lockdowns and movement restrictions being imposed in other countries. Decision-making in this regard was informed by advice from the UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).

As reported in the media article “Keep Calm and Wash Your Hands: Britain’s Strategy to Beat Virus“⁸, the SAGE approach used nudge unit mathematical behavioural models. The article quotes SAGE member David Halpern as saying that the reason for taking this approach was the potential for restrictions to have unintended consequences, in particular the risk of “behavioural fatigue.” Professor David Halpern is Chief Executive of the UK Behavioural Insights Team, and is also the What Works National Adviser appointed by the Prime Minister to help the UK Government apply evidence to public policy. As discussed above, the Behavioural Insights Team was the world’s very first nudge unit, and David Halpern has been its leader since its inception in 2010.

However, as the media article “Nudge theory is a poor substitute for hard science in matters of life or death“⁹ reports, the SAGE approach immediately triggered serious concern, with more than 600 behavioural economists signing a letter¹⁰ questioning the evidence base for the notion of behavioural fatigue. In response to this expressed concern, article author Sonia Sodha writes that:

Rightly so: a rapid evidence review of behavioural science as it relates to pandemics only fleetingly refers to evidence that extending a lockdown might increase non-compliance, but this turns out to be a study about extending deployment in the armed forces. “Behavioural fatigue is a nebulous concept,” the review’s authors later concluded in the Irish Times.

This is a common critique of behavioural economics: some (not all) members of the discipline have a tendency to overclaim and overgeneralise, based on small studies carried out in a very different context, often on university students in academic settings …

The problem with all forms of expertise in public policy is that it is often the most formidable salespeople who claim greater certainty than the evidence allows who are invited to jet around the world advising governments. But the irony for behavioural scientists is that this is a product of them trading off, and falling prey to, the very biases they have made their names calling out.

I can only imagine how easy it might have been for [Prime Minister Boris] Johnson to succumb to confirmation bias in looking for reasons to delay a lockdown: what prime minister wants to shut down the economy? And it is the optimism bias of the behavioural tsars that has led them to place too much stock in their own judgment in a world of limited evidence.

Sodha’s criticisms have since been validated by the UK Government House of Commons Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees report “Coronavirus: lessons learned to date.”¹¹ The issues explored by the committees included reasons for the initial delay in the UK Government implementing a full lockdown, as discussed in items 96-114 of the report. The committees found that:

• the assumption that the public would have limited tolerance of lockdown restrictions, that is, they would experience behavioural fatigue, “turned out to be wrong”
• taking a more precautionary approach in the first weeks of the pandemic, despite the SAGE advice, may have contributed to better overall outcomes
• the initial scientific advice from SAGE was not sufficiently challenged by elected decision-makers
• scientific advice was not sufficiently internationally diverse, with all but one of the 87 people listed as having participated in at least one meeting of SAGE being only from UK institutions
• mathematical modelling played an influential role in UK scientific advice, despite academic skepticism of this modelling.

In summary, the committees state that, in regard to the delayed lockdown:

In the first three months the [no lockdown] strategy reflected official scientific advice to the Government which was accepted and implemented … The fact that the UK approach reflected a consensus between official scientific advisers and the Government indicates a degree of groupthink that was present at the time which meant we were not as open to approaches being taken elsewhere as we should have been.

Hooray! A good news meta-analysis! But is it?

The mounting academic, pubic, and political criticism of the application of nudge theory hasn’t resulted in the abandonment of nudge theory. Rather, the view has emerged that while nudge theory may not work in some circumstances, it can and does still succeed in plenty of others.

This view appeared to be confirmed by a new meta-analysis¹² published in the journal PNAS at the end of last year. The study authors state that:

Changing individuals’ behavior is key to tackling some of today’s most pressing societal challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic or climate change. Choice architecture interventions aim to nudge people toward personally and socially desirable behavior through the design of choice environments … Here we quantitatively review over a decade of research, showing that choice architecture interventions successfully promote behavior change across key behavioral domains, populations, and locations.

The euphoria in regard to these findings was captured by the following headline¹³ on the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) news service:

However, as Stuart Ritchie contends in the article “Nudged off a cliff” in his Science Fictions newsletter, a series of rebuttal letters to the meta-analysis puts this hype in doubt. The newsletter follows on from Ritchie’s 2020 book of the same name¹⁴ which was about fraud, bias, negligence, and hype in science.

In addition to discussing the key issue raised in the rebuttal letters, Ritchie alerts that the meta-analysis used papers where disgraced food science researcher Brian Wansink, whose work was discussed above, was lead author or co-author. Although the analysed papers were not among those that had been retracted by journals, the inclusion of work by a researcher found to have committed academic misconduct is concerning, and could potentially have biased the very strong meta-analysis results for food outcomes.

The critical problem raised in the rebuttals and discussed by Ritchie is the issue of “publication bias.” An examination of the data used in the meta-analysis shows that its results have been significantly influenced by publication bias. Ritchie advises that:

[publication bias occurs] because scientists don’t bother publishing – or are substantially less likely to publish – nudge studies that don’t find positive effects.

The authors of the meta-analysis had identified this possibility, but the publication bias analysis wasn’t really integrated into the meta-anaysis as a whole. In response, the writers of one of the rebuttal letters carried out their own meta-analysis using a newly-developed statistical technique called “Robust Bayesian Meta-Analysis” (RoBMA). Ritchie reports that:

Using RoBMA, the letter-writers found that not only was there strong evidence for really bad publication bias, and not only did correcting for this reduce the effects to near-zero in almost every case, but that there was, for at least some of the categories, strong evidence that there was no overall effect of nudges in the literature. In other words, their correction pushed the effect of nudges entirely off a cliff.

Another of the rebuttal letters makes the point about the variability of nudges. The letter writers argue that because of this variability, the news alert finding reported above that nudges “successfully promote behavior change across key behavioral domains, populations, and locations” is highly implausible. How can there be an “average effect of nudges” across all the different nudge types, behavioural outcomes, contexts, countries, and so on?

But Ritchie cautions that this variability can also mean that close replication studies of similar nudges could reveal that some nudges actually do work. He reports on another recent review study¹⁵ that offers potential hope in this regard. The study findings indicate that some nudges do seem to have a real impact, albeit a much smaller one than we’ve been led to believe.

So what should we do in regard to nudge theory until further such research is carried out? In concluding his article, Ritchie provides the following advice:

There’s a massive set of published studies on nudges, and there’s often considerable excitement in the media (egged on by the researchers’ press releases) when a new paper comes out. Inadvertently, by hinting at how serious the effect of publication bias could be, the PNAS meta-analysis puts that whole literature under a cloud. Until academic nudge researchers dramatically up their game – we’re talking Registered Reports, replication studies, open data, open code, the whole thing – we should be extremely sceptical of anyone who leans on this literature to suggest any policy changes.

But even if strong evidence emerges that allows policymakers to move beyond the criticisms of the effectiveness of nudge theory, this evidence base won’t address an equally important aspect of the criticism of nudge theory. As stated at the beginning of this article above, this criticism is that nudging is paternalistic, manipulative, and sometimes deceitful¹⁶. I’ve already documented a case study where an Australian government was accused of using nudge theory in this way.

Just as we should be extremely sceptical of anyone who leans on the current limited research base to suggest any policy changes, as Ritchie has advised, we should also be extremely sceptical of anyone who uses nudge theory without an open public examination of the ethics of doing so and a thorough consideration of alternative options such as community engagement.

Header image source: Kevin Dean on Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

References: