Hat-tip DailyGood.org.

In April, my friend Peter Macleod inspired me with his MASSLBP Wish List, which he sent out in a newsletter to MASSLBP’s network. Peter was in turn inspired by a Christmas card message: “work for what you wish for”. Expressing the intention, out loud, for all to see, of the kind of work that you want made a lot of sense to me.

Fired up by the success of our recent collaboration at the Collingwood Conference, my frequent collaborator Daniel Rose started a conversation about our dream projects. These are projects that can take full advantage of our capabilities and that also really push us in our practice while making a big difference in the world. We referred to this cheekily as “Project Mongoose”, but really what we’re talking about are Wicked Projects.

Addressing Wicked Problems

What is a wicked project? A wicked project first of all aims to address a wicked problem.  Wicked problems are all around us: climate change, economic transformation, poverty, healthcare, urban transportation and human migration to name just a few. Solving wicked problems is meaningful, purposeful work. They’re complex, intertwined, ambiguous, messy and frustrating. Wicked problems fight back as you try to solve them.

The projects that would make our wish list would be centered on one of these problems. Our role is not to be the content expert in the chosen field. Our role is to bring both proven and novel processes and tools to these projects while working with and learning from some of the smartest people we can find.

A Wicked Project would have the following characteristics:

• There is a Wicked Problem at the centre
• The organizations launching the project would be a multi-stakeholder partnership, network or alliance
• Members would include private, public and non-profit organizations driven by passionate individuals
• Members have realized that conventional approaches have not been working, that deeper insight, greater engagement, more collaborative action and more iterative processes are required
• There is consensus in the network that the time is right for new, reinvigorated action – but exactly what action is hotly debated
• Stakeholder engagement is seen as central to success, not an afterthought, required to gather data, develop insights and create strategies for action
• Acting requires engaged commitment from a large number of actors, most of whom the project sponsors have no direct control over
• The project operates simultaneously at a number of scales: national, regional and local
• Project participants have a genuine willingness to learn and adopt new tools, methods and practices
• Strategy is seen as a verb, not a noun: a creative, iterative and ongoing process, informed by new evidence sensed at the edges of the system

If you read the above and said to yourself “that’s us!”, then we should talk. Dan and I are looking to speak to as many prospective Wicked Project proponents that we can to explore the methods, processes and practices to tap the collective intelligence of these networks to create profound, meaningful change.

A 52 Week Blogging Project

With this post, I am also launching a 52 week blogging project on the methods, processes and practices being developed around the world to address wicked problems. It’s a way for me to give focus to my own research and learning program, bring new life to what has been of late a pretty dormant blog space here at Remarkk.com and as a way to learn from and share with the many social innovation, human process and systems thinking gurus that have inspired me. Next week, I will focus more on the definition of a wicked problem and its characteristics.

Who should be on my reading list for Wicked Projects? Who are the gurus who inspire you? What are the key processes, methods and tools to tackling wicked problems?

This is my first post for the Toronto Star’s Your City My City blog. It is reposted from here: http://thestar.blogs.com/yourcitymycity/2010/04/changing-torontos-political-culture.html

Toronto, the city and the region, is being transformed. Like many global urban regions, we are growing rapidly and that growth is changing the face of our community. A recent StatsCan study tells us that by 2031 we can expect the people of the Toronto region to be 63% visible minorities.

We are experiencing rapid and accelerating change on many fronts, but our political culture isn’t keeping pace. If it doesn’t catch up, we risk creating a city plagued by systemic problems stemming from exclusion, political dysfunction and the growth of a permanent underclass alongside a confused dominant class trying to reclaim an idea of Toronto based upon a mirage from its past.

Others have argued, and I agree, that the people who govern our city ought to reflect the diversity of the city itself. All adult permanent residents of Toronto should have the the opportunity to vote municipally and fully participate in civic life, regardless of their Canadian citizenship status. Despite the many commenters to the post by Gelek Badheytsang linked above who find the idea offensive, it is an idea whose time is coming. Newcomers and their children need better on-ramps to civic participation.

Beyond specific political reforms, I argue that we also need a cultural shift.

Torontonians are a reserved people. Visitors often comment on our city’s coolly aloof attitude, while at the same time lauding our diversity and the vibrancy of our multicultural assets. How do we reconcile these two impressions?

My hunch is that the dominant culture’s tolerance of diversity has for the most part been made easy by social distance and relative prosperity. When difficult decisions press us – hard choices forced upon us by limited resources – how well will we perform at reconciling our differences?

It’s not just our leaders who need to change. We need to change. “We have to engage”, John Tory said on this blog post, “WE have to listen to EACH OTHER”. I agree.

I believe that we change the realm of possibilities when we shift the dialogue we have about this city and our place within it. We need to talk about our responsibilities to each other as well as our rights and individual needs and desires. We need a movement for civic engagement powered by people.

We need to have difficult conversations that acknowledge our differences and we need to transcend these differences in ways that help us make collective decisions. We need to recognize that our futures are shared, and we need to seize the opportunity to participate in shaping that shared future.

My vision of the future of Toronto as a livable city is a place where citizenship, civic life and community are re-imagined and reinvigorated, where the potential of our diversity is realized as a strength and an asset for our future prosperity. For the experiment of Toronto to succeed, we as a people must become world leaders in civic engagement and civic innovation that embraces an inclusive diversity.

This will be difficult. This is a job for all of us; not only our City government, our elected officials and our civic leaders. In future posts, I will propose specific ideas for how to realize this vision. I invite you to share your own ideas in the comments.

About Mark Kuznicki