Designing for Emergence

Posted on May 18, 2007 by Dave Pollard
hurricane wilma
In his post today, complexity guru Steve Barth suggests that since it is not in our nature to prepare for emergencies, we should instead try to design for emergence. In other words, since we know that we won’t know what emergencies will arise, or when, or how severe they will be, or how we will react, nor can we possibly envision or plan for all eventualities (such as telephone switches being under ten feet of water, for a month, after a hurricane) we should, instead of planning, figure out how we are going to figure out what to do when the emergency occurs. We need to be ready, which is different from planning.
 
I replied that there are probably five ingredients in a prescription for how to figure out how to figure out what to do:
  • Establishing trust: If you have a community whose members know and love each other, trust is not a problem. But if you don’t know, or don’t like, your neighbours, it’s going to be iffy whether in an emergency, you will work with them, or even know what each of you is capable of doing (and what each of you urgently needs) so you can work together effectively.
  • Learning to improvise: In some ways improvisation is the opposite of planning. It’s about staying resilient and adapting to what others do, trusting our instincts and increasing our emotional intelligence. And if you’re a planner not an improviser, and (shades of FEMA & the Iraq occupation) your plan fails, at least have the sense to get out of the way of those who can improvise.
  • Improving our attention skills: We need to study and learn about how nature, and how cultures that deal with emergencies regularly, cope with them. When an emergency happens, we need to be able to draw on this knowledge and focus our attention on what needs to be done. That means listening, seeing what’s really happening, noticing and communicating what’s urgent and what’s important, and keeping everything in perspective. We’re pretty good at doing this when we have to be, but we can always improve.
  • Improving our collaboration skills: We are so used to divvying up work and doing almost everything individually (though hopefully in a coordinated, cooperative way), that we rarely really collaborate in real time. Team sports help with this. We need to learn that there are things that we can do together that we cannot do, no matter how well coordinated, separately.
  • Practicing: Those with the foresight to practice (and/or previous experience) handling an emergency will be much better equipped when the next emergency occurs. In areas where emergencies are frequent, communities regularly practice what to do, over and over, as a social occasion, so they’re ready. There is no substitute.

So what would a ‘design for emergence’ that incorporates these ingredients look like? I’m just starting to think about this, but I think finding an answer to this is important. Help me, and Steve, co-design it?

Category: Complexity
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6 Responses to Designing for Emergence

  1. Andrew says:
    May 18, 2007 at 20:57

    I think that you are completely right to identify the difference between planning and designing – this is familiar territory to me as a permaculture design teacher and I too use the images and memes of improvisation (am also an ex jazz musician) to explain the value of abilities to make unlikely solutions with apparently unsuitable materials – a good skill!I am enjoying your blogs and would like to strike up an aquaintance with you as I think that there are many aspects of your thinking and analysis that are superb, positive and very helpful (like this particular posting) and, meanwhile, you sometimes show a strong dose of hopelessness that I understand (given the data) and yet would like to contradict (despite the data)…… Hope this makes sense (or is, at least, interesting).Also I am very busy changing the world – big job eh?! and so have only a little spare time to connect.All the bestAndy

  3. lugon says:
    May 19, 2007 at 16:34

    Which probably means, Dave, that you’re already thinking about the next step – just when they’re thinking about “prepping” you think about “not prepping”?My present concern is this: a pandemic might come very soon and be very deadly. (That’s just one of the posibilities, but one worth considering.) Now, if that’s the case, it would be better if say 30% of people had filled up cupboards – just good old stock-up habits. Why? Because in almost any scenario, parents would quite likely do all sorts of things to protect their young. http://www.newfluwiki2.com/upload/UK%20pan_response2.pdf So it’s better if they can be self reliant at least for some time.Of course, this would be a temporary fix, but maybe we need that sort of thing if we want to survive a posible hard blow and then get into the newer wave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GerCI_IzY88 (the secret of the incas, or how they aparently created and cherished agricultural biodiversity and adaptation).

  4. Jon Husband says:
    May 21, 2007 at 11:38

    Not a prescription, just brainstorming …Start with a clear purpose (an emergency’s effects will provide that), people who have skills, expertise and energy and that you trust or trust you (or create a simple way of deciding about that pretty quickly in the context of the emergency, work (quickly) through some of the communications and interaction choices you (and others) have articulated before (just like you went about finding out how to do a blog-hosted conversation), define the issues and challenges as they currently stand, use some of the basic tools from self-directed work teams, like responsibility charting (Weisbord et al) or hold an Open Space (on or offline), adjust as conditions change or as mistakes are discovered, make any hierarchy that may be necessary flexible and changeable as conditions change or emerge, etc.

  5. Steve Barth says:
    May 21, 2007 at 18:22

    This is a great list. Meanwile, I do believe we must prepare for emergencies assuming both predictability and unpredictability. All that money on fire escapes, standpipes and sprinklers is well spent, for example, even though statistically they will never be used.The question is, how are uncertainty and unpredictability related to planning and preparedness (and, in some cases, prevention)? Certainly contingency planning can go against many natural tendencies of human individuals and human societies. But is it either/or? Is it mutually exclusive to develop ability and also agility?I bet the answer has a lot to do with jazz, as mentioned in an earlier comment. A huge amount of education, preparation and practice go into ability to improvise in the moment, right?

  6. Dave Pollard says:
    May 22, 2007 at 06:48

    Great thoughts, everyone. I did not mean to imply that planning is unnecessary (in fact,rehearsals, practicing, combine both planning and improv, and allow people to appreciate the relevance of planning by creating a real context for its application).If we were to continue this conversation on lugon’s FluWiki, would you join the conversation there?

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