Through the past year of research within the PSS 101 project we have had the opportunity to conduct a series of case studies investigating how networks collaborate. Through the case study workshops we have tested whether a tool such as the Value Pursuit can contribute to building and maintaining trust within stakeholder networks through visualising the benefits and gains of participating in networked collaboration.
What we have come to find is that there are often mis-communications and mis-perceptions present in complex networks due to a lack of a common language. There should be a balance of contributions and gains within a network in order for it to be sustainable, but although more simple to know what one needs from a network, its not as straight forward knowing what you can contribute to others. A way to discover what you as a stakeholder can contribute is to question other stakeholders about their struggles.
We conducted four main workshop case studies with the following groups: our own PSS 101 team, the health care service agency VanMorgen, the 'Friends of the Academy' partners of the Design Academy Eindhoven, and the Provincie of Noord Brabant and STBY on the topic of Water management policy.
Through the Value Pursuit workshop tool, stakeholders filled in the 'game board' on the topics of their individual expectations, contributions and struggles. After these sections are filled in, the stakeholders contributions were matched with other stakholders struggles. Through our case study workshops we learned that this activity was easily understood and valued by participants becuase it created new relations of value within the network. By the tool being a circular 'pie', every participant had a voice and participation was expected from every person present. Therefore, participants felt more inclined to state what their struggles were because everyone was sharing input.
The case study workshops ranged from internal teams to external company networks. One case study group for instance, were able to strengthen their internal team in regards to aquisition. They discovered through discussing various difficulties within their collaboration that skills they thought they were lacking within the team were actually present, just not with the people they expected them from. They realised that one person's struggle was another person's contribution. In addition they gained a better understanding of who to bring to certain meetings and lowered the threshold for colleagues to ask each other for assistance because they now knew who to ask and for what purpose.
In another case study group with a more external complex network, they were surprised by how quickly they could get to the core topics of discussion that were vital for their collaboration. By addressing topics in a stystemic fashion and making sure that every participants voice is heard its easier to get an overall overview and thereafter address the diffrerent struggles and see which struggles participants may also have in common. New connections to 'distant' stakeholders could more easily be made and stakeholders gained a better idea of the underlying agendas and goals of the different parties.
By triggering a new understanding of each others expectations and goals through visualizing this information on a game board, participants gained new insights about how they could further their collaboariton within the network.