System Practice

Systems Practice is a way to make sense of complex environments and uncover the dynamics that have the greatest potential for impact. This course will lead you through each step of understanding a system, analyzing it to find points of leverage, and learning how to adapt in a changing environment.

What You'll Learn

• Map a complex system to gain clarity
• Identify specific points in the system where you can have a big impact
• Create leverage hypotheses to describe how you will aim to create systemic change
• Develop a framework for learning and adapting over time as your system changes

The course has started yesterday. Whoever is interested to join our team still has time to do that. Just go to https://www.plusacumen.org/courses/systems-practice to register and search for "The Commons Stack" group and request to join. I'll approve you.

For everyone who is already on the team please go through the introduction steps and read everything carefully, this is important!

After you've gone through Module 1"What is System Practice", we should be holding a workshop together (remotely). Deadline to submit results is May 15th.

Thank you so much Marko for sharing this! :heart: I'm a big fan of Kumu and system practice, this looks like a great way to get hands-on with it.

We're moving our conversations here so I'm pasting from Acumen chat:

Hi everyone, I hope you had a chance to go through the first couple of steps of this course and are already in the Reading section. While I'm preparing the workshop session I realized there are a few things I need to mention before we deep dive into the rest of this course.

This group is called "Tha Commons Stack" and the name itself suggests the subject of the problem we want to focus on. The idea is to try solving the "Tragedy of the Commons" and finding solutions for Governing the Commons, as described on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Additionally, I would try to think along with the 8 principles for managing a commons by Elinor Ostrom http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons

If you have other articles to share or specific issues you want to find solutions for, that has to do with the commons, please share here. (or we can move the discussion to Loomio thread?)

Josh Fairhead We could use your input here, or Phil Honigman as well since you've been longer in the subject matter.

It is important to have a subject defined that we should all align and think about when going through the first part of this course, as this will be something we'll be working on throughout the whole course!

MAIN SUBJECT:

Summary: The Tragedy of the Commons is an economic theory that describes how people often use natural resources to their advantage without considering the good of a group or society as a whole. When a number of individuals consider only their own welfare in this manner, it leads to negative outcomes for everybody, as the natural resource becomes depleted.

Keywords: resources, natural resources, depletion, over-use, commons, exploitation, pollution, over-fishing, deforestation, global warming, government regulation, taxation, public property, private property

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE:

Assuming that everyone is working full-time somewhere or has other activities during the week I suggest that we hold workshops on Sundays. Here are some times suggested you can vote https://doodle.com/poll/ik9yn4nikq7itw2e
If Sunday doesn't work for you then please suggest a preferred time during the week. We also need to take into consideration the timezones.

Please note: The first workshop must take place in a few days as the deadline for submission is May 15th!

WORKSPACE:

After you fill in your contact info (below) I will add you to the Mural board for 1st Workshop. It is currently empty but I will prepare the workspace soon https://app.mural.co/t/medular7016/m/medular7016/1557367551174/4ad94a4dd938ce4d4092cecb8ef1963d377ea4f3

TEAM INFO: Please fill in the sheet with your information https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XEKuvvp4RwMWbSqh0_igSuqhSDk8zE4jVjsaIrU6OYQ/edit?usp=sharing

TELEGRAM GROUP: After you provide your contact info I'll create a group on Telegram for faster communication.

The subject is not set in stone. However, Josh Fairhead, I was thinking to use this opportunity to further develop The Commons Stack or use it as an exercise. Anyone, feel free to suggest anything around the commons. We'll have the opportunity to frame the challenge in coming workshops.

Phil wrote:
Since you called for complementary info wrt Commons + Blockchain, Samer Hassan's work is worth mentioning.
https://medium.com/digitalhks/can-blockchain-facilitate-the-governance-of-commons-oriented-communities-253008c91efd
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3272329

Nice, I've already read the second paper! It's a good shout. One of the points I found interesting is that community facilitators in these open systems will likely come under severe pressures to the point where they may be afforded new forms of legal status/protection (much like the directors of ltd companies).

For reference, think about our challenge today scaled up 100x - it would be tough as hell to manage right?

Reminder to everyone who hasn't done already:

• Vote on the time for first workshop https://doodle.com/poll/ik9yn4nikq7itw2e
• Add your contact details to the sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XEKuvvp4RwMWbSqh0_igSuqhSDk8zE4jVjsaIrU6OYQ/edit?usp=sharing

This came in from Giveth Riot channel, thought it has some good mission statements for our workshop. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KchBkusYkvJiaspKTsfbYqgbkUaxe0AhhDwURapjggI/edit?usp=drivesdk

I've requested access..