The city manager must analyse the problem that initiated the policy initiative, i.e. perform a root-cause analysis (and/or draw up diagnostic hypotheses and clarify the dependencies among relevant factors, and the decision frame); next he or she must verify to what extent the proposed policies address the root-causes or factors that are at the origin of the problem, at what cost, and with which benefits, likelihood,...) and clarify the assumptions made by either party. Ref. Business case, impact analysis. The check with evidence, the clarification of the assumptions (right, wrong, defendable, prejudice, ...?) usually delivers a much better basis for a decision than the '''power vote:' either a justifiable choice for one of the original propositions, or for a hybrid merging the most effective propositions.

Further supporting references and explanations at: http://www.pragmetaknowledgeclout.be/collective-decision-frames

Overall, lessons learned: next time use a more collaborative approach to analysing (diagnosing) the problem and to solving it; if votes need be used to decide, it can be about fine grained battle points, rather than over the overall policy; let's overcome the wasteful debate; and appreciate also the common ground & shared principles; and aim for a better listening to one another - see in this context my comment at http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/jan/31/free-thinking-un-sustainable-development

The cityt manger should determine the best two options, pointing that second best does not usually work, and let the people decide but also start circulating his CV.

To Dr. Goossenaerts:

Thank you for your detailed response. Perhaps I failed to state it clearly but the question in this case is not which solution is the optimal one in the economic sense (the city manager due to his presumed expertise can certainly determine it if he hadn't already done so), but how is the city manager to deal with the fact that by choosing any particular solution (from the small set of those available), he runs a good chance of outraging more than a half of the council members and the public. Here are the details of the problem (from the actual, but still hypothetical, case I am working on) and the alternative policies proposed to solve it:

At the council meeting of the town of San Juan, Joseph Stevenson, the city manager, described the issue of parking meter replacement, which the whole town was concerned about. He related how the old, frequently inoperable, parking meters do not allow the city to charge the motorists more than was charged 25 years ago because the old meters do not accept coins of large denomination. Next he said how on the one hand, the citizens of San Juan feel the streets belong to them and they should not be charged more for using them. On the other hand, the low parking prices of the past do not function as the deterrent to business professionals and their employees who occupy the parking spaces that are meant to be used by customers of downtown stores and firms.

So there are only two alternative policies, each of which has a nearly equal number of supporters and opponents: Raise the prices on street parking by replacing the meters (to make the usage of street parking more efficient), or do nothing and let the old prices (and an inefficient use of parking spaces) remain. Thanks for your input.

I think that whatever they decide to do it should use modern technology which will increase efficiencies & make it more convenient for users. For instance the "Pay by phone" parking systems, of which there seem to be several to choose from, mean users don't have to worry about having the correct change & can be sent an sms when their parking is about to expire. Parking is always a contentious issue but the reality is that a mixture of short stay parking outside businesses and longer pay parking a little further away for workers seems to work well. From an environmental perspective it is wise to place a cost on parking as it does come with some costs both physical, enforcement wise & ecological.

Oleg,

In addition to Jane's suggestions,

on method:

- the decision frame will not just include ''economic'' indicators - yet usually analysts will stick to those, and therefore come up with biased solutions;

on the case:

- the replacement of parking meters can be combined with ''free parking passes' for locals (for which they could pay a yearly fee as well);

On both:

In your added clarification you have explained the concerns of several more stakeholders; these concerns can be included in the overall solution design; it will result in a slightly more sophisticated (hybrid) solution: passes have to be distributed, etc. one has to consider ratios (locals/visitors), pricing, e.g. little for short visits (shop customers); somewhat more for half/full day parking (they should either pay more, or park in more distant places at lower cost,). This is what is routinely practised in European cities (including with payment via mobile phone).

The City Manager's risk is that each stakeholder group will suspect that the C.M. is secretly favoring another group. In order to reduce or remove this issue entirely, the C.M. should ask for a subcommittee to hold facilitated workshops to include all stakeholders in a collaborative process to identify issues and priorities. This body should make the recommendation back to Council and the C.M. should merely facilitate and mediate the process. Using a "Crawford-Slip" method initially will draw out the issues, even those that are politically charged. This is followed by a "green-red dot exercise" (borrowed from the planning field) to sort through the layers of ideas and bring the most important ideas to the forefront. Finally, using the "green-red dot exercise" will identify the workshop participants' preferred alternative.

The key is that these exercises are collaborative and force the participants to first establish how important the issue is to them by whether they make the time to participate. Next, it enables everyone to voice issues (even those that are taboo or politically unpopular) in a confidential manner. It then forces the group to confront their differences and acknowledge areas where compromise is needed. Through the informal process, sideline caucuses are common and frequent and result in a consensus; furthermore, the process identifies issues that do not appear to be able to be resolved. This makes the Council's job easier since most of the decision making has already been done and they only need to decide the unreconciled point(s). This also insulates the manager because the process is collaborative and transparent.

References:

http://www.mycoted.com/Crawford_Slip_Writing

http://charretteinstitute.org/blog/the-greenred-dot-exercise/

http://www.albany.edu/cpr/gf/resources/Voting_with_dots.html

Rob, thanks for adding these concrete techniques. Most valid.

My wikiworx.info initiative has the intention to achieve a comparable degree of collaborativeness & transparency by the use of ''structured wikis,'' for any size of group, especially for complex problems.

I will study the techniques in more detail to learn from them.

When problems become more complex (the parking meter problem is really simple, contrast with the global climate change talks), the constraints and claims for the various stakeholders may rapidly reduce the design space, leaving an impression that a collaboratively agreed solution is not possible. In such cases, I consider it essential that those claims and constraints are clearly understood and explained when they come to bear on the problem; as constraints may be hard or soft (=man-made), and claims may be more or less legitimate (less legitimate means vaguely justified, disputed).

It is in such a context that I think that the services of systematized content commons components become essential (http://www.wikiworx.info/systematized ); a somewhat elaborate example is at http://www.actor-atlas.info/statute-book:united-states

wikiworx.info wikis, have the vision that stakeholder positions and the implications for solution ideas can be explained and documented, as much as is meaningful according to the group and the complexity of the problem at hand.

At stake here are also the civic participation skills of the voters/stakeholders.

At http://www.atria.us/sect:5-civic-participation , check the Monitoring &Evaluation and Change skills of the levels 1-follow to 7-set strategy, inspire, mobilise (skill definition is work in progress, based on SFIA, yet need more fine tuning)

Jan,

I just found the time this morning to follow all the links that you suggested. This is very interesting and I'm intrigued. I am wrapping up a fellowship grant that deals with the inability to successfully approve "smart growth" projects as compared with "sprawl" projects in the same geographic area. In short, the problem statement is that sprawl projects and "smart growth" projects face the same hurdles and both have a predictable end game that includes years of tort actions. These torts are generally resolved through civil remedies, thus the sprawl projects have a competitive advantage in that these may do only the minimum effort to design in an environmentally conscious way throughout the project and then "buy" out of the lawsuits [e.g. donate to a land trust or oak conservation area, etc. in order to settle suit(s)]. In contrast, "smart growth" projects work in good faith to design projects well (which eats up resources) only to be faced with the same type of torts. At the end game, "Smart Growth" projects are more likely to fail; thus, validating a competitive advantage for the sprawl projects and encouraging most project sponsors to conduct "business as usual" without exploring the business and community advantages of "Smart Growth".

Your links seem very applicable to me in terms of Wiki's being a tool to collect ideas and build consensus. I wonder, however, how Wiki's work with overcoming disputes--particularly those that can be dogmatic (e.g. "NIMBY" on one hand with "Absolute" property right for developers on the other). I think in my final analysis I will recommend designing Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) processes into a series of plans (beginning at the watershed level and ending at the master plan level) and suggest limiting tort action to very specific stages and plan levels. Ultimately, I'm looking for a way to have better environmental protection while also affording a more predictable process to those who develop in principled and responsible ways.

I'm interested to hear if you have any experience or knowledge of how Wiki's might be used to resolve disputes.

Thanks,

Rob

Rob,

for formulating an answer to your question I need some more time, digging in earlier work, will do it by the end of the week,

yet just now I got aware of a new service for '''structured debate;'' http://yoomoot.com/in3bec2a

I am also exploring it.

Jan

Jan,

Ok, thanks. I will check out yoomoot also.

Rob

Rob,

First of all, the problem statement is a very interesting case of a well known collective action problem. In the absence of enforceable discipline, those adopting the lowest standards- the (myopic) defectors- will always win.

A second factor is that In general members of society favour less litigation.

One approach to reduce the likelihood of litigation, while promoting desired behaviour, is to enforce/promote practices (standards) in situations that are prone to conflict, asset erosion, ....

This could be done by government, by mandated oversight agents, or by self-regulation.

Independent of the approach used, in a social architecture (as described at http://www.actor-atlas.info/social-architecture ), such standards are positioned at the meso-level, as a resource for all members of a sector (for instance developers, banks, schools, ...).

The benefit and workings (alongside regulations) of a standard are well explained in par. 5.2 of this paper: http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/1200/ERS%202004%20020%20LIS.pdf

In the case of smart, the meaning of smart may evolve, and in fact, society has witnessed many '''smart'' ideas turn into disasters (for example, I think of fish depletion in one African lake following the introduction of an exotic species because of better nutritious properties).

One approach to reduce the likelihood of smart turning evil is to involve the members of a sector in jointly generating, evaluating and promoting (or rejecting) ideas for the standards of the sector (consider that the standard is a sector asset, either a commons or a club good; agreeing to comply = accepting a level playing field among peers competing with fairplay) (by sector '''crowdsourcing'' it is more likely that unexpected impacts are spotted before they materialise).

It is at this point that '''sector wikis,'' such as those listed at http://www.actor-atlas.info/sector-actors-maps (work in progress, as proof of concept) become useful for ''dispute prevention''. Using them, sector stakeholders can propose, debate and decide forthcoming clauses of their standards (or codes of conducts,..), and again, the benefit of a standard (see the paper) can be had.

Moreover, while printed and pdf-rendered standards are tedious to evolve, an article by article wiki such as that of http://www.actor-atlas.info/treaty:un-universal-declaration-of-human-rights is more adaptable (within agreed principles).

As for dispute resolution, the parties could build their argumentation in the same way as now, except that they could refer the articles directly in their arguments; where there are no legal clauses yet, they could invoke principles or prior court decisions.

On legal substance little changes, yet on so called non functionals (ease of access,...) the difference is big.

Then add feedback, monitoring what principles/articles/situations are prone to conflicts, and responding by suitable measures,

In conclusion, society can both accelerate development and reduce the litigation burden.

Thanks for asking your question!

Jan

Jan,

Thanks for the reply, I'll review your suggestions.

Rob