Design: ALP Stage 2

I have been exploring some different ways of presenting the Action Learning Pathway for my Permaculture Diploma and also looking for tools to help me structure it most effectively. I was quite taken with the idea of considering the Diploma as a 'project' and using a Gantt chart to serve both the purposes described above.

I don't have any background in producing/using Gantt charts, just a basic concept of their operation, so this is experimentation with the form. I'm planning that learning how to use one for this purpose, will support me in using them on other projects in the future.

I plumped for using the open-source freeware programme GanttProject 2.5.5 (available for Windows/Mac OSX and Linux). There are some video tutorials on how to use it:

I'm not sure if it's going to completely suit my purposes, but if nothing else it has introduced me to the concept of the PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) chart. I think I encountered this idea before, while doing (the largely useless( APM Certificate in Project Management, but it wasn't described as a PERT chart then. I used GanttProject's inbuilt functionality to turn my ALP Gantt into a PERT, the end result looked a bit skewy - so I messed about with it to create the top graphic - which felt like the first tolerable output of the whole process, but has probably totally messed up the standard PERT infographic. Also, I don't understand the different colours in the diagram, I think they must relate to something I did at the input stage.

I obviously need to get to grips with Gantts, PERTs and GanttProject a bit more to realise their potential - but my main learning from this process has been that using these tools is over-engineering and over-complicating the task I need to achieve right now. As a personal project, the Diploma does not have the range of other players a large project might have & I should be able to come up with a reasonable timetable without going to the lengths of a Gantt project schedule.

Pareto Principle

Last weekend I attended a Permaculture Diploma support event put on by Claire White and Hedvig Murray at the Grow Mayow Community Garden in Sydenham. I was reluctant to go, the weight of an unfinished diploma and the sense of how much further on people who started much later than me were, bumming me out. But I did go, and realised how much further along I was, really most of what I need to do is to turn my notes/photos/plans into a communicable document.

A lot of people at the event kept referring to the 80/20 idea, which I believe is accurately described as the Pareto Principle. It's an appealing idea, which can be used as a quantifier for the permaculture concept of design intensivity.

I have my concerns over the wide application of 80/20 thinking though, which aren't limited to the perils of presenting is to procrastinators (who will find whole new reasons for delaying action (implementation)). I've been on the wrong end of some bad business methods based on interpreting 80/20 to suit pre-conceived ideological ends, and using the concept's apparent neutrality as a disguise for power plays.

It's a reminder that no tool is neutral, and the application of thinking tools can quickly reflect prior thinking biases - a caveat that should guide their use.

The Charles Eames Design Diagram

The Eames Design Diagram, aka 'Statement of the Eames Design Process' as displayed in the 1969 Exhibition Qu'est-ce Que Le Design? (What is Design?) at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. 

According to this diagram, the design process can only be successful when it identifies the overlapping needs of the designer, the client, and society "as a whole" and when it develops products that serve all three.

I've been thinking about this in terms of permaculture design, and ecological concerns (Carl Hastrich has thoughts in a parallel dimension in his piece Biomimicry and Design Definition). The first thing that stands out to me is that apparently innocent phrase "the concerns of society as a whole", how are we to understand this? It seems that there are two main ways we could interpret this. The first would be a political interpretation, following Otto Von Bismarck's description of politics as the "die Kunst des Möglichen" (the art of the possible). This interpretation recognises cultural limits around the type of design outputs that would be acceptable to wider society and accepts these as design parameters. The second interpretation would be an ethical accounting approach, one that might address society's concerns through techniques such as 'triple bottom line' criteria.

The second interpretation provides a meeting place for permaculture design, through the application of permaculture ethics as our accounting criteria. According to our permaculture thinking therefore, the concerns of society as a whole would be reflected by an area of activity in which care of the earth, care of people, and an equitable distribution of resources were recognised.

Permaculture Ethics: Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share

 Directly layering the permaculture ethics venn onto the Eames design diagram venn, is somewhat problematic, reflecting the true complication of the world. Finding a meeting point in which the intersections of both collections of sets overlap becomes more difficult.  There are surely instances for example that would fit within the interests and concerns of the designer, the interests of the client, and meet the criteria of earth care and people care, yet do not address the issue of fair share. 

In fact as we think about our situation as permaculture designers, this is obvious as we frequently find few opportunities to work with clients on projects which satisfy their expressed needs, realise permaculture and reflect our own interests and concerns (financial, intellectual, emotional etc.) in a way that allows us to work with conviction and enthusiasm. While we live in a 'destructoculture' world, design opportunities will tend to largely fall into business-as-usual frameworks that dictate the shape of acceptable outputs. This of course is the same factor discussed above as the political interpretation of "the concerns of society as a whole".

So we might divide "the concerns of society as a whole" into two sets: that which mainstream society deems as fitting its needs, and that which fits the ethical needs expressed within permaculture. This does not ease the difficulty of finding a meeting point in which the intersections of all sets overlap, but it does identify more clearly the nature of their misalignment. This is also a way in which we can identify projects in which we can be effective and those in which we cannot, and therefore concentrate our efforts in the former. A tool for recognising that sub-set of everything we are concerned about, that is amenable to our influence.

In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey describes the problems, challenges, and opportunities we face as falling into two areas: our 'Circle of Concern' and our 'Circle of Influence'. In concentrating on our circle of influence, where our energy is used most effectively, we tend to find that we expand our edge, widening our influence over more of the area of our concern.

The edge of our circle of influence in this design context, will often also be the place where the set of activities which mainstream society deems as fitting its needs rubs up against the set of activities which fit the ethical needs expressed within permaculture. So as we concentrate our energies on our circle of influence, we will tend to find our most productive activities happening right on the edge of that circle. Here where the forest of permaculture thinking keeps dropping its seeds into the surrounding fields is the creative interface with "the concerns of society as a whole".



Resources:

What is Design?
Permaculture Principles
Stephen R. Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People