Creative governance

Sylvia Pintarits from Munich just told me about these papers about creative governance so I thought I might let you all know.
http://www.nsl.ethz.ch/index.php/de/content/view/full/1102/

For example, Klaus Kunzmann invites us to creative thinking in planning and examines many different faces of creativity. What a fuzzy concept!
In another paper Bruno Dente, Luigi Bobbio and Alessandra Spada discuss which of institutionnal leadership ('government') or multi-partner leadership ('governance') is better to stimulate urban innovation.

Anyway, all papers are worth reading so please visit the NSL institute web site!

Nova7 is our new name

Nova7 is a consulting company and we work on urban governance issues, mainly in France and Europe. (we used to be called Tremplin).


We are Nova7 and you can visit our new website: Nova7 études et conseil

Improving public management

The Canadian Center for Management Development has published on the web many papers about public management. They deal with:
- horizontal partnership working
- citizen-centered service and surveying methods
- risk management
- learning organisations
- innovation
- negotiation
- leadership
- human resources and workplace
- etc.

Have a nice read and let me know if you find some of them particularly interesting.

Can you build trust?

Partnership working is probably about setting goals, negociating resources, evaluating processes. But can all of this really work without trust...
Just a few links to stimulate your reflections:

Learning Center, an American training and coaching company offers a few tips on their web site.

The EGPA - European Group of Public Administration - has been working for several years on the improvement of quality in the public sector. Many papers presented in their conferences and downloadable on their web site deal with trust between citizens and the public administration.

This is a very good one about building trust in interorganizational collaboration. Siv Vangen and Chris Huxham offer both a good theoretical framework and some practical suggestions to deal with different partenrship situations.

Finally, Kirsimarja Blomqvist from Finland presents a paper that attempts to build a model of organisational trust. She especially highlights the links between inter-organisational trust and inter-personal trust.



Let me know if you know of other interesting references available on the web.
Trust building is also about sharing, isn't it?

For those who wonder how a good story can change the world

Two useful links about storytelling and organisational change.

Steve Denning's web site, talks a lot about his book but also shows some interesting tips and good thinking about storytelling and knowledge management in your organisation.

Here are also two conferences about organisational storytelling stressing the importance of narrative communication compared to abstract explanations.

"Stories play a bigger role in organisations than we often realize"
- With a story, you can spring people into the future.
- Stories are the places where the values of your organisation can be found.
- A good story can bring people together very rapidely.
- Stories can help social bonding
- Stories are a way of promoting cultural norms
- etc.

ENSURE Guidebook

link to: ENSURE Guidebook

I imagine you all know about the Ensure project (Exchange Network for Sustainable Urban Revitalisation Experience). Just like us, they are working on a guidbook which deals with the following topics:
- working together
- decision making
- communicating
- measuring progress
- etc.

Teams and Teamwork - learning about teams on the web

link to a page with loads of links...

Many pages on the web tell you about teams, teamwork, team building, etc.
This web site will guide you to them.

Although I have not visited all of them, I am sure quite a few are interesting.

What is a learning organization?

link to: What is a learning organisation

A good review of the literature on Learning Organizations with bits about Peter Senge, Chris Argyris, Donald A Schon and many more...
Many suggestions of interesting books to read.

Participation guide@Partnerships Online

link to: Participation Guide

This guide to effective participation is out of print but can be found online on this web site.

With:
- 10 key ideas about participation
- Easy answers to participation problems... that can bring their own difficulties.
- a lot of questions and suggestions

Change Zone

link to the web site: Change Zone

A wonderful place with advice and ideas to help you move out of your 'confort zone' and into the 'change zone'.

Organisational Learning, Leadership, Change Dynamics, etc.

Tools for Development: a toolkit designed by the CIDT (UK)

link to: Tools for Development

You can either browse the web site or download the whole document.

A usefull handbook with methodologies and tools on the following topics:
- stakeholder analysis
- problem analysis
- visioning
- logical frameworks (whatever that is!)
- risk management (maybe Interact could also adress this topic?)
- participatory approaches
- teamworking
- influencing and negociating
- building partnerships
- conflict reduction
- monitoring and evaluating
- facilitation skills

Lessons Learned on Partnerships - Final Report - October 1998

link to: Final Report

Take a look at this...
Partnerships analysed from the point of view of the community sector.

Some lessons learnt on buiding trust, monitoring, etc.

Reflections on the Future Understanding of Planning Practice

link to the paper by Forester
This paper by Forester presents some interesting ideas about urban planning as well as an account of a discussion with Patrick Lusson.

What it inspired me:
Maybe we should discuss ethical issues in the implementation of strategies.

Working in cities is not only about logic, efficiency, political correctness, etc. Some choices depend on what we think is good or bad!