Theories & Best Practices

 Best Practices : What does the work look like?

An intermediary researches and analyzes community issues, convenes stakeholders, and in other ways facilitates innovative problem-solving. They “help fill in expertise and resources, foster consensus and plan strategies.” Their goal is to help once loose networks of independent government, nonprofit, and business organizations to function as capable “community development systems” by convening, designing, coordinating, and incubating innovate ideas and solutions.

They can be extremely influential-- shaping the community agenda and channeling funding, political support and other precious resources.

The Intermediary Role     <top of page>

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NAPC     <top of page>

• Researcher and data gatherer on key trends and developments related to human needs and helping resources, as well as needed changes for improvements and possibilities for successful action.
• Planner for identifying most critical concerns to be addressed.
• Organizer for convening and mobilizing resources for effective action on a broad range of often interrelated needs and concerns.
• Voice for improved social policy decisions to support recommended action.
• Source of technical assistance to plan and develop specific recommended changes, including new programs and organization of programs and agency relationships.
• Developer of new resources, financial and other, to help support recommended action for change.
• Advisor to public and voluntary local and state (and national, when appropriate) decision makers on better use of their respective resources

Community Problem Solving Project at M.I.T.     <top of page>

Intermediaries, both individuals and organizations, can make huge contributions by improving information available and supporting a process of engagement that leads to joint problem-solving. These are fundamentally facilitator roles, but sometimes an intermediary can be an educator without managing the engagement process itself.

-- Xavier de Souza Briggs, M.I.T.    

A Harvard Study at the Kennedy School of Government to develop tools for effective community problem-solving. Offers insights on the problem-solving process and its pitfalls, including organizing stakeholders, setting agendas, participatory planning, negotiating agreements, and building partnerships that work.

COMMUNITY PROBLEM	OPPORTUNITY	ROLES/COMPETENCIES NEEDED
Civic process and knowledge problems: Real or perceived conflicts amongstakeholders, impasse, information breakdowns (data gaps, missing or frayed relationships).	Facilitator and Public Educator. Educating stakeholders and the public about other stakeholders, substantive issues and stakes, and options for action.	Group facilitation, stakeholder and issue analysis, negotiation and dispute resolution, strategic planning, data and information systems management, public communication.
Operational capacity problems: Missing capacity, poorly structured or deployed capacity (duplication, fragmentation of effort, "stovepiping").	Coordinator and Capacity Builder. Coaching and training, developingorganizations, improving coordination.	Operations management, training, organizational development, strategic planning, program design and evaluation.
Performance and accountability problems: Inconsistent or underdevelopedstandards, inadequate measures, lack of trust in their competence, insufficient capacity to measure and report back.	Performance Investor and Monitor. Screening and validating resource seekers, pooling and distributing funds, helping players to define credible performance targets.	Performance measurement and management, evaluation, operations management, management information systems, financial management.
Legitimacy and political support problems: Missing or incomplete mandate to act, uneven support among diverse stakeholders, disenfranchised stakeholders.	Organizer. Identifying stakeholder groups and helping them to organize, facilitating coalitions and “building movement,” communicating analyses of data, helping advocates to develop capacity.	Political organizing and advocacy,data analysis, policy and programdesign, public communication,negotiation and dispute resolution,training, organizational development.

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Collaboration     <top of page>

The Collaborative Premise (Why do we collaborate?)
If you can bring the appropriate people together in constructive ways with good information, they will come up with good responses and get results.

Collaboration requires a clear objective, commitment and follow-through from stakeholders, good information, and available resources. Without just one of these things a collaboration can easily fail. Some of you may have experienced a failed collaboration resulting from lack of clarity, resources, commitment or information. It happens often, and it is wasteful (valuable time and energy).

So before we collaborate we should ask ourselves some questions:

• Should we partner? Consider the alliance strategically.
  • What are our limitations (decision making power, resources)? What kind of control is sacrificed in partnership? What can we accomplish as partners that we could not otherwise?
• What purpose would with partnerships serve? First, consider what the alliance might produce, then examine whether stakeholders present can bring added political support or legitimacy to the table.
  • Is there are sense of trust among participants? How will existing allies respond to the new partnership?
• How should we define success? Manage and measure group work from the start.
  • What do we want to create together? What kinds of knowledge and operational processes will help us monitor group outputs?
• How partnered should we be? Partnerships can exist on various levels of formality and depths of "integration."
  • Is this an arrangement of light cooperation or something more? Express these expectations early.

Group Deliberation     <top of page>

Managing the Group Process
Intermediaries can make important contributions to meeting effectiveness by paying attention to the group process - making an occasional observation or asking a well-timed question. When the following process considerations are not addressed, groups can become mired down, lose momentum, or even get entirely off track. What structure will the group use to make decisions? (Consensus, voting, majority rule?)

Why: Collectively set a broad vision or ‘agenda’ for action, develop strategy around issue, and design a specific project initiative to implement strategy.

• Is the purpose of the meeting clearly stated?
• Is there a clear agenda?
• Does it adequately address the issues the group needs to discuss?

Who: Decide who sponsors the group, participates in meetings, facilitates, generates and assesses ideas, and makes decisions.

• Who will take responsibility for convening meetings and setting the agenda?
• Who needs to participate in meetings?
• Who will facilitate?
• Who is able to make the decisions?
• Is everyone participating that should be?
• Are all voices being heard?

What: What issues are up and not up for decision? -Define scope and authority.

• What issues are up and not up for decision?
• Do we have the right people at the table to make the decisions we need to make?
• What is the scope of the issue we are deciding?
• What kind of authority does the group have to address the issue?
• Is the discussion on track? Is the group deliberating issues that address the agenda items?
• What is our strategy for addressing the issue at hand?

How: Organize the stakeholders, define and analyze the issue; convene, present, and get feedback; deliberate and decide.

• How will the group define and analyze the issue?
• How will it convene and organize the appropriate stakeholders?

Tips for navigating tough spots in the group process:
Often groups reach a complex point the problem-solving process and get stuck. Participants and facilitators (with the help of patience and persistence) can both utilize these simple methods for moving the group toward resolution.

• Stay on track. Encourage group members to revisit the agenda.
• Recognize and point out circular discussion.
• Set a time limit. Often groups can move forward with the
• Clarify. Do group members understand and agree about the question at hand? Is everyone clear about the context of the decision at hand (why the decision is being made and what will happen as a result)?
• Review interests. Be sure participants feel heard and understood.
• Acknowledge that the group is stuck and explore what might happen if no resolution can be found.

Leadership     <top of page>

Sometimes we tend to think of leadership as synonymous with management or even elected or officially designated leadership positions. In actuality, leadership is simply the ability to create change. Sometimes this is done by an ‘official’ leader of a process or group. However, leadership often comes from within the group- simply by asking the pertinent questions and focusing the needs of the group, a social worker can lead a community change process simply by being at the table.

Principals of Collaborative Leadership:

1. Inspire commitment and action – convince others that something can be done and create partnerships to bring people to the table and keep them there.
2. Lead as a peer problem-solver – Share ownership of the process by helping groups create a vision and make decisions about problems.
3. Building broad-based involvement – Include relevant, diverse community interests. Bring in additional stakeholders/perspectives.

‘Models for Community Building’ section leadership roles:

• Agenda Building: Convince stakeholders that an issue deserves a prominent position on the community’s agenda.
• Structure: Help community group identify goals and objectives, facilitating group action and interaction, maintaining group cohesiveness and satisfaction, providing means for group decision-making and task performance.
• Analysis: Ensure that each member of the collaboration participates in the process and shares ownership of the findings and solutions.
• Ownership: Shift ownership of the issue form the organization(s) to the community at large.
• Technology: Find innovate, effective solutions, assess their outcomes, determine transferability, and modify the solution to fit the particular needs of the community. And, help the committee ensure that stakeholders contribute resources to implement the plan.