Negotiating Objectives
This is the second installment in a three-part plug-and-play model we are called a Planetary Probe, designed to adapt to your specific organizational context. Here, Dara shifts the focus to mapping objectives on a planetary scale, challenging participants to think beyond immediate solutions and consider the long-term impact of their actions across time, place, and beings. This offering is a work-in-progress—we imagine these activities being picked up by others, adapted, and tested in a cycle of continuous engagement and improvement. Please email us at complexity@risd.edu with any feedback or to share outcomes. Read Part One of the probe model here, and Part Three here.
Overview: Addressing and Situating Challenges
Participants should look at their mapped challenges and consider how they may start to expand their thinking around the identified problem areas. How do these challenges change, if at all, when considered at different scales—across time,place, and beings?Figure 1
Figure 1. Planetary Scale: Time, Place, Beings
Activity: Scale Analysis
We believe a holistic approach should consider factors that aren’t just relevant today but affect both the process and the outcome spanning a widened scope of relevance. Band-aid solutions are no longer acceptable. What might seem like an improvement today might not hold true tomorrow, or could even make things worse if there is no regard for externalities. Can interventions on a local level allow for exploration of what is possible and scalable on a regional or global level? How can local actors help to steer goals toward a wider interest? If we are honest about intention and make the visibility of activity a priority, can we build the trust necessary to scale change?
In order to broaden thinking around the mapped challenge and determine actionable next steps, participants should identify and analyze enabling conditions as well as question both the relevance and barriers to action across time, place, and beings. We offer some questions below to guide the exercise. Drill down to interconnected specifics using the rubric under Challenge Framing (who, what, where, when, why) for each of these mapping attempts.
Part A — Analyzing the Challenge1
Which of the following conditions or mechanisms affect the challenge and how? Participants may refer back to their mapped challenge.
- Physical Events
- Behavior Patterns: Negative and Positive Feedback Loops
- Systemic Concerns: System Structure, Goals, Rules
- Consciousness: Mindset and Framing
Part B —
Expanding the Challenge Frame
What factors lead to the challenge occurring? This could be understood as the causes, reasons, or elements that allowed for the challenge to exist in its present form.
What happens after the challenge occurs?
This could be understood as considering the symptoms or outcomes (in the near or distant future) of this challenge.
Why is the challenge important to address?
- Today, Tomorrow, in the Future
- Locally, Regionally, Globally
- For Individuals, For the Collective, For the Environment
Download high-resolution template here.
What are the barriers to intervention?
- Today, Tomorrow, in the Future
- Locally, Regionally, Globally
- For Individuals, For the Collective, For the Environment
Download high-resolution template here.
Figure 3. Barriers Analysis template.
- Meadows, D. H. (1999). Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System. The Sustainability Institute. https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system.
Figure 1. Benno, D. (2023). Planetary Scale: Time, Place, Beings. Center for Complexity.
Figure 2. Benno, D. (2023). Planetary Scale Analysis template. Dara Benno. 2023. Center for Complexity.
Figure 3. Benno, D. (2023). Barriers Analysis template. Dara Benno. 2023. Center for Complexity.