Simple in it’s form, complex in it’s function. The iterative design process (IDP) works recursively and is best used fractally. Fundamentally it is observation of all interacting parties to find leverage points that move us in the direction of goals, the greater the depth of the observation the more accurate the design.
Goals & Ethics
What should the outcome be? What specific things need to happen? Use the ethics to create and check your goals. Write it down.
Resources & Limits
Your resources and limiting factors are your strengths and weaknesses, your in and out breath. Better make a list.
Scale of Permanence
Know how much energy you’re committing and the relative amount of effort and effect. Pick a place to start.
Zone & Sectors
Organize elements by their relative placement and identify incoming or outgoing energy flows. How does your element relate to the whole?
Principles
Use the principles to reveal ways that the resources or limiting factors might be approached.
Action
I realize I have left out Action from the process. Take what you have learned through this process and put it into action. The larger and complex your change the more time and effort it will take to stabilize.
Repeat
This may seem too facile but elementary things build up to make the most complex of systems. This process gets the momentum going.
I’m sure it would be useful to see some examples of it’s use, so here is one:
Rhonda Baird, William Faith, and I used a form of the IDP to start a project that would get us, three regionally adjacent permaculture teachers, together teaching a PDC. We’ve ended up forming the GLPDC and running an experiential design course for 6 weekends that has all the lecture frontloaded with short presentations on youtube and some accompanied reading.
Goals & Ethics
A clear and obtainable goal lead to continued forward momentum. Since the goal is guided by the ethics, it has the complexity to cause multiple beneficial effects. We ultimately want to build up the numbers of people who will have the skills, knowledge, and passion to implement high quality designs within our bioregion.
Resources & Limits
Considering our goals within the context of our resources and limits lead us to use the nature of our lack of proximity as an advantage. We used skype and our recording knowledge to create short lectures, leaving class time as an active experience to increase the student’s momentum. We’ve constructed the course by combining the PINA curriculum with tools from the book “Liberating Structures“, Group Works , and other hands on activities. The experience we have between us gives us the ability to improvise as needed within the framework of our curriculum to give the students the best experience possible.
Scale of Permanence
We know that investing in each of our local bioregions is a long term proposition that can dramatically transform them on a larger time scale. It’s a long hard slog but the result would be worth the effort.
Zone & Sectors
Since the three teachers are up to a day’s drive apart we’re each working in the others zone 5 (the far edge of their influence) but by planning to move each full design course between the three locations we build up a local population of permaculturists, essentially pumping up our combined region with local systems thinkers.
Principles
Leveraging our limited proximity to record lectures is a long term process (small and slow solutions), but provides a new format for our current course (obtain a yield & creatively use & respond to change), and makes them available both for future use (catch and store energy).
Action
We have come together as the GLPDC to put on permaculture courses in each of our locals, benefiting from the strength of our diversity being brought to each of our locations.
Repeat
As we have proceeded the formalness of the design has softened into something more organic. We continue to progress but new patterns have emerged to continue the momentum rather than get it started.