Toolkit Activity Matrix
In order to be useful and fit for purpose, every (design) tool needs to be positioned and understood in a broader context of meaning and action. A toolkit becomes effective not only when it provides well curated tools and resources, but rather when it also allows its audience to easily access and grasp its broader system of sense. At the same time, an effective toolkit needs to acknowledge diversity, recognizing different levels of previous knowledge and skills that in turn may lead to different ways to interpret and use the tools and resources provided, making the latter flexible and adaptable.
For this reason, rather than providing a set of selected tools, at this stage the Toolkit concentrates on building the broader system of collaborative governance sense that underpins the Toolkit itself - captured in The RCG Toolkit -, as well as on defining a core set of activities that will represent the ground for co-creating tools and resources. These activities are indicated in the Activity Matrix.
The Matrix has been built based on the analysis of the Pilot Cities Action Plans developed by the REFLOW cities, as well as on follow up conversations with each of them to better scope out core challenges and opportunities addressed.
The activities are defined at this stage to accommodate different needs, but also to recognize different starting points in the transition to circular and regenerative cities. There are cities that are already front runners, owning a rich capital of ‘circular’ experience and knowledge that makes them able to operate in REFLOW at great scale and scope. Other cities may instead be at earlier stages, with the need to better size and explore different scenarios of circular transition, and to build a solid approach and intervention strategy.
In this perspective, the Matrix offers a set of activities of different nature (research, design, coaching, etc.), which in some cases are addressing ‘governance’ directly, while in others are more preliminary or complementary to it.
As governance is a broad concept that entails multiple ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ aspects - systems of values, social norms, dynamics of power but also regulation, legislation, etc., no one single activity allows us to fully set in place meaningful governance arrangements for REFLOW; instead, we need to tackle the topic from multiple perspectives, and via creative combinations of expertise, disciplinary domains and know-how. Moreover, the activities presented here are not set in stone; they may change or adapt in the collaboration with the pilot cities, and be further enriched, especially for the phases of the Journey which are yet to be better scoped out (i.e. Make and Release phases).
How the Matrix is connected with the Portfolio and the Journey
The Activity Matrix is essentially a ‘mirror’ of the Portfolio - i.e. the way in which the various activities defined in the Matrix can support activities and experiments envisaged by the REFLOW cities across the core levers they address, over an horizon from the short towards the long term. Moreover, activities are associated with the different phases of the Journey - i.e. Understand, Define, Make, Release; as the latter can apply to the individual activities or experiments, and/or to a combination of activities/experiments within one horizon level, as well as to the full stack of activities/experiments across the three horizons, the approach to this preliminary definition of activities follows the need to operate at different scales - from the micro-level of a single and highly place-based experiment, up to the definition of a full-spectrum set of activities/experiments sustaining transition paths at scale and scope. Again, this goes back to pilot cities’ needs and starting points: for some cities we may limit to few activities in a short term horizon, while others may be ready to work effectively with greater complexity and systemic approaches.
Therefore, each city will work based on its own activity matrix, unleashing in turn different journeys. By doing so, outcomes, outputs and tools elaborated will differ from case to case; yet, taken together, they will form a comprehensive set of tools and resources that will shape the REFLOW knowledge and experience capital for transition journeys rooted in collaborative governance.
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