Mobility Matters Extra - The Future of Transport is Liberating
New ways of thinking are needed to solve old problems
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This content is an adapted version of an original LinkedIn post. I have added some evidence on how they work, and some recommendations on how you can apply them in your work.
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If you work in the transport sector, you know the issues at stake. We have to decarbonise, and quickly. Our impact needs to become more equitable, as well as the way that we do things. Transport is linked to so many issues like health problems, poor air quality, issues around gender and social mobility to name a few issues that more learned people than myself are more qualified to talk about. We know that what are doing right now isn't helping much, and the pace of policy change and delivery can be glacial at best.
The scale of the challenges we face can appear daunting, because they are daunting. It is easy to lose heart and think that the challenge is too big, and the obstacles are too great to overcome. It is even easier to retreat into your own comfort zone, to be content to see out the day-to-day battles of work and to generally be comfortable. I don't blame you either. But if you look closely enough, there is a certain liberation in this degree of helplessness.
What is needed is system change, which many people more learned than myself have been asking for some time. The current system, like other systems, perpetuates itself. Any change that is taking place in our tools and appraisal techniques is glacial, with the impacts even more so. Transport needs to change how it does things completely.
It is time for us to embrace some Liberating Structures, and in this article I will show you how to do it with some practical examples.
Let’s start with some basics
I first came across the concept of liberating structures when attending a OneTeamGov unconference in 2017. The principle behind Liberating Structures is simple:
“Liberating structures are frameworks that make it possible for people and organizations to create, to do new things, to be innovative. These are processes or rules that can be put in place to encourage people to be free, creative, and get results, rather than find themselves oppressed, constrained, confined, or powerless.” United States Army
Experiencing liberating structures is a bit hard to describe, but I will do my best. You are in a room with strangers and a facilitator. The facilitator explains the basics behind the activity, and then says “away you go.”
At first, you are wondering what on Earth you should do. You feel like you have been thrown in at the deep end. “You want my ideas?” and “Oh God, I am going to have to talk in a minute” come instantly to mind.
But then someone takes the fist step by answering the question posed, or makes a funny quip.
Then someone else answers.
Then another person asks a question about that answer.
After a few minutes chat and realising you are all in the same boat, you then feel inspired to do the activity set for you. Now you are on a roll. The ideas start flowing and the creativity starts to surface. You allocate roles for the tasks set of you, or you volunteer for them. You offer up your knowledge – a random fact or a bit of research you heard about.
Sometimes, you even complete the task set for you. Occasionally the facilitator will interject to try and keep you on track. But at this stage it is immaterial. You are doing liberating structures before you know it. And you don’t even realise it.
You are probably thinking that this sounds fluffy. Yes, it is fluffy. But don't mistake that for not being serious. No doubt your experience of this sort of thing is from some really badly facilitated workshop or brainstorming session in some dinghy corner office on an industrial estate in Slough or somewhere. Am I right?
It's not just that, though. It also reflects how the transport sector does its work. Transport’s tools and ways of doing things have very defined value, in some cases literally, and the link between a tool’s output and its impact is often clear. We have inputs, a suite of different options to do something, and a series of outputs and impacts. So why waste time using anything else?
As anyone who has ever used the Double Diamond of design thinking knows, you need to diverge your thinking before focussing on a solution. What Liberating Structures does for transport planning is diverge our thinking. When transport considers its options, they are often from a pre-set menu, or we want to get to the solution right away. But divergence as a process is exploratory, unknown, uncomfortable, and sometimes scary. You are supposed to challenge your thinking and your own biases. Even look at the crazy ideas. Doing so is liberating, even if you come back to the same solutions in the end.
Us transport people feel uncomfortable when doing this. But we can do it, do it well, and our work is all the better for it. How do I know? Because with some good colleagues, I’ve done it, and I’ve seen the change happen in people. But you need to run over some basics first on how to apply Liberating Structures well.
The basics and evidence of impact
Lets start with the obvious thing. Liberating Structures are excellent tools, but they do not apply to every situation. The fundamental question that you need to ask is:
Is my project, strategy, or business idea currently at a stage of divergence, or is it at a stage of convergence?
Let me explain with an example.
Lets say you are working on a new active travel route between a neighbourhood and a city centre. You know the general aim - to get more people walking and cycling along this corridor. Your policies say that you need to get more people doing both these things, whilst cutting air pollution and carbon emissions. Your brief says that you must deliver this, and involve key stakeholders and the community as much as you can throughout - from design to completion.
In the first scenario, you are starting with a blank canvass. You need to generate ideas and options, and you need to engage as many people as you can. Liberating Structures are perfect here for generating ideas and encouraging debate. You could use Conversation Cafe if you want people to listen to others’ points of view, or W3 if you are looking to learn lessons from the past.
In the second scenario, you are looking to get from ideas to delivery quickly. Again, Liberating Structures can be used here to generate ideas, and develop plans for prototyping solutions. 15% Solutions is perfect for this. If you have some spare street traffic cones to hand, Improv Prototyping can be huge fun.
In the third scenario, you have worked with stakeholders to define a solution, and you have created plans that you want people’s views on. Liberating Structures are not really suited for this. You are starting to converge on the solution, and so the question you are asking of people should be more “is this what you had in mind when we started thinking of things differently?” and not “we want your ideas and suggestions.”
The evidence of the impact of liberating structures is, I’ll be honest, lacking, especially if you ignore the impacts spoken of as ‘reframing the conversation’ or encouraging serious play. Some early stage pilots in non-transport fields indicates that liberating structures…
“…hold the creative potency to enhance both the instructor pedagogical experience and the student learning experience.”
But, that’s about it really. Then again, when you look at the impacts of traditional engagement methods, a similar lack of evidence is also soon discovered. There is real potential here for a random controlled experiment between two types of engagement, and after you have controlled for other factors affecting decision making, determining which methods have the bigger impact on transport decisions.
Regardless of this, people do think differently, and people approach problems differently, and different methods are likely to suit different people. Using one method because it is what is written in law does not mean that others cannot be experimented with, and potentially applied more widely. It is just that we as transport professionals favour an approach that is process led.
It was time to experiment with an approach which was very much not process led.
Sometimes, you just need an example to help understand
If you want to know how to run your own unconference, the organisers of Transport Planning Camp produced this guide. This Miro board shows what we learned.
In 2018, I had a mad idea. Let’s run a transport unconference. It had been done in the USA as Transportation Camp, so why not here? For those of you unfamiliar with the idea, at an unconference, only the theme and rooms are set up by the organisers. The sessions are suggested and decided upon by attendees on the day. It provides everyone with the opportunity to shape the event.
My good friends Laura Putt, Anna Rothnie, and Pawel Bugajski bravely put their hands up to help out. Right then, Transport Planning Camp was born1.
We would apply some liberating structures at scale. We would give participants at our first unconference in Leeds the chance to experience something unlike any other event they had been to before. We would give them the chance to shape their event, in their way, and just give them some light nudges throughout the day to guide the discussion. We spent a lot of time convincing people that this would be a fun day, and even more time explaining what on Earth an unconference is.
For weeks, we emailed, nudged people, sold the event at every opportunity, and even started ringing people to get them to come. Eventually, 50 brave transport planners made the trek to the ODI at Leeds, and our plan went into action.
And it could not have gone better
The feedback that we got was insane. Comments like “best transport event I have been to in years” and “I love the format” are still with me even after all of these years. Our attendees took to liberating structures like a duck to water. We had ideas for new transport solutions being generated, vigorous debate about the value of freight in cities, and people even committing to changing their jobs to something that they care passionately about and where they can be more creative – which they did. Granted, there were issues, as not everyone is a great fan of something almost completely structureless. We took that critique on board, and sought to do better next time.
A particular success was our use of the 25/10 Crowd Sourcing method to generate ideas. We got people to write down their ideas on a post-it. They passed it around for 30 seconds whilst milling around. A bell rang, and everyone discussed the ideas in the post-it in their hand with their neighbour. They then rated it from 1-5. We did that again 4 more times, and the ones with the most votes made up the day. The energy during that session was amazing.
We ourselves were so inspired, the following year we did it all again the following year in Manchester. We even had someone from the first event – Kit Allwinter – come and help organise. And again, it worked. 50 more people left feeling inspired after talking all day about the climate emergency. Even the traditional Manchester weather couldn’t dampen the spirits.
When the whole world seemed to be falling apart last year, we did it all online. 70 people turned up, and the response was the same yet again. When we surveyed people afterwards, 90% of our participants said they would recommend Transport Planning Camp to a friend or colleague.
Throughout all of these events, we applied different liberating structures to different sessions in the unconference. Over the years, we have facilitated chats using Conversation Cafe, prompted with Wicked Questions, used 1-2-4-All to generate ideas as a group, and come up with solutions using Improv Prototyping. We generated loads of ideas, loads of debate, and loads of inspiration.
The impact of what we did is hard to fully quantify, but our early evidence is promising
The stats don’t lie. Nearly 200 people have so far attended our events. 9 out of 10 participants enjoyed Transport Planning Camp. 8 out of 10 would recommend it to a friend. Actions inspired included:
“I will apply for a job where I can make an impact”
“I will challenge colleagues and decision makers to be bold and challenge the status quo in transport planning”
“I will raise awareness and educate others of the detrimental effects of not putting people first.”
But the question then becomes, why were Liberating Structures successful? Its just a method after all, and it isn't the only way of solving problems. The answer to that was something we did not expect.
Safety.
We were struck by how often the phrase ‘safe space’ was mentioned. Our forum was different. It provided no heirarchy, no assumed importance, and participants often regulated the conversations just like that. By providing an egalitarian forum where constructive challenge was encouraged, the ideas and discussion flowed, even if the outcomes seemed to be quite common to many other transport events.
By doing so, the process of divergent thinking becomes less daunting. Divergence as a process is exploratory, unknown, uncomfortable, and sometimes scary. Sometimes, to get started you need help to you get going, and thats what Liberating Structures does. This allows people to challenge their own thinking and their own biases. They even start to look at the crazy ideas. Doing so is liberating, even if you come back to the same solutions in the end.
Right. I guess I get it. It may not be for everyone, but its something different and different is good.
As you can see, this is a complete contrast to the processes that we usually follow, and the events that we usually attend. There, us transport professionals don’t talk more radically, or if we do it is within the confines of an existing way of doing things. I mean, is putting in a cycle track radical? Come on! This is the way that we have always done things. The way that is not responding to the challenges that we face at the pace and urgency that is needed.
The transport profession needs to change its world. I happen to believe it can. No, I know it can. I have seen transport professionals do this. To change the world, we first need to change ourselves. And perhaps it is time that us transport professionals liberated ourselves enough to tackle the huge challenges that are ahead.
Recommendations to you
This article has given you a taster of what Liberating Structures can do and the value that they add. But how can they be applied in your everyday work? Well, here are some hints and tips from Mobility Camp, and from over the years of applying Liberating Structures:
Apply them at times of divergence, or when you are just starting to converge. Remember the double diamond. If you are doing strategy work, applying Liberating Structures in developing your aims and objectives, defining your scenarios, and developing options. Don’t apply them when you have chosen a scheme option or policy approach and you are working on the detail.
The less technical the audience, the more liberating you should be. It is your job as a professional to inform and guide, not to tell them what the solution is. You should give them the chance to share and explore their views first through Liberating Structures.
Always prompt people by asking where the evidence is. Us transport professionals love evidence and being data-driven. If you can note down evidence along the way, it will make your job later a lot easier.
Give it meaning. Many will be scared of your approach. Tell them why you are using Liberating Structures, and what outcomes they should expect to see from the process.
Finally, read the methods themselves. Chances are, there is one that will fit what you want to do. Good luck!
This year, we are doing it all again, but this time as Mobility Camp in Glasgow on 16th October. I say we, as this is all being done again with a whole new team. Kit is still around, but Amber Kenyon, Molly Hoggard, Pam Turton, Marie Godward, and Alexis Edwards have stepped up and are putting in some great work to put on a great event for you all. Anna, Laura, and Pawel are still great supporters, and I cannot thank them enough for all they have done to help out over the years.