WHAT MADE SCALING PARTICULARLY COMPLEX? Reflections From Participatory Canada Core Team While the results from social R&D year 1 contained in this report are hugely encouraging, delivering something as ambitious and complex as Participatory Canada has brought considerable challenges and robust learning. This section outlines some of the key challenges and learning from the perspective of the Participatory Canada core team as they worked to support the Participatory City approach as it was tested in three cities.
The team identified 6 primary challenges that made scaling particularly complex:
“SCALING WAS MORE COMPLEX AND MORE DEMANDING THAN EXPECTED”
3. Complex Co-Design Process
- Nat Defriend, Participatory City Foundation Early thinking about scaling assumed that the Canadian prototypes would likely follow a fairly linear process, approximately replicating the stages the UK team went through in getting the project established in London. The reality was that co-design, co-creation, and scaling demanded far more from the Participatory Canada leadership than had originally been planned for, especially in the research and development phase, and this primarily because of the context of COVID-19. The level of adaptation required to fit the evolving situation with the pandemic was underestimated, and the development in each city was complex. Supporting the three prototypes as well as the initiative in Barking and Dagenham during COVID-19 increased the complexity. The core team recognizes that kickstarting new initiatives with the Participatory City approach will always be complex, particularly in the start up phase. There are no shortcuts to the deep learning necessary for this phase to be successful. The prototypes provided an understanding of the learning required, as well as of the learning infrastructures that must be in place prior to undertaking further work.
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PARTICIPATORY CANADA Y1 SOCIAL R&D REPORT
1. COVID-19 Pandemic 2. Establishing a High Number of Collaborative Working Relationships 4. Creative and Intellectual Property 5. Shifting Program Delivery Patterns 6. Influence of Organizational Priorities and Culture
