e[CO]system

e[CO]system by Sauramandala Foundation delivers insights, learnings, techniques, ideas and innovations from the field as we strive to establish an ecosystem for collaborative and context-specific solutions to address societal challenges.

It is often tempting to opt for quick fixes to complex problems. To create lasting change, we must dig deeper, understand root causes, and develop tailored strategies. In a world with increasing scale and complexities of societal problems, how can we develop innovative and sustainable solutions that address what the communities need?

edition TWO:? Crafting Cohesive Projects: Convergent Thinking in Public Problem Solving

Introduction

With the rise of new technologies, the growing aspirations of individuals and a changing planet, the world around us has been changing very fast. With it, there are challenges, problems, and opportunities for our societies and economies. As non-profits, in our never-ending drive to solve problems for our communities, the domains have branched out so widely that finding a unison has become challenging.?

While all social projects are designed to do good, even for one organisation working with a particular community, different projects might set different goals, aspirations and expectations for both the community and the teams.? While the pursuit of these individual objectives is crucial for the communities to grow holistically, there is a need for the activities and objectives to find a point of convergence. A moment where two (or more) projects cohesively unite, converge and deliver holistic results.

Concepts from Design Thinking: Divergence and Convergence

In design thinking, divergence means exploring many ideas openly and creatively, while convergence involves focusing on the best ideas and refining them to solve a problem effectively. Divergence is like brainstorming, where you come up with many different ideas, and convergence is like picking the best ones and making them work together. These two steps help designers solve problems by thinking broadly and then narrowing down to the most practical solutions.

Read more on this concept here.

Image credit: Divergent Thinking & Design — Divergent Thinking

In Public Problem-Solving

The importance of convergence in the domain of societal problem-solving. cannot be overstated. By bringing together diverse perspectives and initiatives, organisations can achieve outcomes more significant than the sum of their parts. In public problem-solving, convergence is crucial in bringing together various initiatives to address complex issues more effectively. Like puzzle pieces fitting together to form a bigger picture, different projects converge to create synergistic outcomes that benefit each other and the communities.?

As solution designers, we all constantly go through the process of divergence and convergence without even realising or understanding it. In the hunt for the most effective solutions for our communities, we are constantly looking for information and new tools, opening up our senses to anything that has and hasn’t been tried before. Convergent thinking is essential in narrowing our focus to help us arrive at a result and listen to our instincts as facilitators and experiences from the communities and experts.

Example: From Practice

‘Incubation & Entrepreneurship (InE)’ is one of the emerging verticals of Sauramandala Foundation,? a product of convergent thinking, as part of our efforts in the last few years in Meghalaya.?

The PRIME-Sauramandala Rural Entrepreneurship Fellowship (PSREF) and the Chief Minister’s Youth Centres (CMYC) are two flagship programmes ideated, co-designed and implemented in Meghalaya in the last few years. Each of these two projects was aimed to benefit and deliver outputs for different sets of demographics and with different sets of partners who had their vision for these communities.

The bigger picture in play: CMYC is designed to be a self-designed learning space,? to provide a platform for rural youth to build on their dream. PSREF, on the other hand, is intended to be a support system for rural entrepreneurs. In the first year of the existence of these projects, what we found was that ‘Purposeful Convergence’ thinking can contribute towards creating the InE ecosystem where the projects become a support system to each other, delivering benefits that spill over to the intended beneficiaries of the individual projects.

Following the ‘Know you mode’ exercise from the above article: Decisions and choices we made at? each of the divergence phase (individual project design) and convergence phase (cohesion of the two projects)

Divergence

• Looking at the beneficiaries as a unique set with unique aspirations
• Partners for each project were functioning in different ecosystems?
• Resources for each project were allocated to specific pre-determined actions.
• Tools and techniques were unique to each project.

Convergence

• Actively looked for shared vision or??
• Partners were brought into discussion and ideation on creating a cohesive ecosystem.
• Sharing of resources and mobilisation of resources for newly found objectives
• A gradual introduction of new tools and techniques, watering down where needed

Conclusion: Purposeful Convergence

These ideas are commonly used in design thinking but less in societal problem-solving or non-profit spaces. While we might already use these ideas without realising it, understanding them better can help us use them more effectively. Purposeful convergence brings together different projects and efforts under one shared goal. This helps us tackle significant issues in a more coordinated and thorough way. It lets us see how different parts of a problem are connected and find solutions that work for everyone involved. Plus, purposeful convergence makes things more efficient by combining resources and expertise, making a bigger impact that lasts longer.

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