ISKM (Integrated Systems for Knowledge Management):
An outline of a participatory approach to environmental research and development initiatives
A collaborative approach to decision making is essential if we are to achieve more sustainable natural resource management. This will require the obtaining and improved use of high-quality information. The need for participatory or collaborative approaches to meet environmental challenges is especially important in communities where human and financial resources may be limited. By focusing on improving information use within a collaborative approach, people can broaden the scope of their actions and solve problems previously beyond their capacity. This page describes one such approach: Integrated Systems for Knowledge Management (ISKM). It is designed to improve links between research, management and policy to support the introduction of constructive change in "real" situations.
Effective collaborative management (or co-management) requires the many participants or stakeholders associated with environmental problems to develop solutions cooperatively as opposed to acting as advocates purely in their own interest. Participation in decision making encourages stakeholders to buy into outcomes and see them implemented. Since good decision making depends on the availability of sound supporting information, the need for carefully managed participation applies equally to gathering information and developing the systems for managing it as it does to the decision making itself. However, effective participation in information management is not always easy to arrange, especially in relation to environmental issues, which are often characterised by conflicting social perspectives. Managing the constructive involvement of stakeholders is a skill that requires as much emphasis as does developing our abilities in technical problem solving and the design of information technology.
The Integrated Systems for Knowledge Management (ISKM) approach is designed to support such an ongoing process of constructive community dialogue and to provide practical support for making decisions about resource management. This framework has been developed in New Zealand to help communities - in the widest sense of the term (e.g., land managers, scientists, policy makers, and other interest groups) - share their experiences and observations in order to develop the knowledge needed to support sound resource management decision-making. It builds on principles of community participation (e.g. Anyanwu 1988, Chambers & Guijt 1995), constructivism and experiential learning (e.g. Michael 1995) organisational learning (e.g. Malhotra 1997, Senge 1990), adaptive management (e.g. Lee 1993, Gunderson et al. 1995) and systems thinking (e.g. Checkland 1981, Bawden 1991), and is applicable to developing the knowledge and actions needed to change situations constructively. Like these other participatory approaches, ISKM does not offer a recipe for desirable change, but rather a description of an action-oriented process that may enable change.
The ISKM framework (Figure 1) promotes participation and self-help in managing natural resource projects by providing clear communication pathways to support dialogue and action. As such, ISKM is not a new project type or innovative development concept, but rather a specific approach that emphasises a number of key steps applicable to developing the knowledge and action needed to change problem situations constructively. The framework consists of familiar processes used in other fields of cooperation, and was designed around basic management actions, which include: identifying the problem and setting a management target; searching for information on how to achieve the target; implementing the best management practice available; evaluating the outcome; and adapting the management if required. The approach (Figure1) comprises two phases, which combine to form an effective learning environment.
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The ISKM approach can be applied for different purposes, and at different stages of the project management cycle. It can be used as a guide to construct a collaborative effort that helps address a particular problem (e.g., manage an invasive weed), or to develop an adaptive approach for communities wishing to develop an information system to help the identification, adoption, and ongoing refinement of best management practices (e.g., for grasslands or riparian management). Equally, ISKM can be used as an evaluation framework for those wishing to help communities assess programme effectiveness. In the latter regard the framework helps by providing a list of key steps required for the success of community-based natural resource management programmes.
This paper looks more closely at the steps involved in implementing an ISKM approach, and expands on the lessons that have emerged as the various steps have been applied in different environmental situations. These case studies draw on current work being done within integrated catchment management (http://icm.landcareresearch.co.nz/science_themes/human-dimensions/people_social.htm )and biodiversity restoration projects, as well as past studies in pest management (Kilvington et al. 1999; Allen et al. 2001b), waste management (Kilvington & Allen 2001), environmental conflict management (Allen et al. 1998), tussock grassland management (Allen 1996, 1997; Bosch et al. 1996). Many of these papers are available on-line through these Landcare Research social science research publications page.
Entry, contracting, and scoping
The starting point for any successful collaborative or partnership approach is the development of relationships that make it easy for people to talk about their needs, share information, and work together. However, in saying this, it must also be acknowledged that just as with personal relationships, one of the most important influences on community attitudes is previous experience. On occasion, people are extremely reluctant to enter into a second participatory process ... "we've already tried that and look what happened!"
A major part of this initial step is to involve stakeholders in developing a common understanding of the perceived issue or problem, and to decide collectively on the project goals, and the different roles that groups will undertake. This entails an initial scoping process to define the nature of the system under consideration, the needs and opportunities facing the different interest groups that may be involved, who should be involved, what can or should be changed, etc. It cannot be understated that this is the single most important step involved in initiating any collaborative approach.
If the aim is to develop and strengthen a cooperative approach to environmental management, then the key to success lies in identifying and gaining the active involvement of the right people within the process. This means more care in the selection of participants and participating groups, being sure to involve key stakeholders (e.g., farmers, local communities, women, indigenous peoples) who in past experiences have often been marginalised within the collective decision-making process.
Information gathering
The emphasis on problem formulation ensures a focus on the collation and development of "relevant" information and knowledge. It provides a basis for the design of appropriate processes (interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, etc.) to access and unlock the relevant existing data and information from both local and research communities. The problem is often not that we do not have enough information to address an issue, but rather that information and knowledge are fragmented between professional disciplines, economic sectors (public, private, etc.), government levels (local, national, etc.), agencies, organisations, and different end-users.
If we are going to provide relevant decision support to help people make decisions, change behavior, and develop new perspectives, then we also need to bring other information to the table. Certainly data and other research results are useful, but so is the political relationships between stakeholders and information on why different people perceive things as they do. It is by bringing these aspects into the open and stimulating debate between the different groups that the social parameters neglected in most analyses are automatically brought into the process. In this regard, people telling their own life histories or explaining pictures can be just as informative as the presentation of more rigorously defended figures, graphs, and reports.
Community dialogue
Given the complexity and different social perceptions of many agricultural and environmental situations, the process actively supports improved communication flows among all those involved so that "useful knowledge" is shared and channeled to develop "best management practices", and provide practical decision support.
Facilitated workshop formats provide a learning environment within which participants develop a shared understanding of how others see the world and how that shapes the way they act in it (e.g., manage their land, carry out their research, develop policy). Importantly, the process recognises the contextual nature of information. A strategy suggested by a conservator, farmer, or environmental group will have always been derived within a particular social, economic, and ecological setting. Scientific results are similarly derived within a particular context, which will include factors such as scale, site and the researcher's personal worldview. Accordingly, the community dialogue process is designed to seek the active cooperation of participants in developing a common understanding of the context in which any individual piece of information becomes relevant.
In this process diversity is encouraged, rather than discouraged and undervalued. This makes it less likely that useful information will be dismissed out of hand, and acts to minimise unnecessary conflict over the value and relevance of information supplied by different sources. While the presence of conflict need not put groups off pursuing a collaborative approach, there is clearly a substantial difference between pursuing a collaborative approach to improve an already well-functioning situation, and resolving an existing conflict. In the latter case the need for effective facilitation of meetings and expert mediation of conflicts is definitely greater. In the end though, the aim is to produce useful outcomes to help all those involved in the process. These outcomes will include the following:
Shared understanding and plans for action
The forums are designed to provide those who participate in the process with immediate access to new ideas and perspectives, which may help them re-evaluate their current management practices. At the same time it helps develop a shared understanding of resource management issues. The outcomes we are looking for here are action plans (with clear goals, objectives and "best management practices" or guidelines).
However, because the future is uncertain, our action plans must be adaptive and allow for continual "learning by doing". To do this we need appropriate monitoring tools and processes to help managers check that the action plans are working and guide their responses if changes are needed. This will require two sets of monitoring plans covering results and process. Results-monitoring focuses on whether you are getting where you want to go, while process-monitoring focuses on how efficiently you are getting there (see Allen 2000). Both sets of plans are best developed in conjunction with the people who will carry them out, and who are then more likely to actually follow them.
Relevant research initiatives
The process automatically aids in the identification of new and relevant research potential as knowledge gaps are identified. Importantly, the forums also provide land managers, conservators, and others with the opportunity to prioritise their information and technical needs as they work more closely with researchers.
Information capture and dissemination
The use of ISKM and similar community-based approaches provides, for all those directly involved, a learning environment in which useful knowledge is developed through a participatory process. At the forums the participants clarify questions, sort information on its applicability to addressing these, and identify the starting points for all of the stakeholders and their consequent information needs. Essentially this provides a framework to understand information relevant to the entire problem, and from this it is possible to develop an information management system (or DSS) so that this knowledge can be captured to benefit potentially all those who have not had the opportunity to be directly involved.
In this regard the Internet is emerging as a useful platform, particularly for managing complex environmental information. A major strength of the Internet is that it allows allows people to create, annotate, link together and share information from a variety of media including text, graphics, images, audio, and video. Moreover, involving people in developing hypermedia-based systems helps to promote collaborative learning and problem solving (Allen et al. 2001b). Not only is there likely to be greater commitment on the part of users to a system they have co-developed, but also a greater understanding of any changes needed to make it work.
An ongoing process - implementation and review
Importantly, the ISKM framework allows for the substance and context of the required information flows to be updated as more knowledge becomes available, and different goals are set. As resource managers and policy makers adopt new strategies and measure the results of their actions (formally adopting the linked concepts of monitoring and adaptive management), they will continually gain new information, which can be used to add to the data and information
pool. In a similar way the pool will receive an ongoing flow of new data and information from science activities. Accordingly, the nature of work undertaken by individual scientists will not change, the only difference being that the starting point for scientific experimentation is firmly embedded in the community.
The process is thus iterative, with each cycle serving to maximise the knowledge available at any point in time to support decision making by those in the community. The addition of different modules and issues will arise from the need to meet a community objective, which may be financial, ecological, or social, or some combination of these. As those involved cooperate to develop the necessary knowledge and knowledge-based tools, new issues will be raised and the whole learning process expanded.
The need for social capital
Even when technological information (e.g., best practices, DSSs, models) has been developed with a high degree of awareness of stakeholder needs, encouraging the use of this information to support decision making at a wider level is still a major challenge. Research and other agency or community teams can, at best, only work with a few representatives of stakeholder groups. This is particularly true in environmental management issues characterised by large geographic scales, many players, multiple perspectives on the situation, and in which science and other information is subject to diverse and contested interpretations.
While information is central to this process, learning also needs to be supported by other conditions. Key among these is the need to build and maintain trust among the different parties involved. Other processes will also be required to manage wider communication processes that enable the development of a shared understanding such that participants can quickly and effectively place problems and information in their wider context. These processes require the presence of trust, norms for sharing, reflective individuals and strong networks.
In the development and organisational learning literature these networks, norms and trust that facilitate cooperation for mutual benefit are referred to as "social capital". Social capital can be thought of as the framework that supports the process of learning through interaction, and requires the formation of networking paths that are both horizontal (across agencies and sectors) and vertical (agencies to communities to individuals). The quality of the social processes and relationships that social capital supplies - within which learning interactions take place - is especially influential on the quality of the learning outcomes in collaborative approaches. (see Figure 2: ISKM and its relationship with social capital)
Taken one step further, this suggests that this social capital plays an important role in influencing change, and sustaining a social and institutional environment that is ready to adapt and change. Equally, it helps provide an understanding of why change is much harder to achieve in some situations than others. In many cases some groups of stakeholders will lack the culture for participation in such multi-stakeholder processes. Thus, building capacity (or social capital) for participation should in many cases be seen as a first step - that capacity should not just be assumed to be there.
This capacity building is not just a function for science alone. It is something that needs to be built into all development activities: public health, education, environmental management, etc. Thus, each sector will contribute to the development of social capital that will, in turn, provide a richer social environment for subsequent efforts to operate in.
Process improvement
For guidance in refining ISKM and intervention-based approaches we can look towards the body of knowledge that has been generated through participatory action research - a family of research methodologies that aims to pursue action and research outcomes at the same time (Allen 2001). In action research, "action" is undertaken to improve a situation and the "research" is the conscious effort within the process to formulate public knowledge that adds to theories about actions that promote or inhibit learning.
However, even within the project itself, it is important to provide opportunities and resources to evaluate progress on an ongoing basis. Constant re-evaluation is particularly important in long-term projects not only to ensure that the project stays on track, but also to help reinforce that continued involvement is worthwhile. Tracking successes can be combined with a number of other initiatives to avoid "burn-out" and maintain enthusiasm and motivation among the different partners.
Collaborative approaches should not be seen as the development and strict application of a plan or set of rules; rather they are processes that require ongoing review and improvement. The most important result of these approaches is not a "plan" or a "problem solution", but a working partnership, capable of responding to changing needs in an effective way.
Finally, it must be remembered that these collaborative initiatives should be flexible, and designed to grow. There is no need to involve reluctant stakeholders in the beginning, and in some cases it may be that new stakeholders only get identified along the way. What is important is that those working together can change to accommodate this growth. Community involvement helps create ownership, and accordingly a feeling of accomplishment in working together to solve a problem. This group dynamic will in turn encourage other individuals, both from the community and government agencies, to participate.
Acknowledgements:
The authors acknowledge the support and funding provided by the New Zealand Foundation for Science, Research and Technology and Landcare Research. Participatory action research such as described here is not possible without the support and goodwill of all those involved, and we record our appreciation to all those who have put their time and effort into the projects described here.
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