Wildwork is like homework but done in the wild: in a wood, a park or a garden. It’s an observational exercise in two parts:
- Go outside and then run through one of the three sets of observational questions below.
- Then go and sit in your office or relevant project context and ask the same questions.
The process is intended to help us see the patterns at play in the complex systems we inhabit and seek to change.
Question set 1 – on connection
- If the system you are looking at were a play, who would be the characters?
- How do the characters relate to one another?
- Which characters are missing?
- What is the stage?
- Are you in the play or are you in the audience?
Question set 2 – on flow
- In the system you are looking at, what changes and what remains constant?
- What changes quickly? What changes slowly?
- What changes are cyclical? What is the period of these changes?
- What works with these cycles, ignores them or works against them?
- Where does the energy come from? Where do the resources come from? What happens to the waste?
- If things are in flow, what gets eroded? What gets carried along?
- And what channels flow?
Question set 3 – on change
- In the system before you, what happens when things change?
- What drives change —and what is driving it now?
- Is the system homogeneous or heterogeneous?
- What patterns are new? What patterns have stood the test of time?
- How have existing patterns adapted?
- How are new ideas adopted?
- Who decides?