VucaCanvas®

Stress the platform's design for it to become shockproof.

For your toolbox

VucaCanvas® is a framework to shockproof organisations and communities, and prepare them for unpredictable and hyper-connected futures. The framework supports a set of canvasses and an interactive (virtual) workshop. Apply these to tweak your platform's design and have it respond well to shocks.

Stress the platform

VucaCanvas® introduces the concept of stressors:. capacities that are helpful in coping with Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous environments. Stressors derive from evolutionary biology and describe how complex social systems behave, develop and survive. Stressors are a present from nature🎁

Each stressor shapes a specific capacity to shockproof and vibrant social systems:

• Adaptive - capacity to adjust
• Sensitive - capacity to be receptive
• Resilient - capacity to rebalance
• Connective - capacity to interlink
• Divers - capacity to vary
• Cooperative - capacity to collaborate

Injecting stressors into a platform's design will show up how it tends to respond to surprises and shocks. This is performed in three steps: form landscapes👉get insights👉find interventions.

• 🌳Form landscapes: the platform team stresses their design by assessing the six capacities. To assess, the elements of each capacity get scored on a sliding scale:

• 🔭Get insights: the team reflects on the landscape thus formed. These observations unfold insights about the level of development of each of the capacities:

  Most capacities are well developed. The Sensitive capacity shows that ecosystem as a whole is not all that receptive to surprises: a single news article could have a severe impact on AirBnB's identity and image. The Connective capacity uncovers that there are little to no mechanisms to shift negative sentiments. There is a seeming lack of a just cause and the network seems to benefit from financial benefits mainly.l

• ⚡Find interventions: the teams gathers the insights to have a top 3 of interventions emerge. Each interventions is aimed at changing patterns in the ecosystem and bringing the platform to a next level.

  1. Design and enable ‘deep learning’ within the platform to better understand collective patterns and behavior.

  2. Reshape the network around a ‘just-cause’ f.i. create a sustainable network which is not threatening the cohesion in neighborhoods.

  3. Reinforce and communicate a set of values for the network to guide hosts and guests in their connections and travels (example: Patagonia).

Start organising

A workshop can be facilitated on-location (4-50 people). An inspiring event using canvasses, Duplo bricks and conversation to stress the social platform and discover insights and interventions. Alternatively, a workshop can be facilitated on-line (4-10.000 people) using an interactive learning platform with sense-making and meaning-making software.

An online workshop

Using sense-making and meaning-making software to accelerate the proces

There is the possibility to hold your own workshops by joining an (online) accreditation training. Find more information on www.vucacanvas.com