Search Conferences and Future Search Conferences

This chapter examines the potential of the Search Conference (SC) and a later version, the Future Search Conference (FS), as useful participatory methods that contribute to urban and other types of planning. An unusual feature of these approaches is that participants are expected to contribute to the implementation of any action recommended. The chapter begins with a definition and history of these conferences before outlining how traditional, face-to-face conferences are implemented. As an illustration, the Future Search Conference ‘Bendigo +25’ (carried out in a regional Australian city to determine ways forward for the next 25 years) is discussed. The same case study is then re-examined in the context of attempting to run such an exercise in a Web-based environment. Both advantages and challenges of this mode of delivery are considered.

Participatory Development of Enterprise Process Models

In this chapter we present practical experience from using a technique we call Modeling Conferences, a method for participatory construction and development of enterprise process models. Process models are an important way to support communication, coordination, and knowledge development within an organization. The Modeling Conference method focuses on broad participation from all actors in the organization, is grounded in a social constructivist perspective, and has its theoretical basis in the method of search conferences and process modeling. In an engineering consultancy firm, the Modeling Conference method has been used to develop process models for main common work tasks that have been implemented on an intranet. Independent evaluations show that participation through the Modeling Conferences led to significantly more ownership to the process models, and that the actors have developed new collective knowledge.