The idea was to create a non-hierarchical network using Team Syntegrity (Beer 1994, Beyond Dispute, Wiley). This is an interactive method that had already been used by the network co-ordinator for similar purposes (cf. Espejo and Schwaninger (facilitators), 1997, To be and not to be, that is the system, Carl Auer Verlag). The aim of this method is to develop shared virtual and physical spaces to support effective communications. It is a process that helps people discuss important issues creatively, in a participative, non-hierarchical fashion. The method allows participants to create their own agendas, organise themselves to discuss them, share their views with equal opportunities, reverberate ideas and reach operational agreements.The process starts with an opening question, after which participants (in general from 12 to 30, but could be more) are asked to produce what they consider statements of importance (SIs) related to the opening question. Then, they are asked to discuss these ideas virtually in small informal and flexible groups in order to produce aggregated statements of importance (ASIs). After a further process of general discussion the group converges into 12 consolidated statements of importance (CSI). These 12 CSI are the agenda of a face-to-face workshop. The CSIs are then discussed by groups of 4-5 participants in three successive meetings to produce final statements of importance (FSIs). The structure of these meetings is such that allows each participant, over three days, to participate in at least four of the groups, something that contributes to the reverberation of the ideas.
We followed this method during this project in order to explore our own Opening Question in three main phases: a Pre-Syntegration stage that was run in a virtual manner; a face-to-face Syntegration; and a virtual Post-Syntegration stage.