[governance] Need for strategic planning (was Re: Why Cell Phones Went Dead...)

[Norbert Bollow]

Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh at hserus.net> wrote:

> Some organizations (MAAWG, the RIRs / NRO, APWG, EPIC ..) have active
> policy + tech programs in place, Diplo also does a substantial amount
> of on the ground work in training .. could you please highlight
> specific areas where you see a gap?

I see the gap not primarily in regard to any specific areas, but in
regard to the big picture objectives, around which we in fact have broad
consensus at the level of making nice-sounding speeches and the "realm
of word docs and powerpoint", but nevertheless lack of effective
strategic planning for translation those supposed insights into
concrete effective actions.

As exhibit A let me point to the recent IGF, which according to its
official theme was about the goal "Sustainable Human, Economic and
Social Development". But was it really about that topic? None of the
sessions that I attended were truly about that goal. I organized a
workshop and tried to make the conversation relevant to the objective
that was supposed to be the IGF's theme. But it didn't work out since
too many of my panelists turned out to be unwilling to truly engage
with that. The IGF community is wonderful in many ways, but
at this IGF, willingness to truly engage with the goal "Sustainable
Human, Economic and Social Development" has not been one of them.

In my opinion, lack of knowledge of effective tools for strategic
planning in complex systemic context (with lots of self-interested
actors that can be influenced in some ways, which can not be
controlled) is a main cause of this shortcoming. The good news is that
such tools actually exist, what I know is the "logical thinking
process" tools of the Theory of Constraints. I also consider it
possible that there may be other good tools that I don't know about yet.

Greetings,
Norbert

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