Stacked Affordance Frameworks
How Goal & Means Meet Reality
This time of the year tends to be a season of self-reflection within a “future-me” focused orientation. As I reflect back on 2024, I'm also working through visioning for the year ahead. Nudged along by fellow system thinkers, I’ve chosen to make 2025 my year of Transformation Experience Design. In that vein, I'm pursuing, exploring and practicing the use of nested, stacked and recursive affordances1.
Ben Mathes recently shared this diagram with me (from Venkatesh Rao's Ribbonfarm post, "How to Fall Off the Wagon"). I tried to interpret it without referencing the source article (which I finally read today). What follows below is my original naive take, acknowledging that Rao’s article has plenty to chew on and discuss further. I encourage you to read and digest the source inspiration.
One way to interpret Rao’s nested triangular diagram is as a flattened map of a complex affordance landscape. To pop this out into 3D, I added salience and relevance through a relationship with the ground truth of reality.
The Golden Triad: Goal & Means Meet Reality
The following is a set of complementary, nested frameworks we can use to guide collaborative & transformational work experiences, whether as an individual, a team or whole community endeavour. These frameworks are meant to provide a minimum effective dose of structure in order to help coordinate and navigate through our landscape of travel, but also to create spaces for generative creativity.
The first is a goal framework comprised of
Values: Establishing shared values creates a foundation of trust and mutual respect, both within and outside a community.
Purpose: A clear, collective purpose guides the community direction and motivates engagement & participation.
Principles: Agreed-upon principles inform decision-making and behaviour, ensuring consistency and integrity.
Process: Defined processes facilitate efficient collaboration and conflict resolution that lead to desired experiential outcomes.
Projects: Desired outcome-specific projects provide tangible products with measurable effects that reflect our aspirational goals.
The second is means framework comprised of
Lenses: Adopting diverse perspectives enhances understanding and innovation.
Tools: Utilizing appropriate tools streamlines collaboration and productivity.
Artifacts: Creating shared mementos & artifacts (e.g. recipes, guideline documents, reports, common language & symbols) solidifies collective knowledge and culture.
Solo Practices: Encouraging individual reflection and development contributes to personal growth and community well-being.
Shared Rituals: Engaging in community and team rituals strengthens bonds and reinforces shared values.
The final is a relational reality framework that aligns with meaningful values and is comprised of
Relationships: Nurturing positive relationships fosters a supportive and cohesive team & community.
Regulation: Emotional and cognitive regulation maintains a healthy and productive environment.
Roles: Clearly defined roles ensure accountability and effective collaboration.
Responsibilities: Recognizing and fulfilling responsibilities promotes trust and reliability.
Results: Evaluating results provides feedback for continuous improvement and celebrates achievements.
The intent in integrating these three "affordance" frameworks — GOAL & MEANS meets REALITY — is to develop a comprehensive philosophy and toolkit for fostering flourishing communities, enhancing collaborations, and facilitating positive transformations. By transformative, I mean experiences that generate positive, adaptive changes that in turn lead to more resilience and an ongoing capacity to thrive via:
flourishing connections
generative collaborations
creative flow.
By synthesizing these frameworks, communities can create a holistic approach that integrates goals, means, and relational dynamics, leading to enriched collaborations and transformative experiences that promote collective well-being.
I aim to explore these ideas further in due time, but for now will leave a breadcrumb map for further exploration of practical applications.
Community Development
Establish Shared Values and Purpose: Initiate open dialogues to define the community's core values and collective purpose.
Implement Processes and Principles: Develop guidelines and procedures that reflect these values and facilitate effective collaboration.
Utilize Appropriate Tools and Rituals: Select tools that support the community's processes and engage in rituals that reinforce shared values.
Define Roles and Responsibilities: Clearly articulate individual roles and responsibilities to ensure alignment with the community's goals.
Foster Relationships and Regulation: Encourage activities that build relationships and support emotional and cognitive well-being.
Evaluate Outcomes and Results: Regularly assess the community's progress toward its goals and make adjustments as needed.
Enhancing Collaborations
Adopt Diverse Lenses: Encourage team members to view challenges from multiple perspectives to foster innovation.
Provide Tools and Artifacts: Equip teams with the necessary tools and create shared artifacts to document progress.
Engage in Solo and Collective Practices: Balance individual work with collaborative efforts to leverage personal strengths and group synergy.
Clarify Roles and Responsibilities: Ensure each member understands their role and responsibilities within the team.
Support Emotional Regulation: Promote practices that help manage stress and maintain focus during collaboration.
Focus on Desired Outcomes: Keep the team's efforts aligned with the intended results and adjust processes as necessary.
Facilitating Positive Transformation
Align Values and Purpose: Ensure that transformation initiatives resonate with the community's core values and purpose.
Develop Principles and Processes: Establish principles and processes that guide transformative efforts ethically and effectively.
Leverage Tools and Rituals: Use tools and engage in rituals that support the transformation process and embed new practices.
Redefine Roles and Responsibilities: Adjust roles and responsibilities to align with the transformed state.
Facilitate Emotional and Cognitive Regulation: Provide support for individuals to navigate the emotional and cognitive aspects of transformation.
Measure Results and Outcomes: Assess the impact of transformation efforts and ensure they contribute to collective flourishing.
In psychology, affordance is what the environment offers the individual. In design, affordance has a narrower meaning; it refers to possible actions that an actor can readily perceive. (source: wikipedia)