I'm planning to start a new ecohousing
venture in 2017 that will differ from Sage Garden Ecovillas in its
vision and business model. When that venture starts, I'll move out
of Sage Garden and turn over daily operation to a new on-site
manager. There are many things I'll miss about living here: talking
with the residents and neighbors, checking in on the trees and other
plants, thinking about systemic suburban issues and solutions. But
the time is coming for someone else to get the firsthand experience
of managing this place, time for a fresh pair of eyes and fresh
ideas, and time for me to start learning secondhand the lessons this
place has to offer that I couldn't see firsthand – the forest for
the trees, and all. In the meantime, I'm collecting logs of the kind
of work I do here on a regular basis. This will help me find the
right manager and define my expectations. Having a clear definition
of expectations will not only help the new manager to succeed; it
will also be an opportunity to put some cooperative agreement
concepts into practice.
THE WHYS
Below is a motive map outlining the
“whys” I just mentioned for defining expectations. (For an
explanation of motive maps, see the earlier post called “Meet the
Motive Map,” although there are some interesting differences
between this motive map and the ones I talked about in that post,
which I promise I'll go into before I end this post, because I can't
resist talking theory.)
The white nodes outlined in dashed
lines above are imported from the latest motive map of all the
ongoing programs and practices at Sage Garden Ecovillas (the whole
map is shown later in this post). By the way, the “RBP” in the
rightmost node stands for regenerative business practices. The blue
nodes are objectives that apply specifically to preparing for a new
manager, and the black nodes are high-level tasks, which I'll
decompose into more detail later.
As I think about moving out of Sage
Garden and look over the motive map above, I can think of some other
things I want to do while I still live here and have the opportunity
to learn from direct experience. So I'll add them into the motive
map like so:
THE WHENS
Now that the picture of the whats and
the whys is starting to develop, let's make a schedule to show the
whens. The schedule will include the high-level tasks (the black
nodes) from the motive map, and while I'm at it, why not include the
motives that are directly connected to them? Let's see what that
looks like:
The rolled up task called “Motives”
contains motives as milestones, and their (schedule) predecessors
are the tasks motivated by them. Yes, it feels a little weird to
include motives like this in a schedule, but then again, 1) seeing
them alongside the more conventional schedule elements makes it
easier to decompose those high-level tasks in a way that supports the
motives, and 2) as new information emerges and the schedule changes
over time, these embedded motives will serve as reminders of what is
important and why. Here's an excerpt of the next draft of this
schedule, where detail has been added, as guided by the motives.
This schedule isn't complete yet, but
you can start to see how the motive map and the schedule work
together as complementary planning artifacts. As I round out the
schedule, I'll add details that have more to do with the new venture
than with Sage Garden Ecovillas, but that's a blog for another time
and place.
SOME ABSTRACT MUSINGS
I said I would show the latest version
of the complete motive map for Sage Garden Ecovillas for reference,
so here it is:
The nodes in brown are values, those in
green are objectives, and those in white are programs or practices.
You probably noticed some fundamental
differences between the motive map of preparations for a new manager
and the motive map of Sage Garden Ecovillas. Some of these
differences are due to the nature of the operation being mapped. The
preparation for a new manager is time-bounded, while the operation of
Sage Garden Ecovillas is perpetual. That's why in the former motive
map contains tasks (the black nodes) which are inherently terminating,
while the latter map has programs and practices (the white nodes) which are
non-terminating. That's also why some of the objectives in the
former map (the blue nodes) are bounded, while all the objectives in the latter map
(the green nodes) are unbounded. For example, consider the objective “Reduce
Consumption.” No matter how much we reduce our consumption at Sage
Garden, we'll never be done – we'll always have the objective of
reducing it further.
Here's a summary comparison of the two
kinds of motive maps pictured in this post.
| Preparations for on-site manager motive map | Sage Garden Ecovillas motive map |
| Time-bounded operation | Perpetual operation |
| Associated with a schedule | Not associated with a schedule |
| Nodes in map: - imported nodes - objectives (bounded and unbounded) - tasks |
Nodes in map: - values - objectives (unbounded) - programs / practices |
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Do you have any critical comments or
suggestions about anything you see here? Or any questions? If so,
let me hear them by commenting below.
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