Transformation Partnership

Purpose

Introduction to the Service

Nowadays, we observe a shift in the way the work of most companies and institutions is carried out. This shift is happening, due, for instance, to the digital transformation or the proliferation of AI, where relationships and agendas are becoming more and more interconnected and therefore complex. Actors that could work independently only a few years ago, today feel the need to connect and collaborate. Different agendas have to relate: social, economic, political agendas, as well as the civil society’s agenda; all of them have to also connect to the higher goal of environmental sustainability.  

If we think about urban planning, for instance, and the possibility of having sensing and acting cities (so called smart cities), we immediately see how it is now necessary that all actors involved in this system are not working separately, but collaborate to produce transformations where all points of view are taken into account.  

We are at the presence of systemic challenges that need to be acted upon with an approach that leads to Systemic Change. 

This is a relatively new way of working and all sectors are dedicated to increasing and boosting the innovation and transformation capacities, related to Systemic Change. 

At RISE, systemic transformation is in our DNA, being the Swedish multidisciplinary research institute with the governmental mandate of catalyzing collaborations. We have matured methodologies and tools that effectively contribute to increase capacities of Systemic Change through Transformation Partnerships. 

Purpose 

A transformation partnership is built upon design principles that stimulate new ways of thinking, acting, collaborating, planning and implementing transformations.  

It is meant both for the challenges that our partners face within their organisation or in their external activities, in particular in multi-stakeholders situations.  

The mentoring supports the opening up of the challenge in a holistic way, by taking into account the broader societal context, and it provides ways to map and collaboratively make sense of it.  

Transformation Partnerships offers tools and methods to: 

• navigate complex challenges;  
• define the foundational values that will drive the transformation; 
• support and boost multi-stakeholder collaboration across organisations; 
• go forward with a shared value-based vision and concrete action plans to implement a roadmap for systemic change. 

Benefits 

In a Transformation Partnership, RISE will coach and support you in a specific transformation process, you will acquire methods and tools that will empower you towards: 

1. Be(coming) Change: learning to have the right mindset towards change, which implies attitudes like staying curious and embracing risk and complexity; being able to unpack end expand on the values that the transformation will empower.  
2. Work Change: making sense of your challenge, understanding each other in the stakeholder constellation that is operating the transformation; exploring the challenge from different perspectives (micro, meso, macro, chrono); creating future scenarios, through exploring experiential proposals; being able to regularly reflect and assess the process and implement the findings in the following iterations.  
3. Realise Change: creating concrete action plans to kickstart change/innovation/new pilot.  

Thanks to the iterative and explorative characteristics of the tools used, you will be at ease in  exploring unknown territories, move beyond the standard, and truly touch upon new perspectives that can be used when a durable transformation is necessary.  

Method

The tools and methods that are offered through the transformation partnerships, have been developed at RISE, in close collaboration with Eindhoven University of Technology. They are a result of a year long applied research in Transforming Practices and Systemic Change. They capitalise on dozens of applications’ experiences across a broad number of sectors. They are grounded on design research and they promote a prototype-driven approach.  

Deliveries

Depending on the partners’ requests and operating context, Transformation Partnerships consist out of a specifically designed set-up of workshops. During these sessions, mentors from RISE curate the process and coach the group of people through it.  

The workshops are designed upon request, to fit the purpose and the motivation of your  organisation. Depending on the chosen duration of the collaboration, the process can result in a final report, specifying an action plan; it can have a follow-up to discuss the finding, reflect and assess the process.  

A possible longer collaboration with RISE can also be a result of this service.