World Association for CASE METHOD RESEARCH AND CASE METHOD APPLICATION (WACRA-EUROPE) COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING Cognitive Psychological and Methodological Decision Support for Societal Policy Making
13th International WACRA Conference and 2nd International Conference on Methods for Complex Societal Problems (SMCP) Internationales Begegnungszentrum der Wissenschaft, Munich 17-19 June 1996
Situation Rooms - Situation Spaces Scales, Proportions, Patterns, and Consequences in Perspective
Heiner Benking
FAW - Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing at the University Ulm, Germany
Communications Coordinator, THE CLUB OF BUDAPEST, Budapest, London
FAX: +49 731 501 929, benking@faw.uni-ulm.de
Foreword
Global problems present a serious challenge for those who wish to marshall public
awareness and mobilise decision making on pressing concerns. Complex and context-
sensitive, global problems seem "less real" than local problems which we can, to some extent,
observe and act upon.
This paper presents a common image schema which enables observers world-wide to "see"
and discuss patterns, structures, and relations. By embodying situations and metaphors
displayed in this common image schema, issues such as quality, quantity, visibility,
complexity can be addressed, as well as contextual nuances. Thus way we begin, as a global
community, to "vision" and "speak" more clearly, as we meet and make our precious
common future.
Abstract
A "Situation-Rooms" may consist of a physical or conceptual "sand-box" for strategic
manoeuvres and the ability to see, plan, share views and play, however serious the matter. We
speak about "Situation-Spaces" as of a composite modular and interconnected reference
realms to allow the location and exploration of "hidden dimensions".
As we could learn from the recent Santa F workshop on modelling, complexity can be
considered getting more and more perplexing the more we know (Scientific American). But
how to develop and maintain a high stand in times of overloads of information with dubious
quality and the insights into interconnectedness, fields and patterns we derive from systemic
world-views.
This proposal tries to takle the issue of overload and apathy stemming from missing
positions and horizons. In contrast to belief systems, the approach invites to find ones
positions and directions onself. Maybe the proposed picture is simple, cohesive and visible
enough to provide overview and orientation. - The critical issue tackled her is the crisis of
prevailing world-views and the avoidance of issues like objectivity and wholeness. To be
sure, there is no other terrain, like Nature, and our maps or schemes are always falling short
when trying to synthetizise or model complexity. Nevertheless, the question remains, can we
design a practicable and simple layout to roughly structure and organise a multitude of
dimensions, aspects, and facets.
This paper attempts to outline exactly that, an open modular definition or reference
scheme to provide orientation and help to structure and retrieve information about real and
imaginary objects, subjects and their context, in one consistent model or organisation. The test
is simplicity, consistency, co-existence, compatibility, correspondence and coherence with
other models or explanation schemes, in no other way the needed acceptance from people
from all strands of life could be hoped for.
As there is multitude of the things we know, and even more of the things we do not
know, or are unknowable, confusion increases with the growth of terminology's, and
advanced multi-media and multi-cultural global communications.
A missing "common grid" can be nothing less than interconnected higher-order
knowledge bases matching the diversity and multi-dimensionality as good as possible and at
the same time providing ways to see, remember and talk about issues, themes and their
specific context or situation. This representation scaffolding, in short is based on space as the
commonly understood lowest denominator to display open and complex issues. We all
experienced and imagine spaces and relations and the proposal comprises an object space and
a subject space, both connected via a context space. As also concepts are abstract we have to
heave to have mixed qualities, real, abstract, synthetic, conceptual and imaginary.
The Panorama space-scape (3Spaces/Time), as we call the landscape of what we know
and miss, comprises of the physical landscape, a theme- or context-scape, and a semantic or
word-scape. The author is very well aware that the proposal is embryonic and unorthodox.
The basic elements are: 1. an artificial macroscopic view or overview, 2. a scaffolding
bridging real and abstract domains, 3. the assimilation potential of visual access, 4. making
use of spacial or object/room metaphors, 5. panoptic integration of positions, aspects, and
facets.
As this proposal is embryonic, maybe we can call it an "engineered" world-view
making use of genuine capabilities of humankind, we would like to see this proposal
questioned in detail or in general. Please see for further study and discussion some references
attached:
Governance and Decision Support:
BENKING, H.: (1990) GLOBAL CHANGE exhibition on behalf of the WHITE HOUSE Conference
on Global Change. Presenting the challenges to Science and Policy in the FEDERAL
CHANCELLERY, Bonn. Beside contributions of text and graphics for some posters, a physical
model, the BLACKBOX Nature was build to present scales, proportions, and consequnces in
one exhibt with the objective to adress politicians, academia, industry, and primarily the public!
- One result: Proposal to built such sub-model for climate research and communication.
- (1994) Proposing a Conceptual Superstructure - A Work Report and a Vision to explore issue-
scapes as virtual landscapes, FIG XX, Melbourne, this paper was a key-note on behalf of the
Director Noel BROWN of UNEP in New York, to review the Callenges in Search for Policy
with special emphasis on the AGENDA 21 and possible contributions of SCIENCE. The
objectives to which the presented paper was to give a perspective, were to highlighted as an
alternative path towards the Objectives and Challenges after the Earth Summit in Rio, or more
to the point: ? establish common frames of reference, ? develop common understanding, ?
common levels of co-operation and common strategies, ? mobilise best and brightest, ? harness
capabilities, ? initiate more solid foundations for policies and strategies, gauge the human
prospectus, .....