Singer A

Singer B

Singer C

And they are linked to each other by singing together; they are linked to the generic

Manager A

by multiple links of money flow and contractual agreement, etc.

Or, maybe you are looking at a research network and you see it consists of university professors in different countries, students in these countries on different levels, staff of government agencies who is supposed to implement, farmers and fishermen in the respective countries, who provide data etc. Everybody involved plays a lot of roles in their life (being a mother, church-member, consumer, business-owner etc.), but you would, in this case, only be interested in the role that they play in your network. Just try it out: What happens if you write their roles on your actor cards and ask: How is the typical farmer in your network linked to the typical PhD student and the typical professor?

Because the role labels are generic, the outcome would also be more generic, it would tell you much more about how people think about the structure of the network, and you would have to remind people that it is not about "how it should be". But I think there are cases when this is exactly what you are interested in: How do people think that things go in our network. And you will see that in any given network there are very different perceptions about that. In case you want to combine the "generic role labels" approach with information about individual actors, you might want to choose bigger actor cards and add names of individuals that can serve as examples of people fulfilling these roles.

Normally I have either drawn network maps about individuals in one-to-one interviews or, when working with groups, we mapped out networks of organisations and groups (Ministry of Agric is linked to Ministry of Health etc.) So in the first case, you have a protected space, because you are just sharing your map with the one person facilitating the process. So when you are mapping out your interactions at the workplace for example, you can be rather open about conflicts and individual roles, because the map is basically just for you. If you have a group session but you are just mapping out organisations, again, the individuals are sheltered, because they are just part of organisations but not put on the map explicitly.

So, in today's experiment (having groups map out individual linkages) I think one reason for tension was a feeling of being exposed and maybe being judged. What does it mean, if some group members have many links and others have few? How can we get to a discussion that acknowledges that there are many different roles in a network and that more links aren't necessary always better?

Even more controversial than the connectedness however was that I asked people to rate network members as to how strongly they drive the community in terms of content and in terms of process. Some participants commented that they felt like being graded in school and both, those with high driver-values and those with low ones could feel uncomfortable for being singled out. Some sub-groups decided not to rate the actors at all but just color-code them; add dots of different color for those who focus more on driving content and those who focus more on driving processes.

For me as a facilitator this was an interesting day, because after the mapping of 8 different networks, the room buzzed with all kinds of experiences and emotions and I wondered, how will we be able to let this energy settle and will make sure people leave the room with a good (or at least ok) feeling, once we are done.

What helped a lot in digesting the process and reflecting on the learning experiences was to mix up the groups in World Café style. After the mapping was done, one host per map would stay at the table, while everyone else would move to different tables to spend 15 minutes with the hosts, discussing the experience. Afterwards, there were still participants who found the exercise more and others who found it less helpful. However, even though it is difficult to put my finger on it, something about the feel in the room had shifted and it felt - at least for me as a facilitator - as if some of the stirred up seas had settled again. I'm curious about feedback from my colleagues and I believe there will be plenty, given that this is a meeting of facilitators of all different flavors.

We discussed back and forth: What is it that we actually want to know? What is possible in the limited amount of time? How can we integrate old hands and new comers, more and less active community members? Just to give you an idea what such an activity can look like, let me give a brief outline:

We will have 3 hours, about 60 participants, 7 tables and piles of paper, post-its, pens and checkers pieces. We split up in groups of about 8 members, each group will draw one map together.

First all group members will put their own name on post-it on the map. Then the first one will take up the pens and draw links of different color between him/herself and everyone that they:
1. Interact with regularly (knowledge exchange, advice etc.)
2. Work together (paid or volunteering) to co-create something
3. Follow actively (meaning: seeking out their blog posts, websites etc. without actually interacting with the person)

The members of the working groups will interact with people beyond this small group, so they will add post-its for other community members that they interact with and draw the respective links. Once the first ones have drawn all their links, they hand the pens to the next person, who draw theirs, until everyone in this small group has added their part of the network.

A lot of the members of KM4Dev are actually also members of sister communities and it would be very interesting for everyone to know who holds double memberships, because it helps you in understanding the structure and networking beyond the immediate scope of the community. So we decided that participants will identify the relevant sister communities, draw a legend and assign different colored stickers to each actor who belongs to different communities.

We had a discussion about whether or not we wanted to talk about the influence of actors in a non-hierarchical network: Will that offend or intimidate some people? We decided to use the (influence) towers not to indicate power relations but rather how far actors are "drivers". Some members will be drivers of the content development (What is KM4Dev? How does it work? etc.) while others will be drivers of the process (Fostering and developing KM4Dev as a community, making things happen for the group). We decided that these two functions are so different that we want to give "driver towers" of two different colors for driving content and driving process. The stronger the driving, the higher the tower.

This process is slightly different to what I have done before in group meetings. Normally I would ask the group to agree on a common view of all the actors and flows within a specific issue network. This would mean: Sometimes they would draw links that are not their own but indicate that "these two actors interact". The way we do it this time, they don't have to agree on a common view but rather build one layer on top of the other, each one just talking about the own linkages. Let's see how that works and what the resulting networks look like.

Should the question rather be: How can we integrate our research projects into local needs and structures in such a way, that research questions are relevant, methods appropriate, results understandable and inviting our partners to act on them...

WITHOUT (!)

doing embedded research (like embedded journalism) that just finds out what the powerful wish to hear and serves particular local vested interests?

I have promised to write about this question and am planning to interview governance actors in Ghana about their experiences with research - and talk with researchers about their experiences with trying to have an impact.

As I am developing an appropriate tool I am toying with the idea of asking people about their best and worst experiences, following an approach developed by a group around the German organizational psychologist Siegfried Greif who analyzed the success and failure of organizational restructuring in the corporate world.

And I'm drawing a Net-Map reflecting on my own experiences in Ghana. What I end up doing is to fill the whole surrounding space around the map with my written comments about the links that are positive drivers and those that are obstacles for integration, note down the many remaining questions and more general observations about this slowly evolving fruitful collaboration. With this added qualitative commentary the map looks so much more informative and self-explanatory than a map that just consists of actors and links.

• organisations (Ministry of XY, NGOs, women's groups, etc.) or
• groups of people who do similar things or have similar characteristics (fishermen, market women, school children) or
• individuals.

There are two reasons why it might make sense to be more specific at this point, to define more clearly, what actors you want to involve.

1. One reason is the data analysis, especially if you want to compare different maps and do so in a more structured and quantitative way. If for example you want to lay maps on top of each other to develop a cognitive social structure, it becomes difficult if your interview-partners name actors on very different levels and you want to combine them. For example the Minister of Agriculture is not exactly the same as the Ministry of Agriculture. But it also doesn't make sense to map them as two completely distinct actors.

2. The second reason lies in the use of the maps as a basis for strategic action. If you want to really plan your next steps on the base of this map, it might not be enough to know that your organisation is somehow linked to an organisation that is of importance to you. If you want to contact them, then one individual in your organisation will pick up the phone, write an email or walk over and knock at the door of one individual of that organisation. So, while you want to contact the organisation, you want to identify what personal links exist between the two.

While thinking about this, I read about one of the many tools that are called "power mapping" and what I like here is a two step approach: First you map all the institutions/organizations that might be relevant in your case. Then, as a second step you think about individuals in these organizations that you know or know of. By drawing the links between these individuals (that are placed around the organizations) you can think more strategically about possibilities of using these individuals as entry points to their organizations. This will at least be useful to solve problem number two (in the action oriented use of the method).

1. As tool to understand the conflict and facilitate the re-conciliation process (focus on the conflict).
2. As a tool to understand the governance situation as is and build and support governance structures that will help everyone to pick up the pieces and work towards a better future (focus on post-conflict governance).

I have said a bit about the use of Net-Map to understand conflict below. So now I would like to focus on the second case, building sustainable structures in a situation where the governance system and the society as a whole has been seriously affected by a conflict.

Let's say you work on re-establishing the health sector. I would start by asking those who have been working in the field or observing it for a longer time, to map out how the situation is today, who influences what happens in this sector, how they are linked, how influential they are and what their goals are. I would make sure, that all parties of the past conflict and external observers have a say here. Depending on the fear and tensions that still exist, it might make sense to do the initial interviews with individuals and not as a group.

From that mapping of the situation as is, I would start a discussion with them about: What are the most burning issues that need to be resolved now? What would the functioning health system in the future look like if everything went well? What are your core priorities? Then I would facilitate a group process where people draw Net-Maps about: What kind of influence networks would we have to develop to reach this vision?

Through getting to this shared vision the group would have a clearer understanding of what they are striving for and how they might achieve it. But also, the group process of getting to this together can set free a lot of positive energy and understanding of each other's position. To do this in a group meeting also means that the participants make a common public commitment to this plan that they draw together. And finally, it gives them a tool to assess a few years down the road, if they have come to where they intended to go and what the reasons for achievements and failures were.

Evans, does that answer your question?

On the other hand, it might be possible to benefit from knowing Net-Map when working with violent conflicts as well... Especially in long lasting complicated conflicts, it might help to organize one's thoughts and understanding and to develop new coalitions for peace, if one mapped out everyone involved. And indicated, who has the goal of continuously spurring the conflict and who aims at supporting peace making efforts.

This might be a solitary exercise you undertake in your own office, to disentangle your complex and contradictory knowledge about the conflict. Or there might be points in a peace making process, where a group of people maps something together. Whether or not that is possible and useful is something to carefully consider. And that would be the job of someone who is not only an expert in conflict moderation in general but also has an in-depth knowledge of the specific conflict at hand and the actors involved.