In working to implement some of Amy Edmonson's (https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=6451) 'Extreme Teaming' framework with the Socialroots team, I've been trying to convey the nebulous and important concept of boundary objects to our team, and the definition, your take, and references here hit the spot.
I've also been digging into Wenger, via
Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities
For mapping work, I often start with a co-created question as a boundary object. The clauses offer the modularity, as the question expands in the shaping of it, the need to add a "?" at the end helps the abstraction by encouraging the deletion of solution-oriented thinking, the form of a question can lead not only to a shared map, of course, but to video stories, written documents, and exercises that help people deepen their relationships and understanding, and the standardization comes from the need to come together and shape the language used to articulate the question, providing the seed for an explicit shared language from which a map emerges, as well as what Aldo calls 'minimum common ground'.
Thanks, Christina - always a joy to have you read along. I'll have to take a look at some of Amy's work. Is the book worth a purchase? Also, love the idea of minimum common ground.
Amy's functional leadership approach to teams is really refreshing, and systems-based. She's got a TED talk or two, and you'll also likely find this short article interesting, so you can start there. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/building_cities_collaborative_muscle I'm working to make the framework in Extreme Teaming more visible and actionable as we build Socialroots - she's a fairly fundamental influence on my thinking. Like you!
I'm a huge fan of the concept of boundary objects and see them as an essential part of my role as a Knowledge Designer. I would argue that any knowledge artefact is a boundary object, a bridge between two different conceptual and/or experiential worlds. Novels, poems and works of art are attempts to build bridges across our otherwise subjective, solipsistic mental and emotional universes ('Only connect' - EM Forster). All the documents we create in government and the private sector are intended to form a connection between different stakeholders and/or knowledge communities - yet people seldom engage with them from this perspective ie how would we communicate this in a way that enables people without any knowledge or with a different knowledge base to interact effectively with the knowledge we have or with the task we are wanting to engage them in? Looked at in this way, boundary objects function as or at the synapses of the collective organisational or community brain. The brain doesn't work well if these bridges aren't fit for purpose.
Once you have this perspective it changes the whole approach to creating and assessing the value of knowledge artefacts. One of my biggest peeves about the whole industry of academic writing is that academic papers are generally terrible boundary objects, and as a result great swathes of knowledge are locked up inside a very narrow community (though some would argue that this is consciously or subconsciously deliberate as a way to maintain the elitism and intellectual mystique of the academy).
Much of my work as a facilitator of workshops and strategic conversations has been founded on creating effective boundary objects that provide an anchor point enabling diverse stakeholders to come together with a shared visual picture of the system or problem space - well-defined enough that that they can position themselves in it, open enough that it enables room for flexible thinking and multiple perspectives, high-level enough that it doesn't overwhelm people's cognitive capabilities. From my perspective, this is an absolute prerequisite for effective conversations around complex problem spaces, especially when the subject matter has a high level of intangibility or ambiguity.
Certainly interested in any conversations that add further richness to the understanding and use of boundary objects
I love this newsletter so much, Luke, thank you.
In working to implement some of Amy Edmonson's (https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=6451) 'Extreme Teaming' framework with the Socialroots team, I've been trying to convey the nebulous and important concept of boundary objects to our team, and the definition, your take, and references here hit the spot.
I've also been digging into Wenger, via
Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities
For mapping work, I often start with a co-created question as a boundary object. The clauses offer the modularity, as the question expands in the shaping of it, the need to add a "?" at the end helps the abstraction by encouraging the deletion of solution-oriented thinking, the form of a question can lead not only to a shared map, of course, but to video stories, written documents, and exercises that help people deepen their relationships and understanding, and the standardization comes from the need to come together and shape the language used to articulate the question, providing the seed for an explicit shared language from which a map emerges, as well as what Aldo calls 'minimum common ground'.
Thanks, Christina - always a joy to have you read along. I'll have to take a look at some of Amy's work. Is the book worth a purchase? Also, love the idea of minimum common ground.
yes, definitely.
Amy's functional leadership approach to teams is really refreshing, and systems-based. She's got a TED talk or two, and you'll also likely find this short article interesting, so you can start there. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/building_cities_collaborative_muscle I'm working to make the framework in Extreme Teaming more visible and actionable as we build Socialroots - she's a fairly fundamental influence on my thinking. Like you!
She studied with Bucky F for a bit.
I'm a huge fan of the concept of boundary objects and see them as an essential part of my role as a Knowledge Designer. I would argue that any knowledge artefact is a boundary object, a bridge between two different conceptual and/or experiential worlds. Novels, poems and works of art are attempts to build bridges across our otherwise subjective, solipsistic mental and emotional universes ('Only connect' - EM Forster). All the documents we create in government and the private sector are intended to form a connection between different stakeholders and/or knowledge communities - yet people seldom engage with them from this perspective ie how would we communicate this in a way that enables people without any knowledge or with a different knowledge base to interact effectively with the knowledge we have or with the task we are wanting to engage them in? Looked at in this way, boundary objects function as or at the synapses of the collective organisational or community brain. The brain doesn't work well if these bridges aren't fit for purpose.
Once you have this perspective it changes the whole approach to creating and assessing the value of knowledge artefacts. One of my biggest peeves about the whole industry of academic writing is that academic papers are generally terrible boundary objects, and as a result great swathes of knowledge are locked up inside a very narrow community (though some would argue that this is consciously or subconsciously deliberate as a way to maintain the elitism and intellectual mystique of the academy).
Much of my work as a facilitator of workshops and strategic conversations has been founded on creating effective boundary objects that provide an anchor point enabling diverse stakeholders to come together with a shared visual picture of the system or problem space - well-defined enough that that they can position themselves in it, open enough that it enables room for flexible thinking and multiple perspectives, high-level enough that it doesn't overwhelm people's cognitive capabilities. From my perspective, this is an absolute prerequisite for effective conversations around complex problem spaces, especially when the subject matter has a high level of intangibility or ambiguity.
Certainly interested in any conversations that add further richness to the understanding and use of boundary objects