Project logic and system logic

From individual initiatives to an innovation hub

The work at Norrköping Science Park focused on creating conditions for new industries to develop. In visualisation and printed electronics, researchers, businesses, entrepreneurs and public sector actors needed to find ways of working together.

This offers a concrete context for thinking about projects and systems. Individual initiatives can open up opportunities, but continued development also depends on relationships, expertise and structures that can sustain the work.

When designing an initiative, we therefore need to keep several time horizons in view: what should happen now, what do we need to learn, and which capabilities need to remain for the next step to become possible?

Two time horizons

A project needs boundaries. Time, budget and deliverables make it possible to organise the work and track progress. Meanwhile, the system the project seeks to influence continues to evolve beyond its end date.

This raises an important question: how can work within a project's boundaries strengthen the capacity to continue the process of change?

What are we building along the way?

A useful starting point is to consider what activities leave behind. Have new relationships emerged? Are there shared ways of working, expertise or test environments that others can use? Have organisations become better at acting together?

These questions change how an initiative is designed. A meeting can solve today's problem while building a relationship that makes the next one easier to address. An experiment can test a solution while developing the ability to experiment.

Plan for what follows

The question of what should endure needs to be considered from the outset. Who can sustain the work? What resources, mandates and relationships are needed? What knowledge needs to become available to more people?

Projects can generate activity. When they also build capacity, they become part of a longer process of change.