Shifting from IBA approach to competition one

7^th July, 2014

AM had told me about the idea of launching PB as competition on Sunday itself. I had listened to the idea casually and accepted it only as an idea. I had no clue that this idea was going to take our 3 hours in the evening to change our direction/ approach of work completely.

As the story goes, AM, with his charming smile, had managed to get the data from government office and had managed to evoke the interest and kindness of the official. Hats off to his connections, networks and his ability to convince people into what he believes!

We spent almost 4-5 hours completing the reports for submitting to funding agency. I am not great at accounts but have the basic idea of it. And then cross checking and perfection is in the blood. But that reduces the efficiency and speed of work. Anyway, finally the reports could go yesterday and I am hoping that no more queries will emerge.

The major event was the core team meeting that SM, AM and I had over the approach as already mentioned in the first paragraph. AM’s connecting mind wanted to connect the Inquiry based approach (IBA) and the competition approach. The former which we were planning to take and the later we might have to take to reduce the sharpness and seriousness and also to tackle with the crunch of time due to code of conduct for State elections.

We had to revisit what is IBA and what is our current inquiry and who are the stakeholders of that inquiry. Going in the detail of IBA we realised that if we want to announce PB as a competition we have to drop the IBA at least for a while.

IBA takes at least 3 – 6 months and it’s more elaborate. It’s also pretty deep and can become base for any development work without sharpening the conflicts between the stakeholders. It would also lead to increased tolerance as well as understanding between the stakeholders.     

The current competition approach can be looked at as an iteration of IBA and the objectives of that would be then ...

At the end of the discussion, we also thought that even this shift of approach decision has to be taken democratically and hence the CFs (community Facilitators) should be involved in the decision making. Democracy at its peak!!

SM immediately wrote a mail to all CFs explaining the reasons, advantages and disadvantages of declaring PB as competition. She also drafted a mail to Municipal commissioner to convey our bigger plans about PB and take his blessings.

I was really less energetic yesterday and I think it’s a RAM issue of my brain. If I have too many loose ends in there, I feel pathetic. ‘Cleaning the mess’ is my motto which I keep doing everywhere whether it is computer files, kitchen table or work discussions. I recently spent 3 hours doing that for the PUG (Participatory Urban Governance) folder in my computer.