Steps methods #6 Methods: Functions, Stages and Tasks

STEPS Pathways Methods
PART 6
Contexts, aims, styles, repertoires
Professor Andy Stirling
Co-director, STEPS Centre
www.steps-centre.org
www.sussex.ac.uk/spru
www.multicriteria-mapping.org

appreciative process: A: ENGAGE ACTORS
help appreciate alternative pathways
BASIC STEPS
B: EXPLORE FRAMINGS
C: CHARACTERISE DYNAMICS
D: REVEAL STRATEGIES

A: ENGAGE ACTORS - together:
1: review relevant histories
2: analyse associated networks
3: snowball salient interests
4: prioritise most marginal
5: examine power relations
6: identify basic pathway visions
7: be alert for hidden plurality
8: seek critical feedback
STEPS METHODOLOGY
appreciative process:
‘Stages’ are distinct but
mutually co-constituting.
Sequence is heuristic, iterative
and recursive.
Tasks always relevant but not
always equally crucial.
Tasks can be addressed in
different ways.
‘Broadening out’ and ‘opening up’
must in some way consider – if
not address - all stages & tasks.

STEPS METHODOLOGY
APPRECIATE
PATHWAYS
B: EXPLORE FRAMINGS
2: elicit notions of systems
3: explore related narratives
4: address Sustainability values
5: scope possible pathways
6: review aspects of incertitude
7: differentiate perspectives
B: EXPLORE FRAMINGS
A: ENGAGE ACTORS – together:
and recursive.
different ways.

B: EXPLORE FRAMINGS
C CHARACTERISE DYNAMICS:
2: explore challenges/opportunities
3: scrutinise likely shocks/stresses
4: look at actors’ strength/weakness
5: examine decision/branch points
6: identify winners/losers
7: attend to issues of power/politics
STEPS METHODOLOGY
APPRECIATE
PATHWAYS
and recursive.
different ways.

B: EXPLORE FRAMINGS
5: scope key possible pathways
D: REVEAL POLITICAL ACTIONS
2: confirm key protagonists
3: explore forms of agency
4: define possible interventions
5: review winners/losers
6: examine possible responses
7: establish accountabilities
C CHARACTERISE DYNAMICS:
2: explore challenges/opportunities
3: scrutinise likely shocks/stresses
4: look at actors’ strength/weakness
5: examine decision/branch points
6: identify winners/losers
7: attend to issues of power/politics
STEPS METHODOLOGY
APPRECIATE
PATHWAYS
and recursive.
different ways.

phenomena under scrutiny
(all key aspects of pathways)
• “systems” and “contexts”
• “scales” and “levels”
• “actors” and “networks”
• “values” and “interests”
• “frames” and “narratives”
• “causes” and “effects”
• “knowledges”,“incertitudes”
• “positives” and “negatives”
• “structures” and “agents”
• “actions” and “reactions”
• “imaginations” and “visions”
interpretive challenge
STEPS METHODOLOGY help appreciate alternative pathways

SCOPING
of breadth of contexts
FOCUSING
on depth of particularities
LINKING
relations and perspectives
aspects of methods
STEPS METHODOLOGY
Inductive appreciation of
contexts
Broad descriptive
accounts
Diverse evaluative views
Attend to key dimensions
of heterogeneity.
Envelope of different
understandings
Illustrative mottos :
“start with the big picture”;
“see wood for trees”
“better roughly accurate
than precisely wrong“
Tightening deductive kinds
of focus
Targetted, ordered, thick
accounts
Particular systematic
disciplinary rigour
Key parameters of
homogeneity.
Deeper, forensic attention
to detail
Conditionally more subtle
individual understandings.
Illustrative mottos
"the devil's in the detail“
“thick not thin accounts”
Informed both by scoping
and focusing
Exploring fruitful axes for
cross-interrogation
Mutual critical deconstruction
‘Plural and conditional’,
appreciation
Illustrative mottos
“beauty (truth) are in the
eyes of beholders“
"it takes all sorts to make a
world“
“agree on reasons for
disagreement”
phenomena under scrutiny
(all key aspects of pathways)
• “systems” and “contexts”
• “scales” and “levels”
• “actors” and “networks”
• “values” and “interests”
• “frames” and “narratives”
• “causes” and “effects”
• “knowledges”,“incertitudes”
• “positives” and “negatives”
• “structures” and “agents”
• “actions” and “reactions”
• “imaginations” and “visions”

environment
plural frames
Knowledges and Pathways
‘system’
under-determined realities
local people
time
‘effect’
‘cause’
diverse pictures
‘scope’
‘linking’
‘pathway’
‘focus’

SCOPING
breadth of contexts
FOCUSING
depth of particularities
LINKING
relations and perspectives
STEPS METHODOLOGY
Interpretive style
Interactive style
Group Deliberative style
Temporal dimensions
Reflexive dimensions
‘Positive’ style
Quantitative style
Monitoring / surveillance
Uncertain hazard analysis
Natural experiment
Interdisciplinary challenge
Transdisciplinary oversight
Plural conditional advice
Precautionary appraisal
Complex resilience analysis
Post-normal science
Critical literature review
Influence mapping
Alternatives assessment
Millstone critical realism
Social network analysis
In-depth case study
Discourse analysis
Semantic structures
Top-bottom comparison
Semi-structured IVs
Empathetic role play
In-depth, open IVs
participant observation
MCM interviews
Iterative Q method
Cross-frame interrogation
Open space approaches
Participatory soft systems
Participatory appraisal
Ethnographic immersion
Targeted focus groups
Iterative questionnaire
Iterative group MCM
Deliberative dissensus
Bring power to powerless
Open network analysis
Critical systematic review
Agent-based modelling
Repertory grids
Interactive models / GIS
Deliberative polling
Sensitivity analysis
Interval analysis
Diversity mapping
Historiographic research
Futures literatures
Extended foresight
Imaginaries analysis
Visioning / backcasting
Cross-scenario exploring
Do-it-yourself panels
Power tools
Co-operative research
Accountability process
Critical web access
Participatory design
Dissonance exploration
towards a
methods repertoire

Steps methods #6 Methods: Functions, Stages and Tasks

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