Presentation to Melbourne Emergence Meetup of a mid-course reflection on the progress of Melbourne Water's Health Waterways Refresh Catchment Collaborations. The process has drawn on Dave Snowden's Cynefin framing via Twyfords.

1. Cynefin meets the Maribyrnong
and Moonee Ponds Creek
Tony Smith, Melbourne Emergence Meetup, 13 July 2017
Site Visit to
Fish Ladder at
Brimbank Park

2. • Dave Snowden, Cynefin and
Melbourne Emergence Meetup
• Complexity, Chaos, Collaboration
• Quick overview of long processes
• Healthy Waterways Strategy
refresh: Co-Governance Lab
• Five major sub-catchments
starting with Maribyrnong as pilot
• City of Melbourne concern over
Moonee Ponds Creek engages
Melbourne Water re catchment
who in turn engage Twyfords
• Forced mixing and movement
• Site visits and subcommittees
• Sticky notes and sticking points
• Identifying likely collaborations
• Enduring working relationships

3. Dave Snowden cofounded of Melbourne Emergence Meetup November 2004.
As Director of IBM’s Institution for Knowledge Management in the early 2000’s
he established the Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity in Wales.
This was spun out when Dave left IBM in 2004 to found Cognitive Edge.
On 13 June 2013 Dave returned to Melbourne Emergence Meetup to present
“Doing More with Less, the Pragmatic Lessons of Complexity Theory”.
https://vimeo.com/207392612

4. Complexity Chaos Collaboration
Complex is not complicated
Complicated is not complex
Complexity emerges where
chaos and order combine
with deep history and
deep connectedness
Physical systems and
computer models
Social systems and
knowledge management
Biology is the
defining question
of complexity and
emergence
where the whole is greater
than the sum of the parts
Waterways are complex systems, deeply connected to and providing
vital services to other components of urban and rural environments.
Funded projects too often have a siloed focus on a single function.
Collaboration between stakeholders and interested parties can bring
multiple functional considerations to the table, improving outcomes.

5. Why we care about Black Swan events
aka Unknown Unknowns, disruptors, …

6. Viral hit Black Swan weeding garden and feeding fish
https://www.facebook.com/PolarP/videos/645397738996672/
Original
Kororoit
logo swan
Black Swan
event inspires
four more years
productive
research
Bill’s Black Swans
from Lake Rotorua
At MPCreek
catchment
collaboration
Black Swans
head back to
their Railway
Canal bank
gardening
after finding
cameraman
on other side
has no bribes
https://vimeo.com/225496441

7. Quick overview of long processes
City of Moonee Valley Integrated Waterways Advisory Committee brought together
community with interests in Moonee Ponds Creek, the Maribyrnong and tributaries.
Melbourne Water needed to replace an important ancient water main, above which an
old pedestrian bridge crossed Steele Creek, far from modern shared path standards.
With standard single function focus, pipe project planned to lift and put back old bridge.
But IWAC said stop and interested parties were forced to sit together and sort it out.
Our Catchment Collaborations prepare participants to get together at the right time.

9. Healthy Waterways Strategy
refresh: Co-Governance Labs
All events in familiar territory of Wonky Deal House,
as was a Port Phillip Environmental Management Plan
session in December, first home of Hub Melbourne and
on Bourke Street, conveniently close to Southern Cross.
Missed the Healthy Waterways Strategy refresh launch
Friday 2 September 2016, 9.30 am-2 pm
Waterways Co-Governance Lab
Wednesday 23 November 2016, 9.30 am-2 pm
Getting Prepared for Co-Design in the Maribyrnong
Wednesday 29 March 2017, 9.30 am-1.30 pm
Umbrella group is expected to get back together to
prepare for the other four major sub-catchments.

10. Five major sub-catchments
with Maribyrnong as pilot
The Maribyrnong Catchment Collaboration
has met on three Thursdays, 9.30am-1.30pm:
Brownstone Café, Brimbank Park, 20 April
with inspection of fish ladder;
Sunbury Football Social Club, 11 May;
The Boathouse, Moonee Ponds, 8 June
with tour of Riverside Park.
And there are more issues and opportunities
that haven’t yet taken much of our attention
and more easily discussed here with pictures.

11. West Gate Tunnel (aka #WestChoke)
Environmental Effects Statement:
Kororoit Institute submission lodged 10 July
Preliminary presentation at Melbourne Emergence Meetup, 8 June

12. Maribyrnong Defence site
Current political football
Contaminated development opportunity
All locals want is adequate riparian fringe

13. My immediate priority: responding to request
to extend Industrial 1 Zone to river’s edge
directly across from Brimbank Park.

14. Local interest group representatives and new City of
Brimbank councillors on way to first look at confluence
of Deep & Jacksons Creeks forming the Maribyrnong.

15. Bendigo railway line bridge above
Jacksons Creek at Sunbury

16. Recently very shallow Deep Creek hardly flowing
beneath Sunbury Road bridge at Bulla

17. But we might need a closer look at the upper catchment
where Deep Creek wraps around Lancefield on 3 sides.

18. West of Tooborac RoadNorth of Kilmore Road
Selfie east of Tooborac RoadSouth of Kilmore Road

19. City of Melbourne, concerned over
potential Arden precinct flooding,
engages Melbourne Water re whole
of Moonee Ponds Creek catchment.
Healthy Waterways in turn engages
Twyfords across both catchments.
City of Melbourne, concerned over
potential Arden precinct flooding,
engages Melbourne Water re whole
of Moonee Ponds Creek catchment.
Healthy Waterways in turn engages
Twyfords across both catchments.

20. Moonee Ponds Creek Catchment Collaboration
has met five times and had two extra site visits:
Moonee Valley Sports Club, Wednesday 22 February (am)
Docklands Community Hub, Tuesday 21 March (am)
Hume Global Learning Centre, Thursday 6 April (am)
Gowanbrae Community Centre, Tuesday 16 May (pm)
walk from Jacana Station via retarding basin spillway
Essendon Hockey Club, Monday 19 June (pm)
look at adjacent concrete-lined section
Site walk to see west bank access north of Macaulay Road
Tuesday 13 June 2:00 pm-4:30 pm
Site walk thru #WestChoke bridge plans, Arden-Macaulay
Thursday 6 July 10:00 am-12 noon

21. Heading off with extras from #WestChoke
Authority, Council, Melbourne Water and
Victorian Planning Authority

22. Alignment of first #WestChoke bridges

23. More Overshadowing Creek doesn’t need

24. Looking at west bank access issues a little north

25. Provokes discussion of litter perennial

26. Walk to Gowanbrae looked at recently upgraded
Jacana Retarding Basin. What to do with it when
it isn’t retarding that once in 500 years flood?

27. Opportunistic development on long banked land
just above that once in 500 years flood level.

28. North end of Japan Wetland scheduled for a refresh.
These last three pics from a walk after inspecting
that refresh plan, day before Hume workshop.

29. Forced mixing and movement
After a short break participants stood in a line to demonstrate how
committed they felt to working collaboratively on the future of
Moonee Ponds Creek catchment.
Those clustering on the right indicated that they had a
high level of commitment to working collaboratively.
Those on the left were less committed.
—Twyfords report on Moonee Ponds Creek Stakeholder Workshop 1

30. http://www.twyfords.com.au/who-we-are/our-people/vivien-twyford
http://www.twyfords.com.au/who-we-are/our-people/stuart-waters
Unlike road megaprojects, when we get stuck
we go back down and revisit earlier positions.

31. Site visits and subcommittees
The majority of both Maribyrnong and Moonee Ponds Creek
Catchment Collaborations have been held proximate to the
respective waterways, enabling groups of participants to
re?-familiarise themselves with those places. This looks to
be ongoing, as should specific site visits led by those with
local knowledge.
There has also been an ad hoc start to deferring issues to
subcommittees for offline/online resolution between full
co-laboratory sessions.
Ideally our collaborations will become something with a life
which exceeds the contributing life of participants, the very
fact of their ongoing participation becoming integral to the
consciousness of the groups they represent.
Removing the need to forever repeat one’s justification for
involvement, that can so impede getting down to business,
should pave the way for worthwhile collaborative projects
up and down the catchments.

32. Breaking down habituated separation between stakeholder
consultations and wider community engagement appears
significant, but questions remain:
Melbourne Water has a dominant history of rotating chairs in its local
community liaison roles which may have benefits framed from its own
human resources perspective but is seen very negatively by volunteer
groups whose essence is continuity of commitment.
Yet there are also clearly long held cultural divisions internal to the
likes of Melbourne Water and VicRoads which impede new knowledge
flowing from outward facing functions into areas that stay more
internally focused.
There is also a wider policy disconnect between those pushing these
and similar processes in fear of more severe weather events flooding
downstream and those of us who recognise that locked in sea level
rise is a bigger risk coming upstream.
So one of our key objectives becomes trying to improve collaboration
within Melbourne Water.

33. The Essentials
In preparation for design of the pilot of consultation at local level, participants were asked:
“What will make or break the process of agreeing on priorities at local level?”
Lab members also identified (on post it notes - slides 4 to 7) where they had expertise and
interest to support how these ‘essential elements’ get put into practice.
Sticky notes and sticking points

34. Government policy is to identify priority waterways.
“We will improve the health of priority waterways and their catchments to support our
environmental, social, cultural and economic needs and values now and into the future.”
Sorry, that doesn’t work for anybody who cares.
While doing some good, Water for Victoria misses point.
Vastly different performance of urban v rural waterways.
The most valuable project
for Moonee Ponds Creek
right now is happening on
Stony Creek, arguably far
from a priority waterway as
the base flow through this
project will continue to be
diverted through a flood
relief tunnel to the Kororoit.
A significant length of
concrete is being removed
and the creek renaturalised
to make a more attractive
backdrop to redevelopment
of City West Water’s old
headquarters.

35. Identifying likely collaborations

36. Researching the Friends of Moonee Ponds
Creek submission to the recent Water for
Victoria policy process, called Julie Law to
refresh knowledge of issues on the upper creek
while scrolling satellite map on computer.
Spotted something worth further investigation
via the 1981 MMBW report, leading to being
able to include in submission:
There is a big cutoff meander in Westmeadows
dating from 1976 which could easily be
reversed as a test case. (right) With respect to
“flood channel (...) cut across the neck of the
meander loop” the 1981 MMBW report admits:
The combined effects of erosion and
deposition have caused the abandonment of
the meander loop, even during low flow. The
flood channel is now the waterway and the
meander loop is almost completely silted up;
in fact, the only time that flow now occurs
within the loop is during a flood, which is
virtually the opposite of what was planned!
(their exclamation mark) Forty years on there
appear to be no new impediments to
rectification.

37. Enduring working relationships
Back in the late 1980s, when Complex
Systems were new and I was running a
growing business, I encouraged staff to
think differently about how we worked.
Realising that critical work gets done
through the interaction of two people,
my challenge was to get us all to work
on our working pair relationships.
To that end we arranged an outdoor
workshop at Woodlands Park Essendon
with dogs and staff photographer.
Back to catchment collaborations, it is
hard to imagine any particular project
will bring more than a portion of the
participating parties to the table.
So I’m looking to the process to build
strong bridges between each pair of
agencies and community groups so that
they will know who to call and anticipate
shared understandings when some new
opportunity or challenge appears.

38. Questions?

39. Collaboration?