Sociocracy in Intentional Communities conference 2022

Description

Sociocratic decision-making is a very appropriate choice for organizing a participative cohousing community. Agile project management has proven effective in highly dynamic and client-oriented development projects. Integrating these two approaches via a matrix organization (vertical: circles; horizontal: agile project roles) seems a meaningful option to harvest synergies while effectively developing and efficiently completing a participative cohousing community project.
In this presentation, I will summarize key features of sociocratic decision-making and of agile project leadership. Next, I will demonstrate how both approaches overlap and can be integrated. Finally, I will offer a concrete case study of and reflection on how this integrated approach has evolved and was implemented in our Cohousing NL project in Newfoundland, Canada.
This presentation is based on my experience as a leadership and project management academic and practitioner. More importantly, the presentation flows out of my membership in and engagement with Cohousing NL.

Bio

Dr. Thomas (Tom) Mengel is a leadership professor at the University of New Brunswick with a focus on project leadership, values-oriented leadership, social innovation, and futures studies. He has published extensively in the areas of leadership and project management. In 2021 he edited and co-wrote a book on “Leadership for the Future – Lessons from the Past, Current Approaches, Future Insights“.

Prior to his academic career Tom has been a leadership and project management practitioner and consultant in various European and Canadian organizations and as entrepreneur. Recently, he has moved to Newfoundland to help develop and retire in a cohousing community in Portugal Cove – St. Philips (https://cohousingnl.wixsite.com/coho). More details about his bio and publications can be found at https://thomasmengel.com.