| Abstract: | In 1948 Van Lohuizen emphasized the importance of cooperation among all parties, and the need to establish continuous links between the scientific, aesthetic, and political dimensions of the planning process, so the necessary knowledge, talent, and insight can be accessed as if combined in one individual, to allow high caliber performance. Similar pleas have been made elsewhere, indicating special kinds of obstacles that affect such performance. In this article these obstacles are identified and interpreted as the result of an ill-match between two approaches. According to the first, coordination and combination will be best when participant actors are modeled into well-defined roles, and their interactions coordinated via those roles. According to the second, differences should be made evident via the use of coordinating languages, leaving maximum freedom to and difference among participants, as voluntary users of those languages. Following the first approach, but not accepting its consequences as valued by the second approach, explains pleas like van Lohuizen’s. They can be fulfilled by explicating the methodology of the second approach. The article tries to provide both: the explanation and (part of the) methodology. Gerard de Zeeuw is full professor at the University of Amsterdam. He studied at the Universities of Leyden, Rotterdam and Stanford (mathematics, statistics, econometrics, psychology) and did his Ph.D. at the University of Amsterdam. He has published or edited 10 books and many papers, mainly about problems of improvement. Currently he is scientific director of the Center for Innovation and Cooperative Technology, and editor-in-chief of Systems Research. |
