exercise · all tools
Panarchy
Depth · what it can open●○○○1 — informational
Holding · facilitation2 — facilitator
Trust · group readiness★any
Disclosure · what is sharednone
Groups map how their challenge lives at multiple embedded system levels — individual, team, organization, sector, society — and where change at one level enables or blocks change at another. Identifies which level the group can actually move, and who must be engaged above and below. The longest-range systems lens in the LS repertoire.
Practical
- Time
- 130 min
- Group
- 8–∞ · small-group, large-group
- Settings
- in-person, online
- Materials
- Large panarchy chart on the wall; sticky notes; ideally participants from multiple organizational levels
- Mechanisms
- systems-sensing, perspective-taking
- Change scope
- state · one-off
Instructions
- Where
- liberatingstructures.com/panarchy — Liberating Structures, open
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
Source link checked 29 Aug 2026 — unchanged since we recorded it on 28 Aug 2026
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Henri Lipmanowicz & Keith McCandless (panarchy concept: Gunderson & Holling) — Liberating Structures / resilience ecology
In this directory via Liberating Structures
status: checked · added 2026-08-25