Scenario planning for Port Metro Vancouver

Imagine 2050.  What will Vancouver be like?  What will Port Metro Vancouver be like?  I was pleased to spend roughly a day and a half with around 100 stakeholders in an exciting scenario buidling workshop around the Port and its possibilities for the future.

We were asked at the end of the session by the excellent facilitator, Nicole-Ann Boyer (a Vancouver Ex-Pat working out of San Francisco — her company is Adaptive Edge — http://www.adaptive-edge.com/) about our personal take-away.  Mine was that we really need to introduce the Scenario process in much more detail than we do in the MBA Integrated Core and in the B.Comm. d.studio.  It is a really exciting and productive process.  Here is the link to more info on scenario planning from Nicole’s site:   http://www.adaptive-edge.com/pages/how_scenario.html

Gord Price (SFU City Program), Garland Chow (Transportation expert from the Sauder School) and I were resource people and formed an expert panel at the end of the session.  I thought I’d just record my points for the record as they relate most definitely to design thinking:

Port Metro Vancouver Reflections: MQ

Re-think:

  • the way we think
  • the way we have conversations — we need more dialogue and conversation about what the Port means to us as citizens, over and above the importance to our economy
  • what we mean by the Global Growth Model — and how that influences our conversations and future scenarios
  • education — the idea of having a youth forum for the Port — using the same scenario planning workshop — it is about the young
  • Campus-City Collaborative — linking in to the post secondary institutions in the Port’s catchment area

Re-design

  • the Port as a place of exchange, not just a gateway but an intersection
  • where Canada meets the world
  • how about an advisory council made up of children — how we make decisions through the lens of the child and how our decisions affect the future
  • the regional perspective — redesigning our sensibility about what the coast is — the Pacific Coast Collaborative opportunities

Re-build:

  • new governance models for the Port — as a hybrid institutions — how do we operate it into the future?
  • new conversations with new stakeholders
  • new partnerships

Tap into People’s Passion about the Port

  • link citizens to the Port with something like “The Friends of the Port” — like the successful Friends of the Garden at the UBC Botanical Garden
  • volunteer programs about access to the Port and its interesting landscape

The Port and Beauty

  • the Vancouver working harbour is beautiful
  • the yellow sulphur piles are amazing — beautiful form and colour
  • important to Vancouver’s sense of place
  • education is linked to the idea of opening eyes around the beauty of the port
  • about the rough and refined

Learning how to think again

  • the idea of multi-dimensional thinking (see previous Blog) and the importance of the Port having an open mind.

Looking forward to tracking the Port’s progress.  Kudos to Chair Robin Silvester ( CEO), Chris Badger (COO) and Chair Sarah Morgan-Silvester for their leadership.

One response to “Scenario planning for Port Metro Vancouver”

  1. Chris Coldewey

    Thanks, Moura! Glad you could participate – we loved having you at the scenario workshop.

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