Co-designing Protocols, Practices, and Methods for Transformations

In the FIRI project, one of our goals was to co-develop concrete approaches for fostering transformative, transdisciplinary collaboration—especially in initiatives that seek to re-visibilize human-nature relationships. 

Across the two workshops, we tried to articulate and define what we had been doing intuitively, deliberately, or experimentally throughout the project and identify important aspects to be included in any future initiatives. This resulted in a collaboratively developed set of Protocols, Practices, and Methods (PPMs)—tools and principles to guide future transformation initiatives—which are rooted in protocols brought into our team by our Indigenous stewardship specialists.  

Reaching a shared understanding of these terms was, at times, a challenge. Not everyone felt it was necessary to distinguish between “protocols,” “practices,” and “methods,” while others found these categories helpful in bringing clarity to our work and assisting with knowledge transfer to the broader public. Through the use of the conversational method, we refined our understandings and added more precise aspects to the tool to make it more tangible for future initiatives and projects. 

After the second workshop, we settled on the following definitions:

• Protocols as our “guiding principles” 

• Practices describe what we do 

• Methods describe how we do it 

  
  

Rather than building a static framework, the PPMs should be understood as an evolving set of insights grounded in our collective experience. They offer a tool for others working in transdisciplinary, transformative spaces—one that values inclusivity, emotional knowledge, mutual learning, and relational accountability. And importantly, they remind us that the how of transformative work is just as important as the what.