ThinkTank [EN]: 3. Standards

Who we are, what we do, what we want ... (3) 

This is the third part of a series of introductions to the drafting of the Mission Statement (Mission, Methods, People - MMP). The preceding ones are: Homepage [EN]: 1. Skills and Homepage [EN]: 2. Tools.

Standards 
In order to create a set of correct conditions under which we can do our work, certain standards should be agreed upon, or, if necessary, imposed, pertaining to the quality of the projects and the sustainability of their results, as well as the position of the urban practitioners engaged in the policy. Those standards should deal with

• minimum flexibility of the project budgets, (for dealing with private partners, with public services and non-profit partners requires that the project team can dispose of its own budget),
  
• minimum duration of the projects, (for, as we are working with people in order to activate them and develop their skills, a minimum delay of more than four years should be allowed, to get sustainable transformations in the behaviour and the social structure of the area concerned),
• and sufficient dispositions for enabling a permanent self-evaluation process, with regular feed-back from the local partners and population as well as from the authorities acting as principals for the project (for, as the work progresses, new problems tend to come up as well as new possibilities, discovered in the interaction with the population and the partners in the project. This enables the project team to share responsibilities on an ever growing scale with the inhabitants and the partners, inciting them to see themselves as owners of the different elements of the project, and thus assuring a better sustainability of the outcomes.)

This is what is discussed in the "Standards" paper under "Urban Professionals" in the Mission-Methods-People department here on e-urban. [Not yet complete, input welcome].

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