Introduce a small disturbance. Learn from what the system does.
A fomentFoment: A small, deliberate, time-bound intervention designed to test and influence how the system responds. is a purposeful, bounded intervention released into an opportunity point as a proposition to test – not a prediction to defend.
State what you believe – and how you will know.
A foment should be small, provocative, diagnostic, generative and held lightly.
Three broad outcomes. Three different next moves.
A practical foment palette
Build trust, surface interests and prepare actors before convening them together.
Connect actors or institutions whose complementarity is real but not yet active.
Create a shared object or narrative through which different forms of knowledge can interact.
Support insiders to alter a routine, criterion, agenda or information flow that shapes decisions.
Make the consequence of a changed practice visible so others can judge whether it is desirable and feasible.
Find and modestly resource people already doing something aligned with the Alternative HeadingAlternative Heading: A better direction an intervention seeks to support, revised as it learns. It is not a fixed blueprint for a final state..
Use a purposeful forum where a concrete decision or trade-off genuinely requires deliberation.
Change what becomes visible, whose evidence counts or how information enters a decision.
One foment is rarely enough.
A fermentFerment: A group of foments. The word is intentional: several small interventions can work together. is a coordinated portfolio of foments approaching a consequential interaction spaceInteraction space: Where strands meet and influence one another. It can extend beyond the landscape’s geographic boundary. from different angles – working both the regulatoryRegulation: Any way actors shape what others can or cannot do, including rules, money, prices, custom and persuasion. It is broader than government regulation. exchange between strandsStrand: An actor group and the practices through which it shapes the landscape over time. and the practice configurations within them.
Multiple small trials distribute risk and generate comparative learning. Their value comes from curation: each response should inform the others rather than becoming a collection of unrelated pilots.
Safe-to-fail must be safe for affected people, not only for the project.
Consent, legal duties and non-negotiable safeguards are not variables to be trialled.
Ask who carries risk, who benefits and whose position changes as the foment travels.
Define signals of harm and assign authority to pause or abandon the action before release.
Continue through connected concepts
Read the full Foments chapter.
The full reading provides the conceptual foundations, examples, sources and methodological detail behind this page.
Terms used on this page
- Strand
- An actor group and the practices through which it shapes the landscape over time.
- Alternative Heading
- A better direction an intervention seeks to support, revised as it learns. It is not a fixed blueprint for a final state.
- Regulation
- Any way actors shape what others can or cannot do, including rules, money, prices, custom and persuasion. It is broader than government regulation.
- Interaction space
- Where strands meet and influence one another. It can extend beyond the landscape’s geographic boundary.
- Foment
- A small, deliberate, time-bound intervention designed to test and influence how the system responds.
- Ferment
- A group of foments. The word is intentional: several small interventions can work together.
- Cascade
- Change that becomes self-reinforcing: responses trigger further responses, so the intervention no longer supplies every push. It can spread harm as well as benefit.
