CASE STUDY 1: Plymouth Octopus Project (POP)

• How research is done and where sensemaking sits (learning by listening, sensemaking together)
• Whose voices are heard (one-to-one conversations, ‘how might we?’ statements...)
• How the role of community is understood (health is wealth etc)
• How resources are allocated and made transparent (Open Collective, etc)
• How decisions are made (as close to the site of action as possible)
• How learning is shared (iteratively designed learning process and space for shared reflection)
• The role of contract (towards minimal, adaptive contracts that support relationships)

Matt Bell, a team member and former CEO at POP, emphasised that this way of working gets tested most clearly when money is involved:

“Many-to-Many is stress-tested when you have to manage lots of money.”

They worked with a significant budget, which meant they had to create structures that were accountable without falling back into top-down control. That balancing act shaped the pace and design of the initiative.

POP began with a small group of people, deliberately chosen for their grounding in lived experience and their connections in the community. Rather than traditional top-down delivery, POP enabled a constellation of small, self-directed groups to shape what mattered to them - so decision-making was decentralised.

“Start small and manageable and then grow.”

That early phase allowed them to build trust and explore what kind of system might work. From there, they gradually opened things out, adding more partners and responsibilities.

The team tried to go in with a spirit of inquiry, not a fixed model. Their aim was to notice existing patterns and amplify them, rather than imposing a new structure. They spent time attending to the relational dynamics of the group, experimenting with what Matt called “signals” - small gestures and practices that helped set the tone and build trust.

Contracts were used carefully, to protect the integrity of the relationships rather than dominate them.

A key principle was to bring participation, decision-making and delivery as close together as possible. In practical terms, this meant funding decisions were made by people who were directly involved in the work, and they used Open Collective as a tool to enable this. They also sought to create space for humour, values, and a willingness to take responsibility when things went wrong.

For Matt Bell, this way of working is something you feel in your body. When you’re in a room where power is more evenly distributed and people are co-creating something together, it feels different. It shows up in how people treat each other, in how decisions get made, and in whether the people most affected by a problem are leading the response. He sees this play out both across networks and within small groups. “It’s not just the structure of a system - it’s how people show up. You can feel when it’s more fluid and equal.” He suggests that ‘Many-to-Many’ ways of working become a container for values and inquiry rather than certainty and control.

POP’s understanding of what infrastructure was needed for this kind of work shifted. Rather than focusing on formal tools and structures, they came to see trust, rhythm, and shared values as the foundations of the system. The team also began to use different language to talk about power, moving away from technical terms and towards concepts like belonging, which resonated more in the community.

As they worked at different levels - from neighbourhoods to city systems - the team started to stretch their thinking about what governance could look like operating at multiple scales, and what new kinds of infrastructure might be needed for mass collaboration. They drew inspiration from The Community Weaving Handbook, Network Weaver and the work of Beyond and Between the Rules.

The relational work that enabled the project was often invisible, and sometimes exhausting. As the initiative grew, the pressures of scale, deadlines and scrutiny increased. It was difficult to hold onto the depth of the relationships when external stakeholders expected speed or clarity, and financial resources meant people’s time was incredibly stretched.

Matt also pointed to the emotional labour of doing this work well: holding harm, taking responsibility, staying grounded in values - and maintaining a keen sense of when you’re drifting from them. As Matt said, “we need to take responsibility when things go wrong. It’s part of the practice.” These qualities were essential to the work but not always recognised or supported by existing systems.

• Begin small. Build trust before expanding the group or committing to large-scale delivery.
• Enter with curiosity, not certainty. Look for what’s already happening and find ways to support it.
• Take care with contracts. Use them to protect what matters (i.e. relationships), not to control or over-specify.
• Keep participation, decision-making and delivery close together.
• Pay attention to tone, language, and subtle practices that shape the relational culture.

Matt sees Many-to-Many governance as essential for the kinds of complex challenges we now face. Whether it’s climate adaptation, social equity or neighbourhood renewal, he believes we need new infrastructures for mass collaboration - ones that can hold complexity without reverting to control.

He also sees the relevance of this work at every level, from small informal groups to planetary-scale systems.

“We need a different infrastructure when aiming for mass collaboration around the complex challenges we face.”