Transitions are fundamental changes in the culture, structure and practices of societal systems. The X-Curve is a visual tool aimed at creating a richer understanding of the transition dynamics within society or a specific context(e.g. neighbourhood, city, region, etc.). It creates a common language and understanding of the societal dynamics currently at play.
The X-Curve is a powerful tool for:
- Understanding systems: make transition dynamics understandable as a visual process with the two basic patterns of build-up and breakdown, their underlying dynamics and their potential interactions.
- Awareness and priority setting: introduce systemic change into broader societal processes. Develop and communicate a shared vision with selected sector partners and stakeholders, as well as enabling a discussion to establish a common agenda.
- Supporting decision-making and experiments: jointly identify interventions as well as strategies, resources and instruments to create an enabling environment for systemic change. This can take place at different phases of the policy process, such as design, implementation or even monitoring and learning.
- Manage learning and institutional change: enable transformative change in governmental policies and markets paying attention to the learning processes and reflexive capabilities of actors.
