Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor – a syntegrity to explore meeting London's diverse interests

One of the commitments in the new (1997) UK government's election manifesto was to introduce a strategic body for London as a means of devolving power, enhancing local democracy and increasing involvement. This generated a lot of interest resulting in a wide number of conferences and seminars. However, there was a concern that there had not been a more informed public debate. Given this, an event was organised by ‘The New Times’ newspaper, Vision for London and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, involving a number of people with a range of expertise, experience and levels of influence. They decided that they would use ‘Team Syntegrity’ as the process for running the event. One of the organisations had already used the process for an organisational review and it was thought that given the process's assumption on democracy, it would be an appropriate method for involving a diverse range of people and to draw out shared goals and visions on the subject ‘How to Run London’. This is a report of this event and it will describe the process, and some of the outcomes, but it will mainly be a facilitator's reflections on how well the process worked in dealing with such a big issue. In particular it will draw some conclusions in relation to OR practice.