Blog written by Mannat Singh
Building State Capability (BSC) has trained over 4,500 public problem solvers in 156 countries to use the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach. However, policy problems are complex and often persist, necessitating constant collaboration and real-time learning.
In December 2024, we launched our new PDIA Community of Practice platform. Designed as a one-stop shop, the platform enables practitioners we have trained to engage, exchange ideas, and build connections. It is comprised of program and region-specific spaces, common spaces for community interactions, announcements, tools and resources, and the ability to search for members. In true PDIA fashion, it was a process that required collaboration, multiple iterations, and learning along the way.
Finding the Right Platform – Where it all Started
Having recognized the need to create a space for alumni to engage and support each to solve public problems across programs, regions, and sectors, the BSC team has been testing a variety of platforms to build a community of practice since 2018. These experiments have provided valuable insights into the functionality and needs of our online community.
Drawing from these learnings, we developed key criteria for our new community platform and began our research. Among the many requirements we had set, the main ones were:
- An easy user interface
- Search functionality to find community members by name, PDIA program, geography, and thematic area
- Compliance with data security guidelines
After exploring several collaborative platforms, we narrowed it down to two that best matched our needs. We then built out both options, tested their key features, and ultimately found the right fit.
Launching the PDIA Community of Practice Platform
Between August and September 2024, we piloted our new platform with our IPP community moderators and the BSC team. The goal of the pilot was simple – to “break the platform” so we could find flaws and troubleshoot those issues. The pilot was a critical step in the journey as it allowed us to make several changes – improve the layout of the platform, enable private message functions, add badges to distinguish members from different cohorts, among other modifications.
Once all issues from the pilot had been resolved, the site was finally ready to launch. In December 2024, we began onboarding our alumni from the Implementing Public Policy program and subsequently welcomed alumni from other programs. These included Leading Economic Growth, PDIA in Wyoming, PDIA in Papua New Guinea, PDIA For Education, PDIA in Helsinki, Public Financial Management in Africa, PDIA Online, PDIA in Albania, PDIA in Sri Lanka and PDIA in Honduras.
An Iterative Learning Process
The launch of the PDIA Community of Practice platform was an exciting moment with alumni from different parts of the world joining in. A big challenge, however, was the last mile – getting everyone on board. Several individuals were not receiving invites as their email addresses had been changed. Others did not check their inboxes and remained unaware of the newly launched platform. We addressed these issues by using a multi-pronged strategy that leveraged past moderators and the BSC leadership, who spread awareness about the platform through other existing channels. This allowed individuals to come back to us with their details and join the site. To further support them with the onboarding process, we developed a short guide for members to set themselves up on the site and navigate the spaces.
While these efforts helped us increase our numbers on the platform, we were still far from our goal of having all alumni on the site. We then decided to hold office hours with existing members already on the platform to get their feedback on what we could do better. During the session, I vividly recall an alumni telling me to focus on creating “value”. We realized we were so determined to bring people on board that we had not given them a compelling reason to join! We needed to pivot and simultaneously create opportunities for engagement. In other words, we needed to create a sense of Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) to encourage everyone not yet on the platform to join.
Engaging our Vibrant and Growing Community
In March 2025, we launched the Community Connect series—a weekly update featuring announcements, community quotes, and upcoming events. We also organized a range of sessions, including faculty talks on new content, alumni-led discussions on applying PDIA in various contexts, and open forums for broader engagement:
BSC team led sessions:
- Rethinking Policy Success in Development: Taking Politics More Seriously with Matt Andrews: In this talk, Matt highlighted the importance of what entails public policy success and more importantly, relevant metrics for capturing this success.
- Open session with Matt and Salimah: During the talk, Matt Andrews and Salimah Samji emphasized the importance of bottom-up empowerment. They noted that documenting progress—especially successes—not only drives momentum but also reinforces the idea that seeing is believing.
PDIA Community Conversation series led by PDIA alumni:
- Session on Housing with Melissa Velez (IPP 2024) and Marguerite Allen (IPP 2019): In this session, Melissa and Maggie shared eye-opening details on the reality of housing and how they have been using PDIA to tackle this complex problem. These include a zoning code rewrite, converting nonresidential spaces into dwelling units and turning “red tape into a rubber band”.
- Session on Education with Cornelius Chipoma (PDIA For Education) and Cesar Nunes (IPP 2021). In Zambia, by convening diverse stakeholders across the education system, Cornelius emphasized building trust and fostering relationships as scaffolds for system change. In Brazil, Cesar highlighted the importance of creating enabling conditions for transformation by engaging deeply with communities, using the right “language,” and harnessing the power of storytelling and feedback.
Not only has each of these events witnessed participation from over 10 countries, but the number of people attending has rapidly increased. Moreover, in 6 months since our launch we have added over 500 participants (and counting) from different programs and 95 countries!
Building Bridges Beyond the Platform
In addition to online engagement through our Community Practice platform, we have been actively mobilizing PDIA practitioners via in-person meet ups. Earlier this year, we organized an IPP Alumni event in Bahrain convening 21 IPP Alumni from 15 countries, along with representation from the Building State Capability team.
The enthusiastic participation of PDIA alumni, both during and after the program, is a testament to the strength of the Community of Practice. While it takes time to discover effective and sustainable ways to engage alumni, applying the PDIA approach to this very process has helped us find a meaningful way to give back to our alumni.