Guest blog by Louis Costa, Sofia Martinez, Anjali Nemorin, Mahabuba Rahman, Leonardo da Silveira, Prasanya Thirupathy Over the course of the “PDIA in action” class at the Kennedy School, our team, The Night Owls, worked together in a very dynamic way to find entry points to a real-world, complex problem in just seven weeks. Our…Continue Reading Imagining the Future of Parks and Libraries in Bristol, UK
Guest blog by Danielle Bayer, Julia Lemesh, Othmane Ouhaddach, Konstantin Usov, Nanako Yamaguchi The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) is a federally funded community service and work-based job training program for low-income Americans who are 55+ years old. A program authorized by the Older Americans Act, SCSEP provides training for low-income, unemployed seniors, many…Continue Reading Increasing Enrollment in a Senior Citizen Employment Program in MA
Lessons from Scranton: How Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation Can Transform an Intractable Housing Crisis for Vulnerable Groups Group blog by Michael Reschke, Velaphi Mamba, VK Vu, Nadyah Hilmi, Ussen Galym, Sam Pairavi How do you address a minimally framed development challenge without data and an ominously opaque understanding of the real problem? Where do you…Continue Reading Unlocking the Key to Safe Housing in Scranton, Pennsylvania
Guest blog by Anis Saidi, David Friedman, Diksha Kataria, Krista Gon, Lucy Kruske, Tatenda Mujeni, Younmi Kim Complex problems are not impossible to solve. As we learned over the course of this module, PDIA teams must adopt a humble, progressive, and iterative approach to tackle complex problems successfully. The initial step is deconstructing the problem…Continue Reading Providing Quality Health Care in Kaduna State, Nigeria
Guest blog by Soraya Mohideen, Shunta Takino, Michaela Tobin, Akinobu Toyoda, Andres Valenciano Writing a team constitution seemed like a tedious step, but it was vital and something that we recognized as beneficial in other contexts. The process of developing a constitution got every team member to think about what a well-functioning and effective team…Continue Reading Exploring Labor Market Challenges in Bogotá, Colombia
Guest blog by Kriti Chopra, Kish Greene, Apoorva Murari, Romita Shah, Abeer Al-Zubaidi On a cold January day, we kicked off the semester with a deep-seated desire to make a difference in the lives of others. By the end of our first class for Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA), we were given a challenge commensurate…Continue Reading Exploring Homelessness in Philadelphia
Guest blog written by Matthew McNaughton, Gaurav Dutt, Mandy Le Monde, Anjanay Kumar, Yashila Singh What were some key learnings from this course? (about the PDIA process through addressing your problem) As we went along the process of PDIA, we learnt a lot about the process of understanding and deconstructing the problem, working in a…Continue Reading Ecuador’s reliance on fossil fuel exports
Guest blog written by Yiming Dong, Nada ElSehemy, Daiana F. Molero, Pedro Ossa, Ena Solorzano It was the beginning of the Spring semester. One Monday in late January was our first class of PDIA in action. That day we knew that for the next seven weeks we would be working on a completely unfamiliar topic:…Continue Reading Reducing plastic pollution into the oceans before it is too late
Guest blog by Sohee Hyung, Diana del Valle, Najwa Maqbool, Mercedes Sidders, Zeineb ben Yahmed 1. What were some key learnings from this course? (about the PDIA process through addressing your problem) Over the 7-weeks sprint, our team worked on Kenyaʼ’s disaster risk management. We grouped our key takeaways and learning from the PDIA process…Continue Reading Disaster Risk Management in Kenya
Guest blog written by Kanan Dubal, Jess Redmond, Ankita Panda, Arba Murati No amount of information or research can and did prepare us for the intensity and unlearning that the Problem Driven Iterative Approach (PDIA) process demands. Theoretically, we knew what the PDIA process was, but the course facilitated an opportunity to learn, implement and…Continue Reading Increasing the dynamism of the implementation of French public policies
