Harvard University homepage
HARVARD.EDU

Category: PDIA Online 2017

Posts relating to the PDIA online Course in 2017

PDIA in Sri Lanka: Learning to Engage New Investors for Economic Diversification – Let’s Go Fishing!

A Sri Lankan group collaborating

written by Anisha Poobalan Meet the Investment Promotions team, a group of Sri Lankan government officials from various departments, experts in differing fields, and all novices at the daunting task ahead of them – attracting foreign investors to Sri Lanka. I had the privilege of working alongside the I-team as a coach and colleague for…Continue Reading PDIA in Sri Lanka: Learning to Engage New Investors for Economic Diversification – Let’s Go Fishing!

Using PDIA to tackle off-budget spending in Liberia

Guest blog by Alieu Fuad Nyei Like many other African countries, budget execution is a huge challenge in Liberia. Last fiscal year (July 2016 to June 2017), off-budget spending was over 15% of the approved budget while in-year budgetary transfers have been on the increase, significantly undermining the credibility of the approved budget. This huge…Continue Reading Using PDIA to tackle off-budget spending in Liberia

My PDIA Journey

CABRI participant presenting

Guest blog by Awa Touray The reality of public service is that you are often bogged down with routine tasks that don’t often allow you the room to innovate and initiate. So, in an environment that is very reactionary, the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) project provided an exciting avenue to be proactive in tackling public…Continue Reading My PDIA Journey

Register now for the free PDIA online course targeted to climate change adaptation!

<update>: Registration is currently closed for this course. We are delighted to announce that we will be offering The Practice of PDIA: Adapting to Climate Change, from September 24 – December 17, 2017. …Continue Reading Register now for the free PDIA online course targeted to climate change adaptation!

Democratizing PDIA knowledge one practitioner at a time

written by Salimah Samji We now have 569 development practitioners in 64 countries who have successfully completed a version of our free PDIA course. Since we began our online journey in November 2015, we have learned, iterated and adapted our course three times, essentially PDIA-ing our way forward. More than 80% of each cohort has…Continue Reading Democratizing PDIA knowledge one practitioner at a time

Motivating teams to muddle through

A silhouette of 5 people with arms raised up at the top of a mountain

written by Anisha Poobalan In theory, PDIA seemed like the most logical, straightforward way to go about solving a problem. A team is formed, they deconstruct the identified problem and then attack each causal area, learning and adapting as they go. Being in the field, meeting with the teams weekly, hearing about the obstacles cropping…Continue Reading Motivating teams to muddle through

Building capability: the true success of PDIA

written by Anisha Poobalan The PDIA team has been working in Sri Lanka for the past six months with five talented and motivated government teams. This work is challenging and demands hard work by government officials and yet through short, repeated iterations, real progress is achieved. The teams update a facilitator every two weeks while…Continue Reading Building capability: the true success of PDIA

Dealing with a wicked hard problem in India

Guest blog post by S. Nagarajan I recently joined the PDIA online course, inspired by attending the launch of the Building State Capability Book at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. A few weeks into the course, I was introduced to the typology of the capability required depending on the task. The task…Continue Reading Dealing with a wicked hard problem in India

Registration for our free PDIA online course is closed

written by Salimah Samji We are delighted to announce that we will be offering our free PDIA online course once again. This is our third iteration of the course and we will use the recently published “Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action” book as the core reading. We will offer two courses tailored to different…Continue Reading Registration for our free PDIA online course is closed