written by Salimah Samji Wow – I can’t believe that we’ve trained 1,112 development practitioners in 86 countries through our free PDIA online course! When we first launched this course in November 2015, we thought that training 50 people would be wildly successful. So my friends – the state of the PDIA course is strong!…Continue Reading PDIA Course: 1,000+ alumni in 3 years
Introducing the PDIA Toolkit

written by Salimah Samji In 2009, we began to explore how to do PDIA in the real world. Our early engagements helped us learn, develop and refine our tools – some of our key ideas (problem construction, problem driven convening, problem deconstruction, sequencing, action pushes etc.) emerged from this process. In 2012, the Building State…Continue Reading Introducing the PDIA Toolkit
Bottom-up PDIA and the fishbone diagram – “a tool for life, not just for business”

Guest blog written by Rosie Pinnington and Iana Barenboim In Oxford Policy Management’s DFID-funded MUVA programme, informal female market sellers have been using the PDIA-inspired fishbone diagram to diagnose their own problems. This has helped them identify the factors that limit their businesses’ growth, allowing MUVA to be led by the views and experiences of the…Continue Reading Bottom-up PDIA and the fishbone diagram – “a tool for life, not just for business”
INOVASI’s experience with PDIA to solve the wicked hard problem of basic education in Indonesia
written by Mark Heyward During the first half of 2018, a group of 21 development practitioners from the Innovation for Indonesia’s School Children (INOVASI) program and partners, formed cross-program groups and completed the intensive, 15-week online course conducted by the Building State Capability program at Harvard’s Centre for International Development, called ‘Practice of PDIA; Building…Continue Reading INOVASI’s experience with PDIA to solve the wicked hard problem of basic education in Indonesia
“There is Rubbish Everywhere!”
Guest blog written by Sinit Zeru, Safiatou Diallo, Diaraye Diallo, Himideen Toure and Sophie Tidman Team Guinea successfully completed the 15-week Practice of PDIA online course that ended in June 2018. This is their story. During a press conference held before his second term, Guinea’s President, Alpha Conde, eloquently summarised our team’s chosen challenge: “there is rubbish everywhere!” In the…Continue Reading “There is Rubbish Everywhere!”
Team Soedalan’s PDIA Course Journey: High Maternal Mortality in Dominican Republic

Guest blog by Ana de Apraiz, Alberto Nuñez, Eduardo Gomez and Sofia Guillot Team Soedalan successfully completed the 15-week Practice of PDIA online course that ended in June 2018. They are a multidisciplinary team of development professionals with different backgrounds living in Spain. When we were asked to be part of the PDIA course sponsored by CID, most…Continue Reading Team Soedalan’s PDIA Course Journey: High Maternal Mortality in Dominican Republic
PDIA Anthem Part 2

We are delighted to share our new fun PDIA Anthem that you can add to your summer playlist! As you can see, we’ve iterated and adapted our music style from our first PDIA Anthem….Continue Reading PDIA Anthem Part 2
Knowing through doing, and learning

written by Matt Andrews In 2010, Lant Pritchett, Michael Woolcock and I started writing about PDIA (problem driven iterative adaptation) as a potential approach to do development differently. We had been observing that many development initiatives were not yielding anticipated results, and more importantly not building any kind of capability in developing country governments. We…Continue Reading Knowing through doing, and learning
PDIA and Climate Change Adaptation
written by Tim O’Brien and Salimah Samji We launched a pilot course entitled “The Practice of PDIA: Adapting to Climate Change,” in September 2017. This was our first attempt at customizing our free, PDIA online course to a specific theme of development problems. Our motivations in choosing climate change adaptation as an anchor for the…Continue Reading PDIA and Climate Change Adaptation
Introducing The PDIA in Practice Series

written by Matt Andrews We have a small team in Pretoria this week for the second year of PDIA work with the Collaborative African Budget Initiative (CABRI). The work with CABRI will see us working with 6 more African countries on public financial management reform problems. This experience will increase the number of teams that…Continue Reading Introducing The PDIA in Practice Series