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!”
PDIA in Sri Lanka: Learning to Engage New Investors for Economic Diversification – Let’s Go Fishing!
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
Learning to improve Sri Lanka’s business and investment climate using PDIA
written by Peter Harrington This past week, the Building State Capability (BSC) program published two new papers about our work doing PDIA-in-practice in Sri Lanka. The first paper is about working to improve Sri Lanka’s business and investment climate, and is the subject of this blog post. The second is about working to promote foreign…Continue Reading Learning to improve Sri Lanka’s business and investment climate using PDIA
Motivating teams to muddle through
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
Initiating action: The action-learning in PDIA
written by Matt Andrews I recently wrote a blog in response to a question I was asked by a colleague about how we move from the foundation or framing workshop in PDIA processes—where problems are constructed and deconstructed—into action, and beyond that, action learning. In this post I will offer some ideas on how we…Continue Reading Initiating action: The action-learning in PDIA
Active and adaptive planning versus set plans in PDIA
written by Matt Andrews A colleague asked me two questions in response to last week’s blog on initiating PDIA: “It does not sound like you develop a thorough plan for action. Is this correct?” “How do you move from the workshop to action, and particularly to action learning?” I will reflect on these questions in future…Continue Reading Active and adaptive planning versus set plans in PDIA
Initiating PDIA: Start by running…and then run some more
written by Matt Andrews “Once there is interest, how do you start a PDIA project?” Many people have asked me this question. They are often in consulting firms or donor agencies thinking about working on PDIA with host governments, or in some central bureau in the government itself. “We have an authorizer, know the itch that…Continue Reading Initiating PDIA: Start by running…and then run some more
PDIA Notes 1: How we have PDIA’d PDIA in the last five years
written by Matt Andrews We at the Building State Capability (BSC) program have been working on PDIA experiments for five years now. These experiments have been designed to help us learn how to facilitate problem driven, iterative and adaptive work. We have learned a lot from them, and will be sharing our lessons—some happy, some frustrating,…Continue Reading PDIA Notes 1: How we have PDIA’d PDIA in the last five years