What do you do when faced with a problem so vast so complex and so confusing that you can’t really work out what’s going on and have little idea what to do or where to start? The short easy answer is – you don’t work on it; the longer, harder answer is you work on the conditions that create the problem.
What’s the difference between 12 boys trapped in a cave and 20 trapped in an orphanage in Lybia? All children, all victims of circumstances not of their own making (except perhaps those in the cave).
For 70 years the NHS has been providing not just health care free …
On November 3 2017, we lost Diana Ware, a beloved friend, colleague, and Wasafiri family member.
If we don’t know what will work, then how on earth do we work out what to do? Traditional approaches to change management assume there are a set of rules which will …
Through 2017 and 2018, Wasafiri will be extending our work from Africa and into the UK and the USA – here’s why: When we set up Wasafiri, over 5 years ago now, it was because we saw a problem that we wanted to change. Between us we had been working on a variety of development […]
Here in the UK we are living in complex times. Last month we voted to leave the EU; it turns out if being in the EU was complicated, leaving is the definition of complexity. In the hours following the vote there was profound shock, particularly amongst those of us that voted remain. Certainly I had never […]
Scott Hinkle recently joined Wasafiri as our Team Leader for the Regional Countering Violent Extremism Research Unit (RRU). He started his work with Wasafiri with a quick trip to Washington to attend the CVE Symposium (April 6-7, 2016) and did a great summary write-up for the rest of us left at home. We thought it would be […]
This week we have a guest blogger – Griff Griffiths, who shares some thoughts on wicked problems and complexity thinking, taken from beyond the world of international development. Griff runs Cocomotion, works in the complex area of People and Organizational Development and describes himself as a ‘surprisingly useful person.’ He has been working, thinking and experimenting […]
A review and reflections on the ODI working paper: “From best practice to best fit: understanding wicked problems in international development.” As philosophers, neuroscientists, pop singers and marketeers have known for years, as human beings the things we notice most in the world around us, are the things already in our own heads and […]
