Over the past two years in ALNAP, we have been leading work on humanitarian innovations which resulted in a major study, an international conference and a significant investment in innovation processes by a major donor. It is clear to us that the term innovation is being used more and more across the aid sector, whether by senior leaders like Rajiv [...]
Archive for the ‘Knowledge and learning’ Category
Complexity and Innovation: A Plexus Institute interview
Posted in Innovation, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Networks, Organisations, Strategy on June 15, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Compiling evaluation and complexity resources
Posted in Evaluation, Knowledge and learning, Meetings, Reports and Studies on May 17, 2010 | 1 Comment »
For all those interested in or attending the Evaluation Revisited conference this week, here is a very rapid compilation of free-to-download presentations and reports plus details of meetings and websites which may be of interest. Please do add more resources using the comments function below… Presentations: Mokoro Presentations on Monitoring and Evaluating complex development given [...]
Lessons rising from the ash
Posted in Financial crisis, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Natural disasters, Public Policy, Reports and Studies on May 3, 2010 | 1 Comment »
In the 1970s, systems thinker Russell Ackoff argued that some of the greatest problems happen when messy problems are dealt with as if they were simple puzzles. The true extent of interconnectedness and interdependence of the world we live in is ignored or downplayed until a crisis – i.e. when it is already too late. Time [...]
What happens when you are busy making other plans
Posted in Climate change, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Strategy on April 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
John Lennon famously quipped that life was what happened when you were busy making other plans. A new book Dynamic Sustainabilities: Technology, Environment, Social Justice from the fantastic STEPS centre at the University of Sussex focuses on how much the same contradiction plays out in the global movements toward development, environmental sustainability and social justice. [...]
Powerpoint, complexity and the art of hypnotising chickens
Posted in Knowledge and learning, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Strategy, Technology on April 27, 2010 | 2 Comments »
An article in yesterday’s NY Times launches a scathing attack on the use of Powerpoint in the US military, and draws some interesting conclusions about how such tools can inhibit understanding of complexity. Exhibit A, below, is a now-infamous slide that is intended to represent the complexity of American military strategy in Afghanistan. As General Stanley A. McChrystal, [...]
Latest in “aid net-oric”?
Posted in Facilitation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Networks, Public Policy on April 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A recent piece of work has led to the coining of the phrase ‘aid net-oric’ (pron: net-er-ik) – a form of rhetoric which applies to exaggerated and bombastic use of the term ‘network’ in the aid sector. Once you start looking, you can see potential examples of ‘aid net-oric’ everywhere, from political manifestos to organisational [...]
The collapsing aid system: slow, uneven, with winners and losers
Posted in Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Organisations on April 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Owen Barder recently used a few examples of the work of complexity thinkers, notably Clay Shirker and Joseph Tainter, to suggest that the aid system may be due to collapse imminently, because its own internal complexity would reduce its resilience to the changes that are happening around it. It’s a powerful argument, and one which is worth building [...]
Three recent articles on complexity and aid-related issues
Posted in Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Networks, Reports and Studies, Self organisation, Strategy, Traffic on April 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Owen Barder on the coming collapse of the development system and on the need for variation and selection in improving the aid system Bill Easterly on spontaneous order on getting cabs in New York, and the relevance for development. Susan Curran on the complexity of cooperation, drawing from a seminar at the James Martin 21st [...]
Slime mould, simple rules and the politics of self-organisation
Posted in Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Networks, Organisations, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Self organisation on February 15, 2010 | 3 Comments »
“Copying nature’s ideas allows people to harness the power of evolution to come up with clever products. Now a group of researchers has taken this idea a step further by using an entire living organism—a slime mould—to solve a complex problem. In this case, the challenge was to design an efficient rail network for the [...]
“There is no such thing as a natural disaster”: crises, complexity and the role of theory
Posted in Knowledge and learning, Natural disasters, Networks, Organisations, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience on February 3, 2010 | 3 Comments »
In the few weeks following the Haiti earthquake, much of our work at ALNAP has focused on getting key operational lessons from previous earthquakes into the hands and minds of operational agency staff, and briefing media representatives on a variety of issues related to the relief and recovery work. As the initial signs of some kind [...]
