3. The Vietnam Story
PD was first applied by Jerry and Monique Sternin through their work with
Save the Children in Vietnam in the 1990s.
At the start of the pilot 64% of children in the pilot villages were
malnourished.
Through a PD inquiry, the villagers found poor parents in the community
that had well-nourished children.
They went on to discover that these families were feeding their children
foods that other villagers considered inappropriate; they washed their
children’s hands before meals, and fed them three to four times a day
instead of the typical two meals a day.
It was these simple “deviant behaviours” that made all the difference but
instead of simply telling parents what to do differently (or creating a best
practice document!), they helped the villagers design a program to act
their way into a new way of thinking.
To attend a feeding session, parents were required to bring one of the new
foods. They brought their children and while sharing meals, learned to
cook the new foods.
At the end of the two year pilot, malnutrition fell by 85%.
5. Stories
Childhood malnutrition in Vietnam
Female circumcision in Egypt
Girl soldiers in Uganda
Infant mortality in Pakistan
Hospital Infections
Pharmaceutical sales at Merck
Goldman Sachs
6. The PD Process
The PD approach is best suited to problems that require behaviour and social
change.
Five basic steps carried out by members of the community:
1. Define the problem and desired outcome.
2. Determine the common practices.
3. Discover the uncommon but successful behaviours and strategies
through observation and inquiry.
4. Design an action learning initiative based on the inquiry findings and
execute the project.
5. Monitor and evaluate the project. Share improvements as they occur.
Discern the effectiveness of the project.
8. Principles
Avoid grandiose aims.
Start with the problem.
Participants are not coerced.
The community discovers the solution for itself.
If solution repeated - start again.
The facilitators only teach and support the process.
Key success factor is OWNERSHIP of the problem and the solution.
Best practice is avoided.
All stakeholders are encouraged to be involved.
9. Avoid grandiose aims
Avoid grandiose aims.
The approach is evolutionary.
Knowledge Management should be focused on
real, tangible intractable problems not
aspirational goals.
It should deal pragmatically with the
evolutionary possibilities of the present rather
then seeking idealistic solutions.
Dave Snowden
10. Start with the problem
Start with the problem.
The community defines and/or
frames the problem.
Credit: Flickr tph567
11. Involve everyone
Communities have the people and the
ability to self-organize to respond
effectively to a common problem.
Know-how is not concentrated in the
leadership of a community or in external
experts but is distributed throughout the
community.
All stakeholders are encouraged to be
involved.
12. Don’t do things to people
Participants are not coerced.
They can opt in or opt out.
Credit: Flickr tph567
13. Allow people to take responsibility
Communities already have the solutions to
the problems they face and they are the
best people to solve them.
Allow the community to discover the
solution for itself.
Never give them the solution.
And never teach the solution
14. Don’t take short cuts
If the solution is repeated in
another community then start
again.
Credit: Flickr haechoo
15. Seek sustainable solutions
The PD approach enables the
community to seek and discover
sustainable responses to a given
problem.
Because the demonstrably successful
but not widely adopted behaviours
are already practiced in the
community.
16. Only facilitate
The facilitators only teach and
support the process.
They are not experts in the problem
or the solution.
On no account do they contribute
directly to defining the problem or
the solution.
17. Let the community own the problem
Key success factor is OWNERSHIP
of the problem and the solution.
Credit: Flickr eurodrifter
18. Avoid best practice
Best practice should be avoided.
It can trigger the NIH syndrome.
Credit: Flickr oxfam-italia
20. There is no silver bullet
Discoveries from one community cannot be
repackaged and provided to another as a
silver bullet.
That's a "best practice" rollout and it
invariably evokes the immune rejection
response.
21. The objective is engagement
The real objective isn't just "knowledge" or
getting an 80--20 understanding of the
situation.
The overriding objective is engagement,
creating a buzz, mobilizing people to take
action.
22. Learning is shaped by social context
Explicit knowledge, conventionally delivered
like pizza (neat boxes with toppings of
concepts, theories, best practices and war
stories), is consumed by the brain but not
metabolized into action.
The learning we call intuition, know-how
and common sense gets into the blood
stream through osmosis. It is shaped by
social context.
23. We are walking on a trampoline
Unintended consequences get to the heart of why
you never really understand an adaptive problem
until you have solved it.
Problems morph and "solutions" often point to
deeper problems.
In social life, as in nature, we are walking on a
trampoline.
Every inroad reconfigures the environment we tread
on.
24. Don’t suppress variation
Corporations, in the name of efficiency, suppress
variation by "getting all the ducks in line."
To optimize productivity, they evolve highly refined
and internally consistent operating systems.
Payoff - results - as long as the music lasts.
But ... all that streamlining and re-engineering limits
diversity, suppresses self-organization ... and
curtails a bottom up emergent response to
disruptive change.
25. Information has a social life
Contrary to widespread faith in
"communication" and "knowledge transfer,"
information has a social life,
and unless new insights are embedded in
the social system they evaporate.
26. It is practice that advances knowledge
Knowledge does not advance practice. Rather
practice advances knowledge.
It is easier to change behaviour by practicing it rather
than being taught about it.
“It is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking
than think your way into a new way of acting”
29. Licence
You may use these slides under the
following Creative Commons Licence
Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/