To talk about swimming – or make them jump in?

Or: Why talking about an experience is no substitute for the experience. This week I led students of Latin America Studies at Georgetown University through a Net-Map exercise (Thanks to their teacher Patricia Biermayr-Jenzano for organizing this!). They chose their own questions (a wide range, from personal family disputes to crime reduction in a Latin [...]

Small town NetMapping: Can informal relationships be captured within institutional analysis? (guest post by Jody Harris)

My PhD research in Zambia is an evaluation of an NGO program that aims in part to align and coordinate certain activities within the Ministries of Agriculture and Health for improved nutrition outcomes (both food and health being essential elements of good nutritional status, of course!). A key piece of information, then, is how are [...]

Be rich in obligations (by Paolo Brunello)

I’m doing my PhD research here in Burundi right now, using net-map as my favourite investigation method. I’m interested in understanding the complex relational dynamics occuring in a bilateral cooperation project in which I was directly involved with a managing role. While running a net-map interview with one very experienced, highly placed French project manager, [...]

Thinking alone – crowd sourcing – tapping into the group brain?

I love reading books by great thinkers, who (that’s how I imagine it) sit in their cabin in the forest, have amazing ideas that they slowly work through (or that hit them like lightening) and that they put on paper in solitary contemplation. And while most of us might not be at that level of [...]

Being a leader without being the boss

… or: responsibility without authority. We’ve all been there and maybe you are there today: You feel responsible for the success of an initiative, change process or project but have little or no formal authority to tell people what to do. Or maybe you just have a passion for making something happen (in your organization, [...]

Net-Map introduction workshop in Lueneburg, Germany (29th October)

My readers often ask me: When do you give the next Net-Map training in my part of the world. As most of my trainings are organized by organizations with rather specific purpose, they tend to be open only to this organization’s internal audience. My next introduction workshop in Germany is different: It is part of [...]

If you want to change the world, teach!

Teaching future Net-Mappers at the International Food Policy Research Institute was a pleasure: Highly motivated participants, who bombarded my co-trainer Noora-Lisa Aberman an me with questions, from the very concrete (How to deal with an arrogant interview partner who thinks board game pieces are below him?) to the philosophical (How are truth and perception related?). [...]

Is “development 2.0″ the same as “agile international development”?

I’m not sure. But it does sound very similar. As a response to my earlier post about agile international development, Mitchell Toomey of UNDP invited me to join their discussion forum around “development 2.0″ which basically looks at what development projects can learn from the way that successful web 2.0 start-ups work. Mitchell wrote a [...]

Using Net-Map to become more agile

Ok, I wrote about how a different sector (e.g. international development) could use agile philosophies to improve their work and become more relevant and adaptive. But we also looked at it from the opposite direction: Is there something I could offer the coaches to improve their work. At the Agile Coach Camp I did two [...]

Agile international development?

Most innovations are not completely and utterly new ideas that no one has ever had before, but rather happen when you take an idea that works in one context and try it out somewhere else. So while I talked with the software developers and coaches at the agile coach camp last weekend, I kept thinking: [...]