Leadership and Innovation Program

Slide 01: Welcome

Welcome to Lesson 6. In this lesson, we focus on specific strategies for constructing and deconstructing
workplace problems. The goal is to refine problems so that they are as clear and manageable as
possible, and lend themselves to finding specific, tangible solutions. Much of the input and practical
activities in these next three lessons will draw on the PDIA Toolkit (which has been translated into
Khmer). Please have it handy as we go through the slides in each lesson. It is important that you print it
the PDIA Toolkit, since the responses you will make need to be hand-written on the worksheets
themselves – it will not be possible to complete the worksheets on your mobile phone or computer.

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Slide 02: Lesson objectives

There are five key learning objectives for Lesson 6. By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
Distinguish between approaches to reform that provide predetermined solutions versus those that try
to solve problems

Nominate and prioritize the problems on which you wish to focus.

Deconstruct the most important of these problems into their key components.

Identify the array of people for whom these problems matter, as well as those for whom it should
matter more

Articulate some strategies by which they might be able to persuade certain leaders (or constituencies)
to care more.

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Lesson 06. PDIA - Constructing and Deconstructing Your Workplace Challenge
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Slide 03: Videos and readings

There are three videos to watch for this Lesson, along with a passage from Chapter 7 of Building State
Capability.

The first video shows Lant Pritchett taking about why there are no shortcuts to getting a good outcome
to your complex problems. The second video shows Matt Andrews explaining that, although you
cannot avoid a struggle to reach the right outcomes for your complex problem, PDIA provides a way of
helping you work through the issues in a systematic way. In the third video, Matt explains the key
techniques used to understand the problem you are dealing with at a much deeper level, using the
example of an industrial park intended to attract business and create jobs that did not achieve its
objectives. Please spend some time to watch these three videos. Please click on the relevant link to
watch them.

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Slide 04: Reflection questions

Before examining how to nominate, construct, and deconstruct problems in your workplace, it might
be helpful to consider some broader issues and questions, such as:

When small or everyday problems emerge in your workplace, what is the usual way in which they are
addressed?

When a significant problem emerges that affects a large number of people in your workplace, how did
you (or other senior managers) respond to it?

Can you identify a long-standing problem in your workplace that could and should have been solved by
now, but just hasn’t been? Why has it not been solved?

Is there is a team in your department or organization that has a reputation for being particularly
effective at what they do? What do you think makes it so effective?

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Slide 05: Worksheet completion – Working on your problem

For the rest of this lesson, you will be working with the PDIA Toolkit, using it to commence the practical
exercises associated with constructing and deconstructing your workplace challenge. PDIA is best
learned by doing, not just listening or reading! Please refer to the PDIA Toolkit. In this lesson, there are
two sections in the PDIA Toolkit you will need to work on – Section 1 (on pages 8-13), which focuses on
constructing your problem; and Section 2 (on pages 14-19), which focuses on deconstructing your
problem.

The Toolkit provides you with the instructions and materials you need to complete the exercises.
Remember to print out a copy of it so that you write your answers in the worksheets, and have them
available for future reference. If you have questions that emerge during the process of completing the
worksheets, please write them down so that they can be reviewed during the webinar at the end of the
course.

Please spend time to complete the worksheets.

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Slide 06: To sum up

The main messages from this lesson – the videos, reading, and Toolkit worksheets – are that:
Enhancing implementation capability is achieved by solving problems, not by applying predetermined
solutions – or beginning with solutions and finding problems for them to solve. The emphasis in PDIA is
building a team’s implementation capability by enhancing its ability to nominate, prioritize, and analyze
specific (and increasingly complex) problems. It is not easy to do this.
First, one must construct a ‘good’ problem – not a broad statement about what isn’t working, but
instead one that is well defined, and able to be broken down into smaller, more manageable
components.

Second, going from a general to a specific problem requires identifying why this problem matters, to
whom it matters, and why certain people/constituencies need to care more. It also helps to outline
what the problem might look like when solved (e.g., by preparing a newspaper article set in the future).

Third, by asking ‘Why does this happen?’ (at least five times), one can identify the key components of
the problem. Completing an Ishikawa diagram (p. 18 of the Toolkit) helps to provide a visual
representation – a ‘map’ – of how these smaller problems connect to the large one.

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Lesson 06. PDIA - Constructing and Deconstructing Your Workplace Challenge
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Slide 07: Thank you

Thank you for your participation in this lesson 6. We will see you again in the next lesson of PDIA.
Please spend time to complete your worksheets. Saum Arkoun.

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Lesson 06. PDIA - Constructing and Deconstructing Your Workplace Challenge