IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cid/wpfacu/313.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Doing Iterative and Adaptive Work

Author

Listed:
  • Matt Andrews

    (Center for International Development at Harvard University)

  • Lant Pritchett

    (Center for International Development at Harvard University)

  • Michael Woolcock

    (Center for International Development at Harvard University)

Abstract

Many of the challenges in international development are complex in nature. They involve many actors in uncertain contexts and with unclear solutions. Our work has proposed an approach to addressing such challenges, called Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA). This paper is the most recent in a series intended to show how one can do PDIA, building on the first paper, "Doing Problem Driven Work." The current paper addresses a key part of the approach one moves to once a problem has been identified, performing real-time experimental iterations. This is intended as a practical paper that builds on experience and embeds exercises for readers who are actually involved in this kind of work.

Suggested Citation

  • Matt Andrews & Lant Pritchett & Michael Woolcock, 2016. "Doing Iterative and Adaptive Work," CID Working Papers 313, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:313
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://bsc.hks.harvard.edu/files/2023/01/2022-03-cid-wp-313-doing-iterative-adaptive-work-pt.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://bsc.hks.harvard.edu/files/2023/01/2019-10-cid-wp-313-update-2-doing-iterative-adaptive-work-esp.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/files/bsc/files/adaptive_work_cd_wp_313.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matt Andrews, 2012. "The Logical Limits Of Best Practice Administrative Solutions In Developing Countries," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(2), pages 137-153, May.
    2. Wang, Dan & Ap, John, 2013. "Factors affecting tourism policy implementation: A conceptual framework and a case study in China," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 221-233.
    3. Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1997. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 1-29, February.
    4. Levy, Brian, 2014. "Working with the Grain: Integrating Governance and Growth in Development Strategies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199363810.
    5. Andrews, Matt & Pritchett, Lant & Woolcock, Michael, 2013. "Escaping Capability Traps Through Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 234-244.
    6. Matt Andrews & Lant Pritchett & Michael Woolcock, 2015. "Doing Problem Driven Work," CID Working Papers 307, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    7. Zoe Radnor & Paul Walley, 2008. "Learning to Walk Before We Try to Run: Adapting Lean for the Public Sector," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 13-20, February.
    8. Andrews,Matt, 2013. "The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107016330, January.
    9. Alex Duncan & Gareth Williams, 2012. "Making Development Assistance More Effective Through Using Political‐economy Analysis: What Has Been Done and What Have We Learned?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 30(2), pages 133-148, March.
    10. De Búrca, Gráinne & Keohane, Robert O. & Sabel, Charles, 2014. "Global Experimentalist Governance," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(03), pages 477-486, July.
    11. repec:ner:ucllon:http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/17678/ is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Marlon Dumas & Fabrizio Maria Maggi, 2015. "Enabling Process Innovation via Deviance Mining and Predictive Monitoring," Management for Professionals, in: Jan vom Brocke & Theresa Schmiedel (ed.), BPM - Driving Innovation in a Digital World, edition 127, pages 145-154, Springer.
    13. Andrews, Matt, 2015. "Explaining Positive Deviance in Public Sector Reforms in Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 197-208.
    14. Markus Perkmann & André Spicer, 2014. "How Emerging Organizations Take Form: The Role of Imprinting and Values in Organizational Bricolage," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 1785-1806, December.
    15. repec:bla:devpol:v:28:y:2010:i:5:p:515-534 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Lant Pritchett & Michael Woolcock & Matt Andrews, 2013. "Looking Like a State: Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(1), pages 1-18, January.
    17. Pulakos, Elaine D. & Hanson, Rose Mueller & Arad, Sharon & Moye, Neta, 2015. "Performance Management Can Be Fixed: An On-the-Job Experiential Learning Approach for Complex Behavior Change," Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 51-76, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matt Andrews & Lant Pritchett & Michael Woolcock, 2016. "Scaling PDIA through Broad Agency, and Your Role," CID Working Papers 315, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    2. Tung Nhu Nguyen, 2018. "Change Space for Green Production in Vietnam: The Case of Brick Production," The Journal of Social Sciences Research, Academic Research Publishing Group, pages 685-692:2.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrews, Matt & Pritchett, Lant & Woolcock, Michael, 2017. "Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198747482.
    2. Matt Andrews & Lant Pritchett & Michael Woolcock, 2016. "Scaling PDIA through Broad Agency, and Your Role," CID Working Papers 315, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    3. Matt Andrews, 2014. "An Ends-Means Approach to Looking at Governance," CID Working Papers 281, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    4. Andrews, Matt, 2014. "An Ends-Means Approach to Looking at Governance," Working Paper Series rwp14-022, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Lawson, Andrew & Harris, Jamelia, 2023. "Is the problem driven iterative adaptation approach (PDIA) a panacea for public financial management reform? Evidence from six African countries," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    6. Ricks, Jacob I. & Doner, Richard F., 2021. "Getting institutions right: Matching institutional capacities to developmental tasks," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    7. Matt Andrews, 2015. "Has Sweden Injected Realism into Public Financial Management Reforms in Partner Countries?," CID Working Papers 303, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    8. Pablo Yanguas, 2017. "Varieties of state-building in Africa: Elites, ideas and the politics of public sector reform," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-089-17, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    9. Pablo Yanguas, 2016. "The role and responsibility of foreign aid in recipient political settlements," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-056-16, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    10. Yanguas, Pablo & Hulme, David, 2015. "Barriers to Political Analysis in Aid Bureaucracies: From Principle to Practice in DFID and the World Bank," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 209-219.
    11. Matt Andrews, 2014. "Can One Retell a Mozambican Reform Story Through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-094, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Matt Andrews, 2013. "Who Really Leads Development?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-092, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Andrews, Matt, 2015. "Has Sweden Injected Realism into Public Financial Management Reforms in Partner Countries?," Working Paper Series 15-063, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    14. Matt Andrews & Tim McNaught & Salimah Samji, 2018. "Opening Adaptation Windows onto Public Financial Management Reform Gaps in Mozambique," CID Working Papers 341, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    15. McConnell, Jesse, 2019. "Adoption for adaptation: A theory-based approach for monitoring a complex policy initiative," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 214-223.
    16. Andrews, Matt, 2014. "Can One Retell a Mozambican Reform Story through Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation?," Working Paper Series rwp14-018, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    17. Matt Andrews, 2013. "Explaining Positive Deviance in Public Sector Reforms in Development," CID Working Papers 267, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    18. Woolcock, Michael, 2014. "Engaging with Fragile and Conflict-Affected States," Working Paper Series rwp14-038, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    19. Matt Andrews, 2013. "Explaining Positive Deviance in Public Sector Reforms in Development," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-117, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Duncan Leitch, 2019. "Leaving like an Englishman: Assisting institutional reform in post‐communist Ukraine," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 37(1), pages 111-128, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Governance; Adaptive Work;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:313. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chuck McKenney (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.