
Systems and Program Design
Designing with systems thinking and a human-centered approach to help organizations innovate and effectively deliver sustainable solutions that address complex societal challenges.
Designing with systems thinking and a human-centered approach to help organizations innovate and effectively deliver sustainable solutions that address complex societal challenges.
Designing for operation in complex and emerging markets is inherently risky. I4DI draws on decades of experience in the development and deployment of effective systems and programs to bring value to our partners working to sustain positive impact in a global context.
I4DI’s knowledge management specialists build technology-enabled systems to ensure that your knowledge assets are accessible to those who need it, when they need it. We do this by designing clear knowledge management strategies to facilitate the necessary enabling environment for your programs to operate successfully. We work with our clients to map knowledge needs at each significant decision-making point in the business, integrating end-to-end processes from new business development to project close-out. In this way, knowledge does not become siloed, but rather, shareable, giving your team the edge it needs to make faster, better-informed decisions based on collective learning over time. Even more, I4DI’s in-house software development team specializes in building these digital platforms to customize KM infrastructure to fit the specific requirements of an organization. So rather than forcing what you know into a structure which doesn’t make sense for your team, we can fit the structure around your own knowledge assets. A coherent knowledge management strategy + coherent knowledge management structure will create space for your team to focus on higher-order concerns.
Specific knowledge management capabilities include:
Organizational knowledge management assessments
Knowledge asset mapping
Managing Change Leadership
Customizing and supporting current technology solutions
Developing custom applications and digital tools
I4DI’s learning experts specialize in the development of robust learning frameworks to facilitate your continuous learning processes. A sound learning framework brings structure, to break through the noise to what is most important for your business to thrive.
We start by outlining the questions that, if answered, would bring the most value to your organization. Then, we create a data collection plan– mapping those questions to specific data collection activities to ensure that the right data, and the right amount of that data, is gathered to develop your answers. Finally, we brainstorm the appropriate knowledge products or learning events to disseminate those answers. Data collection is futile if it does not drive practical decision-making, so this final step is critical to closing the learning loop.
I4DI has long aided clients across the public-private divide to create these powerful learning frameworks, from Mars Inc. to PACT International, helping them to learn, adapt, and achieve sustainable impact around the world.
I4DI development experts specialize in helping you utilize design thinking frameworks, methods, and tools that are tailored to support your objectives in all types of value creation processes. In today’s rapidly changing, interconnected world, complexity grows with the pace of change. Designing solutions for today that will be adaptable over time and relevant tomorrow require design thinking and structured processes that are user-centric, technology-informed, and complexity-aware. Putting people at the center of our design process is key to developing locally-owned solutions to the most pressing challenges of our time. Inclusivity, to us, means that the people for whom a solution is being designed or implemented must be at the decision-making table and involved throughout the design process. Doing so increases the utility of your innovation and people’s ownership and commitment to change. Technology-infomed means we strategically look for ways to leverage advanced technologies, not necessarily as an end-solution, but as a way to enhance or optimize an existing program input or to support collaborative co-creation processes. And we are complexity-aware, because we know all too well that many projects fail when they do not adopt systems thinking to help unpack the constantly evolving nature of a development context. In this way, I4DI helps you to unlock the keys to the scalability and sustainability of results.
Our design processes can include:
Online or in-person Design and Discovery Facilitation
Designing for Change – Theory of Change Development and Facilitation
Human-Centered Design Workshops
Design-led Strategy Development
Technical Program Design
Performance Management (MERL) Systems Design
Design-Thinking Training & Coaching
I4DI’s in-house software developers specialize in identifying and solving problems that affect the efficiency of the development industry. To that end, we build project management and collaboration software solutions that are tailored for social impact tracking and adaptive management. Our team works closely with project managers and MEL experts to design solutions that are uniquely tailored to the needs of industry professionals, and unlike many of the shelf products, they deeply resonate with the needs of the development community. Our technology tools enhance, reorganize, and synchronize project management and knowledge management systems, making task management, indicator tracking, reporting, and knowledge management simpler, more intuitive, and more efficient. Our proprietary PMIS system called Zen-O, is a modular and fully customizable software platform, designed for the people who work tirelessly to implement programs to solve global challenges, the people who regularly collect and manage data on their results, and the people who regularly report those results to internal and external stakeholders. We built Zen-O to streamline and integrate those administrative processes, so you have more time to get back to more important matters– making change. Should you want to demo Zen-O, license it for your team, or customize it to fit your specific organizational needs, I4DI would love for you to experience this new way of working. Learn more on our Zen-O product page.
Learn more about the background and expertise of our team of evaluation specialists, technologists, and development practitioners. We would love to hear more about what problem you are currently working to solve.