what we do
Navigating ComplexityIn our work, we bring people with different knowledge, interests and perspectives together. This is how we create space for new insights and responses to the complex challenges we are facing. We do this in three ways: we facilitate multi stakeholder processes, we conduct narrative research and evaluations, and we strengthen leadership skills to navigate complexity.
Facilitation of multi stakeholder processes
We facilitate dialogue processes with diverse stakeholders around shared challenges. Strengthening common ground and including a diversity in perspectives brings depth, generates new insights and provides opportunities for strategic decision making and collective action.
Narrative research and evaluation
To unravel patterns in complexity, we use the power of stories for research and evaluation in a participatory and inclusive manner. By collecting personal experiences and making sense of their meaning, we help you draw lessons from the past, learn from their effects on the present and make decisions for the future.
Leadership and capacity Strengthening
To help you and your organisation navigate complexity, we offer group training and coaching on the job. We help you to strengthen your leadership skills and provide tools and methodologies that you can use to manage complex situations.
ICONIC Projects
Co-creation of joint action plan for green volunteers
Seven different nature organisations in the province of Noord-Brabant all want to activate and maintain more ‘green’ volunteers. Perspectivity designed and facilitated a series of sessions to discover mutual interest and co-create reinforcing action presented in a joint action plan.
Training on transformative scenario planning and strategy development
Perspectivity facilitated a four-day training on Transformative Scenario Planning for representatives of civil society organisations from different parts of the world. Participants learned about scenario planning and strategy development in the complexity of their work.
Building the future of international development
What could the future of international development look like? Which future scenario is the most desirable? What does this mean for the strategy development by Dutch development organizations? Various stakeholders from the Dutch development sector went to work with these questions. Perspectivity designed and facilitated the six-months-long process.
Facilitate collaboration on local water management in Mozambique
How do we make use of the water resources of the Zambezi valley taking sustainability into account? This is the key question of a project of the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in collaboration with the Agency for the Zambezi Valley and eight institutes for higher education in Mozambique. The project, sponsored by Nuffic, aims to increase the (educational) capacity around integral water management in the Zambezi valley. The TU Delft consciously chooses not to fly in experts, but rather to tackle the issue from the bottom-up with directly involved local stakeholders. Perspectivity was asked to facilitate this.
Energy transition: facilitating a future search for the digital energy market
The Netherlands is rapidly switching to a distributed energy system, with all citizens and many companies becoming prosumers: producers and consumers at the same time. This energy transition creates new – mostly digital – markets, via platforms for which there are no clear rules. Perspectivity was asked to facilitate a three-day Future Search conference to design these rules together.
Facilitate implementation plan for undocumented Amsterdam
The shelter and guidance of people who are undocumented in Amsterdam has been a wicked problem for years. The municipal council wanted to create an implementation plan for better shelter and guidance in 2018. It asked Perspectivity to design and facilitate sessions with all the involved parties. Goal of these sessions: to arrive at a widely supported implementation plan through co-creation.
ACT Academy strengthens youth leadership in Turkey
Human rights in Turkey are under pressure, while space for civic involvement is shrinking. The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked Perspectivity to design and execute a program for how the Dutch embassy could sustainably support civil society’s leadership to strengthen their position. This program, called the ACT Academy, is a ground-breaking pilot of a sustainable leadership program set up together by Perspectivity and the embassy in Ankara.
Evaluation: learning from youth programme in Tunisia and the Netherlands
The NGO Human Security Collective (HSC) implemented two youth leadership programmes in Tunisia and the Netherlands. The goal is to strengthen the capacities of youth leaders to contribute to resilience and human security in their communities. HSC asked Perspectivity to design and conduct the monitoring and evaluation of the programmes’ progress and outcomes.
Our toolbox
In our work, we use a broad range of methodologies and approaches that lean on decades of experimental research. We gratefully build on the theories and concepts developed by our teachers and colleagues. To achieve sustainable results, we determine which method fits every project best.
Methods we frequently use:
Sprockler ||||Deep Democracy ||||Future Search ||||
Social Lab ||||Appreciative Inquiry ||||Serious Gaming||||
Transformative Scenario Planning|| Dialogue||||
Agile Scrum||||World Café||||Open Space||||Theory U
Visual Reporting||||Theory of Change||||Systems Mapping
Writeshop
download the complexity navigator
The Complexity Navigator
To navigate complexity, we have developed the Complexity Navigator: a vision and a practical tool to learn how to deal with complex challenges.
The Navigator is based on proven methods and our years of collective experience in working with complexity.
The Complexity Navigator consists of nine building blocks that help you to unravel your specific situation and find a starting point for action.
