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Designing and implementing development efforts in support of policy and governance reforms frequently involves dealing with complex systems of interconnected challenges as well as non-linear and unpredictable change processes (Harry Jones 2011). To address complex governance difficulties, the development sector has recognised the need to move away from linear results-based logic and adopt more politically conscious, experimental, and adaptive approaches during the last decade or so.
But, in actuality, what does it mean?

According to Duncan Green, the majority of adaptive programming contributions come from "academics and think tankers." They frequently provide useful principles, but they do not always provide actual recommendations to those who devthink-tankersement programmes and projects.

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In January 2020, I attended a portfolio sensemaking workshop hosted by the Finnish Innovation Agency in Helsinki (SITRA). One of the speakers was Gina Belle from the Chôra Foundation. She discussed the foundation's work on portfolio sensemaking and constructing portfolios of strategic possibilities.

That presentation opened the door to a method and process that spoke the language of systems and the complexity of development concerns on the one hand, and provided a concrete means to focus, learn, reflect, and inform strategic decisions and project adaption on the other.

As result, I began to learn more about it and contacted Chôra to understand more about their work. Today, I'm meeting with Emilia Lischke, a director at the Chôra Foundation, to learn more about the method's origins and her experiences presenting it to the UN Development Program in Malawi.



Investigating the transformation of social systems, Emilia Lischke is a German actress.

Emilia, when did you first learn about portfolios and sensemaking, and what drew you to these concepts and ideas?

In 2015, I came across Chôra's Portfolio Approach at Suncorp, an Australian bank and insurance firm. At the time, I andon a year-long Fintech fellowship, looking into how customer-focused disruptors in financial services provide new potential spaces for rethinking the relationship between financial services and corporate responsibility. I worked for three months at Suncorp in Kirsten Dunlop's Risk and Innovation Division. This is when I first met Gina Belle and Luca Gatti and learned about their extensive knowledge and experience in the design and management of Strategic Portfolios. Since then, we've broadened the concept and execution of a strategic portfolio approach to the non-profit and development sectors, co-designing and administering a wide range of portfolios focused on cities, trust, governance, and tourism, to name a few.

What is the definition of a portfolio? What is the definition of sensemaking? So, what happens if we put them together?

Portfolios remind us that there is no single solution to a problem; rather, it takes a combination of trying out a variety of ideas and approaches in a way that allows us to learn from our mistakes and adapt. No one knows what will eventually attract a system's attention or cause people's thinking and behaviour to transform. When deciding on the next step, portfolios provide us with a variety of experiences and literally possibilities to select from. The value of portfolios is linked to strategic decision making, adaptation, and commitment to action, which distinguishes Chôra's approach to portfolios. The method by which we make sense of the experience of evolving portfolios and build them up as true solution discovery systems is called sensemaking.

You're putting the method to the test in Malawi with the UNDP country office. Could you elaborate on this?

Since 2019, we've been collaborating with Malawi's UNDP country office. We started with Sensemaking to help them realign their governance portfolio strategically. During that time, we designed additional interventions that are currently being implemented with the country's government, and we are continuing to use Sensemaking as a tool to dynamically manage their portfolio. Learning and meaning are enormous catalyzers in human systems, as we've discovered as we've progressed through our third sensemaking experience. In the business and organisational worlds, Sensemaking unsettles some of our most hard-wired restrictions on autonomy, hierarchy, and voice. It unlocks potential in individuals and teams, providing new impetus for collaboration, transformation, creative thinking, and experimental endeavours even in the most unlikely locations, and I believe it is just these unlikely areas that need it the most.

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When it comes to addressing complex social and policy concerns, one of the core concepts underlying the Chôra Foundation's Portfolio Sensemaking process is that we need the freedom to experiment and, within that, fail. That appears to be a challenging thing to accomplish or advise to development organisations that are focused on results.

I can understand how this concept of failure and experimenting might lead to gradual problem solving and finally major discovery in controlled lab contexts. The scientist devises an experiment, then conducts it and analyses the results. If she's not happy, she may always stop, go back to the beginning, and start over with the intention of making a conscious modest tweak to her setup. But the more interesting question is whether that notion of failure and experimentation is useful for those tasked with addressing the world's complex and developing social and policy challenges. They can't go back in time and perform the same intervention, and they can't manipulate the environment to determine what worked and what didn't. Such is the nature of policy and social difficulties, in my opinion. They require an operational paradigm that incorporates adaptation, dynamic inquiry, and ongoing reframing concepts. Because there is no end point, there is no such thing as failing or winning. Every action, both positive and negative, intentional and unintended, will have a consequence. It is not the impacts themselves that will make a difference, but how we build on them and what we do with them. Experimentation falls short of the messy and fascinating complexity of time and shifting circumstances in this area.

Nora Bateson and I had a recent talk. She made a point that caused me to pause for a moment. Problems don't just come out of nowhere. They are the outcome of a system's actions. As a result, I believe that in order to solve a problem, one must discover a way to influence and change how systems operate. How can you help development projects move their focus away from tackling problems head-on and toward influencing how systems operate?

Consider a darts game with a clearly stated problem and solution. The player has multiple shots, and the outcome is objectively observable, measurable, and consistent – success and failure are clearly defined here. If you consider the issues and interventions in the development realm in this light, I can see how one may entertain the notion of failure and experimentation. Others, on the other hand, claim that society and life are adaptive complex systems. They do not follow a predetermined notion of points accumulating towards the centre of a board because they are always changing. Their centre, on the other hand, changes and jumps, and areas and boundaries migrate, fade, and reappearance somewhere. And if you consider it in this light, you'll see that no matter how many arrows you have, they won't help you figure out where that vanishing central point went and where it might appear next. You must literally play the game differently, in the sense that you must become a part of it, that you must play and dance with it, that you must immerse yourself in it and learn to sense your way into its behaviour, needs, and possibilities, and that you must derive a deeply informed sense of action and resolution from there.

Thank you so much, Emilia Lischke.

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Finland is working to create a society that is capable of dealing with systemic and complex difficulties. Systems Change Finland's mission is to encourage the use of methodologies that enable people, businesses, and society better understand and work with systems and complexity.