As I mentioned in an earlier LinkedIn post, we at OVBI are working hard to address rural India’s water challenges through the JalTara initiative. The goal of JalTara is to solve rural water challenges at scale— by digging standard recharge pits in every plot of land in a village. One…

A practical guide to the powerful 4S method with examples for anyone. — How do you solve big problems? How do you answer difficult questions in life and business? Is there a systematic approach that fits any situation? There is. Luckily in university, I had a complete course about systematic problem solving taught by a senior partner at McKinsey Management Consulting. I memorized…

When looking at new presentation tools, one requirements rises to the top: make it easier to create and tell a story so that the audience will remember it. “Great stories happen to those who can tell them” — Ira Glass In my search for better tools, I have been focusing…

The TealOS is an organizational decision-making framework, developed by Raise Recruiting (formerly Iam Martin recruiting), a self-managed global recruiting firm, inspired by Teal-level organizational philosophy outlined in Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organizations. It aims to offer a comprehensive set of guidelines on how different decisions should be made in a self-managing…

The art of crafting an AI strategy through Wardley Maps — Background — Spearheading AI Strategy at an Established Bank Prior to founding Data-Centric Solutions, I spearheaded the development, execution, and implementation of the AI strategy at an established bank. Although relatively green in delivering at such scale, I accepted the job with enthusiasm. …

Abstract Our most ambitious and successful clients are the ones that not only do focus on bringing a single innovation initiative to the market with a structured, validation-oriented, platform design approach but the ones that recognize the need to look at their organization, capabilities, and strategies from a portfolio and systems…

I always thought OKR was a bit pointless. My first introduction to it was back in 2018 at Facebook. I already knew the projects I wanted to do that quarter. My manager reviewed the projects and said, “Can you frame the goals in an ‘OKR’ format?” I googled ‘OKR’, familiarised…

Some say strategy is vision, others say strategy is process and tactic. It’s one of those things everyone has a different take on. To pin down what strategy is, I started by looking at how today’s thought leaders — McKinsey, Harvard Business Review, and Monitor Deloitte — see strategy, and…

(Used by Apple) — Master storytelling and you can sell just about anything. Unfortunately, most people don't know how or where to start. We study literature in school, however, unless you enroll in a specialized program or attend a top marketing school (that teaches storytelling) you'll probably never learn how to harness such a…

Annex: A curated collection of Wardley Maps — What is strategy? Why do you need it? How do you do it? And, how can you be more certain to succeed? The Art of Strategy provides timeless answers to these eternal questions. It is a modern reading of Sun Tzu’s Art of War using…

How biology is linked to organisation and collaboration — In my daily life among my friends as well as in my professional life working with leadership. I often wonder why we tend to group and cluster into stable or semi-stable groups of specific sizes. We as humans are not born with teeth or claws, we simply lack the formidable…

The Earthly Benefits Of Martian — Here we are talking about the celestial world. The opportunities are abundant and our tiny brains can barely comprehend it all. In the past Russia, China and the United States have made continued attempts to find an alternate civilisation or at least expand ours…. …

We are always on the lookout for positive trends, especially from the for-profit space, to incorporate into nonprofit settings. Recently, we have heard a lot about great corporate cultures like those of Zappos and technology companies. When we dissect what makes these companies tick, the underpinning is always core values…

The saying goes: “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” I don’t think it’s accurate: if you want to do your best work, it’s going to take a lot of effort. The opposite, however, is absolutely true: if you do what you hate…

Youth Employment and the Future of Work in Bhutan and Beyond By Eunji Kang and Eunsoo Lee (Dark Matter Labs), Tshering Wangmo, Tshoki Zangmo and Bishnu Chettri (UNDP Bhutan) Originally published by UNDP Bhutan, this blog documents the collaboration between UNDP Bhutan and Dark Matter Labs in a 3-month project…

They’re better together In previous articles, I talked about how Value Streams and Capability Maps can each, individually, be used to help you understand your business and thus make better strategic choices. The real magic happens when you combine the two. There’s a natural relationship between Value Streams and Capabilities. A value stream…

Speaking of grand challenges, such as sustainability, inequality, and diversity, we need designers that can connect people, companies, and systems with bigger causes — to solve the crises in our relationships with the ecosystems we live in, and with people’s internal emotions and values. Even as we mature in our…

In How systems mapping can help you build a better theory of change, we discussed the importance of differentiating between the theory of change approach and theory of change diagram. The former is a process that involves bringing together relevant stakeholders to think critically about how change happens in their…

And how do you get one, anyway? — Today I want to talk about the most basic question in the strategic realm — what is strategy anyway? I’m also going to give you the highest level view of how to develop a strategy and introduce you to some of the most common tools used in strategy work. So…