The 21st century is throwing us many complex challenges, both entrenched problems and exciting opportunities. But, it’s not easy to achieve outcomes in a world where things are interconnected in messy, dynamic and often counter-intuitive ways, where ideas are contested and the future is uncertain.

Without effective ways of grappling with complex challenges, we end up with wasted time and money as we figure out what to do, unintended consequences, and perhaps worst of all, little or no progress towards alleviating entrenched problems, and, missing the exciting opportunities.

That’s why organisations such as the World Economic Forum and the OECD cite complex problem-solving as the most important skill we need this century.

But what are complex problem-solving skills? Often we hear of the need for longer-term thinking, strategic and creative approaches, learning and adaptability, innovation and resilience, taking an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. And we agree. But there is not much practical guidance on how, exactly, we should do these things. What does it actually mean to think strategically? What do we need to actually do to think creatively and more deeply? To be agile and resilient? To do ‘learning and adaptive’ design? At Ponder we believe there is a huge opportunity to make more progress with the challenges of the 21st Century by making complex problem-solving skills more accessible, tangible and practical.

It's the gap our 20 Questions aims to fill. There is a pattern to the questions we should ask ourselves when problem-solving is complex and difficult to navigate. We've captured that pattern into 20 Questions for complex problem solving and strategy development (and practical techniques to help answer them).

The 20 Questions don’t give you the answers or do the thinking for you, but they remind you of what you need to think about. They prompt your thinking, and, the practical techniques we share, help you to do that thinking and answer each question.

The techniques draw on a range of proven and trusted disciplines such as engineering design principles and logical reasoning, as well as emerging and influential disciplines such as behavioural insights, complexity science, systems thinking and design thinking. They also embed a range of higher-level thinking skills, so that if you are asking (and answering) the 20 Questions, then you are thinking strategically, critically, analytically, creatively and in systems and design terms.

The 20 Questions bring structure to a messy issue, and help you to generate insights, to assess ideas, to provide guidance, direction and feedback to others and above all, help navigate the complexity of contemporary challenges. We think they are essential, life-long skills for pretty much everyone, from students and the most junior analysts, to the most senior decision-makers.

For more information on the seminars and workshops we run on the 20 Questions and the techniques to help answer them, or, for help on applying them to the challenge you are working on at the moment, call us, or visit our website.

www.ponder.online

jane@ponder.online

0402 018 495