Within three weeks of the call for papers being released, the workshop organisers decided to engage the Challenge Dialogue System (CDS) of Innovation Expedition Inc. (www.innovationexpedition.com). The CDS is an eight-step process for “improving the organisational and innovative performance of diverse groups,” and had been used successfully at ILRI in several complex virtual team challenges.
The organisers formed a workshop planning team to develop a 22-page ‘Challenge Paper’, which was sent to 60 participants in January 2008. The common challenge to be addressed by the group was articulated in the Challenge Paper: To learn from the experiences and empirical findings of a diverse group of colleagues from across the agriculture and natural-resources research and development community about how research approaches and institutions have contributed to sustainable poverty reduction, social inclusion and equity. Of particular interest are approaches that attempt to address issues of how change comes about and who benefits.
The purpose of the Challenge Dialogue, background issues and events leading to the Challenge, assumptions driving it, expected outcomes at the end of the dialogue, along with suggested potential action options to be enhanced by Dialogue participants, are all included in the Challenge Paper.
This document forms a summary of the findings.
