THE TIHI LIVE PROJECT LAB
Bring us a real problem.
Not a hypothetical. Not a tidied-up case study.
A consequential problem the organisation is actually inside: stalled, recurring, emerging, contested, cross-boundary, or no longer adequately explained by the current representation.
The TIHI Live Project Lab is a bounded period of inquiry and intervention around a consequential live problem. Through a deliberately designed series of touchpoints with the work and the people closest to it, TIHI helps construct and progressively update the representation of what is happening, identify interventions worth testing, and learn from the response of the real system.
The organisational system the work moves through.
The consequential live problem itself.
The people closest to the consequence.
The Lab works on the problem in front of us while building greater capacity to inquire into the consequential complex work that comes next.
WE BEGIN WITH WHAT IS HAPPENING.
We don't begin by deciding what category the problem belongs to. We begin with what is happening and follow the consequence.
Everyone can know their piece. Nobody may yet hold enough of the problem.
Over an agreed period, TIHI works with the people, information and perspectives closest to the consequence, progressively building a more adequate representation of what is happening, testing useful interventions, and learning from what happens next.
Consequence determines relevance.
THE REPRESENTATION DEVELOPS WITH THE WORK.
The project or situation continues while the Lab is happening. TIHI enters through agreed touchpoints: observing, inquiring, synthesising, challenging the representation, supporting useful interventions and returning to see what the real system did with them.
The response of the real system becomes new information.
Representation → intervention → response → updated representation.
And we return with something a workshop alone cannot provide: what actually happened.
THE DESIGN SERVES THE PROBLEM.
The design serves the problem. Not the other way around.
The boundary, participants, touchpoints and inquiry methods are shaped by what the consequential live problem appears to require.
You don't know which boundary contains the problem until you understand enough of the consequence.
The purpose of the Lab is to understand enough to make a useful next move.
A DEVELOPING METHODOLOGY, GROUNDED IN ESTABLISHED WORK.
TIHI's approach develops through the Institute's work on representation, human contribution and intervention.
It draws from established research and practice concerned with humans and organisations in complex environments. Depending on the initial inquiry, this may include ideas and techniques from naturalistic decision-making and macrocognition, sensemaking, cognitive and sociotechnical systems approaches, and research concerned with work across specialist and organisational boundaries.
The Lab does not assume every problem requires the same theoretical lens.
As the representation develops, TIHI may identify a small number of established research lenses particularly relevant to the problem, introduce selected concepts into the inquiry, and work with participants to explore what those concepts make possible to see in the live context.
EPISTEMIC DISCIPLINEThe research is selected in service of the problem. The problem is not reshaped to fit the framework.
The representation then informs interventions worth testing. The system's response provides new information about what has been understood, what remains uncertain and where inquiry needs to move next.
The Lab combines a stable consequence-led inquiry architecture with selective use of established research lenses and techniques according to what the live problem appears to require.
THE LIVE WORK ITSELF BECOMES THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT.
Participants encounter relevant ideas while they have a real phenomenon to think with. Concepts are introduced in service of inquiry, applied to the live work, integrated with what participants already know and tested against what happens next.
Inquire → select → introduce → apply → integrate → intervene → observe → update.
SOMETIMES THE ANSWER REALLY IS: GET THE SPECIALIST.
TIHI does not assume integration replaces expertise.
Sometimes deeper specialist knowledge is exactly what the work requires.
The next move follows the inquiry.
CLAIRE'S ROLE IN THE LAB
Inquiry architect
Determines what the inquiry appears to require next.
Cross-domain integrator
Works between specialist perspectives and follows consequence across boundaries.
Representation challenger
Interrogates assumptions, boundaries, incongruence and competing explanations.
Intervention partner
Helps translate the developing representation into something useful enough to test.
She follows consequence across boundaries.
She doesn't replace the specialists. She works between the representations they hold.
Facilitation may be part of that work. It isn't the expertise being purchased.
THE INQUIRY CONTINUES THROUGH ACTION.
See → inquire → update → intervene → observe → inquire again.
Hold the AND long enough to discover what a premature OR would destroy.
The important information may sit in the relationships between the parts.
And TIHI stops pretending the room gets the final say.