Run a Lab

Operate a lab as a sustained platform for sensemaking, experimentation, collaboration, and action.

The purpose is not to keep the lab busy. It is to help the ecosystem understand more, test possibilities, and generate useful action.

Your Pathway

1. Sense → 2. Convene → 3. Explore → 4. Experiment → 5. Connect → 6. Learn → 7. Evolve

1. Sense

Continuously observe the challenge and surrounding system.

Collect signals from research, stakeholders, communities, government, partners, projects, and changing conditions.

You're done when: The lab has a current picture of what may be changing.

2. Convene

Bring together people who see different parts of the system.

Use convenings for sensemaking, relationship building, exploration, and coordination rather than routine presentations.

You're done when: Participants understand more together than they could separately.

3. Explore

Investigate important uncertainties.

Use research, interviews, systems tools, design methods, AI, and stakeholder conversations to examine different interpretations.

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[Ask ChatGPT] [Work with Claude] [Systems Tools] [Research]

You're done when: Important assumptions and possibilities have become more visible.

4. Experiment

Turn promising possibilities into small tests.

The lab can launch:

• prototypes

• research

• pilots

• fellowships

• policy experiments

• design projects

• partnerships

You're done when: Ideas are encountering reality.

5. Connect

Build relationships across initiatives and institutions.

Look for opportunities where one project, partner, university, government agency, or country can strengthen another.

You're done when: The lab functions as an ecosystem rather than a collection of disconnected projects.

6. Learn

Interpret what the portfolio is revealing.

Ask:

• What are we learning?

• What surprised us?

• What is failing?

• What is gaining momentum?

• What new questions are appearing?

You're done when: Learning influences the lab's portfolio.

7. Evolve

Periodically reconsider the lab itself.

The challenge, participants, portfolio, or institutional arrangements may need to change.

A successful lab should be capable of redesigning itself.

You're done when: The lab remains relevant to the system it exists to serve.

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