Once the innovation system is broadly defined, consider a stakeholder engagement exercise to further identify the problem in question and add nuance to the mapping.
Use stakeholder engagements to develop, refine, and validate an innovation system map and to explore capacity gaps.
Approach stakeholder engagements as a participatory learning exercise to strengthen the entire process.
Systems thinking places value on multiple viewpoints and ways of understanding. Questioning stakeholders’ assumptions about why things are the way they are is therefore fundamental to the process. Participatory exercises that use many of the tools recommended here inevitably require conversations with stakeholders that lead to discomfort, insecurity, or resistance.
Many of these tools are designed to overcome such reactions by helping stakeholders think differently about what they know or have learned in the past. Be prepared for those conversations.
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