About The Challenge Lab: Where Practitioner Wisdom Meets Evidence-Based Practice
The Challenge Lab is the culmination of a decades-long journey by practitioners to bridge the gap between theoretical insights and practical realities in addressing complex organizational challenges. Born from the convergence of practitioner expertise and scholarly rigor, we provide leaders with evidence-based adaptive practices to navigate modern business's complex, shifting landscapes.
Our Origins: A Story of Convergence
The Challenge Lab's genesis began with a simple yet profound realization: the most intractable challenges facing organizations today require solutions that transcend traditional management approaches. Our founders, seasoned practitioners with deep roots in industry and academia, recognized the need for a place where diverse perspectives could converge to tackle these complex issues.
Early Years: Experimentation and Innovation
In our formative years, we experimented with novel approaches to complex problem-solving, integrating insights from systems thinking, organizational behavior, and innovation management. This exploration period led to the development of our signature adaptive practices.
Evolution: Relentless Experimentation
As we grew, we strengthened our commitment to rigor and evidence-based practice. We began infusing our approach with the latest findings from network science, mesoeconomics (the economics of complex networks), cognitive psychology, and complexity theory. This fusion of practitioner insights with evidence-based practice has been instrumental in shaping our distinctive approach to addressing complex challenges.
Our Philosophy: Co-Creation and Continuous Learning
At The Challenge Lab, we believe the most effective solutions emerge from collaborative processes that unite diverse perspectives and disciplines with a relentless focus on outcomes. Our approach creates environments where leaders can engage in practical experiments, challenge assumptions, and co-develop innovative solutions.
Core Values
- Rigorous Collaboration: Complex challenges require diverse perspectives and expertise. Collaboration is not a buzzword to us. It is a rigorous process and a professional practice.
- Evidence-Based Practice: Our methodologies are grounded in the latest research and empirical evidence.
- Collective Learning and Adaptation: Solutions to complex challenges emerge from practical knowledge gained through relentless experimentation.
- Ethical Leadership: We prioritize ethical considerations in all our work, ensuring our solutions align with our broader responsibilities as leaders.
Our Team: A Blend of Expertise
Our team is a dynamic blend of seasoned practitioners on the frontier of adaptive practice. Each member brings unique skills and experiences, from organizational development and strategy to complexity science and design thinking. Our diverse perspectives allow us to approach challenges from multiple angles, ensuring replicable, scalable, and sustainable solutions.
Antonino Ardilio
Antonino Ardilio is a design engineer and head of Innovation Design at Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart, Germany. He pioneered using big data to identify technology development and innovation opportunities.
Lisa Arafune
Lisa Arafune is the Executive Director of the Challenges Lab, with over 20 years of experience in science and technology lobbying in Washington, DC. She is founder of Forge Policy Solutions and co-founder of the Additive Manufacturing Coalition.
Ubaldo Córdova-Figueroa
Ubaldo Córdova-Figueroa is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, former provost of the University of Puerto Rico System, and member of the Board of Trustees of the Puerto Rico Science, Technology & Research Trust.
Scott Hutcheson
Scott Hutcheson worked with Ed Morrison to develop Strategic Doing at Purdue University. He is a Purdue professor, Forbes contributor, and author of Biohacking Leadership: Leveraging the Biology of Behavior to Maximize Your Impact (Wiley).
Jo’Anne Langham
Jo’Anne Langham lectures at Queensland University of Technology Graduate School of Business and is the chief design officer for the Strategic Doing Institute. She is also the founder of SparkTank, an online design platform.
Ed Morrison
Ed Morrison is the developer of Strategic Doing, a strategy discipline designed for open, loosely connected networks in open innovation and ecosystems.
Julio Jose Prado
Julio Jose Prodo is a former Minister in Ecuador and a pioneer of adaptive management practices. He is the author of "From Shock to Action: Mindset and Indispensable Tools to Adapt in Chaos.” He is a global authority on innovation ecosystems.
Doug Smith
Doug Smith is the author of the management classic, The Wisdom of Teams, as well as five other books on management, all explaining how to guide teams. He is the architect of Performance Driven Change, a core methodology of the Challenge Lab.