Bring us the problem that is not adding up.
PEASI helps teams diagnose complex problems across all levels of the system, identify what must change, and turn the result into an actionable Theory of Change.
Use it yourself, work through it with a facilitator, commission a complete team workshop, or build PEASI capability inside your organisation.
PEASI™ is the method I use to help workforce and health system leaders stop reaching for activities before they’ve properly understood the problem. It starts with five questions — and a way of looking at each one from three different vantage points.
Workforce governance provides the lens for understanding the architecture. PEASI provides a practical method for diagnosing and changing a particular problem within it.
What is PEASI™
PEASI stands for Problem → Enablers → Activities → Success → Impact — five connected elements that move logically from understanding a problem to delivering real change.
The five elements provide a way to identify a clear purpose and actions in complex systems:
- Problem — what is the actual problem we are trying to solve, and for whom?
- Enablers — what needs to exist for a solution to work?
- Activities — what will we actually do?
- Success — how will we know it’s working?
- Impact — what’s the change we ultimately want to achieve?
Most teams start at Activities — “let’s run a survey,” “let’s build an app” — before they’ve agreed what Impact they’re aiming for. PEASI deliberately reorders the conversation so Impact is the anchor, and Activities are chosen last, not first.
Layered underneath is the IOG lens — Individual, Organisational, and Global (or Systems) — which shows how the same problem looks different depending on whose vantage point you take. Read together, the two form a single diagnostic and design architecture.
PEASI was evolved from more than two decades of work using programme logic, Theory of Change, realist approaches and systems thinking to tackle complex health and workforce problems.
Choose how you want to use PEASI™
Understand PEASI
See the thinking behind the method-
Read the methods paper
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Understand the PEASI framework
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Explore applied examples
use it yourself
Turn a problem into a clear plan-
Download the PEASI Canvas
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Work through each PEASI element
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Build your own Theory of Change
facilitated
Move from discussion to a useable result-
Structured team workshop
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Facilitated collaboration
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Synthesised analysis and report
build capability
Make PEASI an organisational resource-
Facilitator training
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Reusable tools and resources
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Support for organisational use
Try it yourself
Download the free PEASI Starter Pack, including the PEASI Canvas, PEASI–IOG Matrix and Quick-Start Guide. Please feel free to share the PEASI Canvas, but please keep the attribution line.
PEASI™ in practice
PEASI: A Problem-First Method for Designing Change
PEASI is a practical, problem-first methodology drawing on program logic and Theory of Change to diagnose complex problems, design credible interventions and create measurable change.
Solving Complex Problems? Stop Starting With the Solution
Why do organisations keep investing in plausible solutions that fail to resolve the underlying problem? The answer often lies in the planning process itself.
Program Logic vs Theory of Change vs Realist Evaluation — Where PEASI Fits
There’s a good reason complex problems have generated decades of serious methodology — and a good reason almost none of it made it into general use. Here’s the lineage PEASI actually comes from.
