Problems are shaped before they are solved
A frame is more than a point of view.
It joins evidence, cause, responsibility and value into an account of what is happening and what should be done. That account sets the boundaries of the problem and points towards particular forms of action.
Frames are necessary. We cannot hold every feature of a situation in view at once. The difficulty begins when an assumption disappears into the background and starts to look like fact.
Established problems carry the residue of earlier decisions. Categories have been created.
Measures have been chosen. Authority has been distributed. Previous responses have changed the conditions in which the next one will operate.
Framing brings those choices back into view.
The practice begins by questioning the problem as given. From there, the situation can be explored on its own terms, assumptions can be surfaced and challenged, and new possibilities can be made concrete enough to test.
The work does not end with a better idea. A frame becomes strategically useful when it changes what people can see, the roles they can take, the practices they can develop and the actions an organisation is prepared to support.
A frame can be examined and changed
Once the pattern becomes visible, it can be challenged.
Across the course, you will learn to:
Question the problem: Examine how the current definition was formed
Separate observation from interpretation: Distinguish what has been noticed from what has been assumed
Identify the frame: See how cause, responsibility, evidence and value have been organised
Notice what is absent: Bring overlooked relationships, experiences and forms of knowledge into view
Broaden the problem field: Develop a deeper account of the situation
Open the solution field: Move beyond the actions already contained in the original definition
Expand the value field: Recognise what people are seeking to preserve, create or change
Work with tension: Use contradiction, discomfort and failure as sources of insight
Create alternatives: Develop other ways of understanding what may be happening
Build propositions: Give a new frame enough form to discuss, test and revise
Create movement: Consider what must shift in practice, strategy and the wider environment for an idea to take hold
Move into action: Connect a changed understanding with experiments, decisions and practical next steps
A four week course
Each session combines short inputs, discussion and practical work. Participants apply the ideas to a challenge drawn from their own context.
Week 1: Questioning the problem as given
We begin with the challenge as it has been handed to us.
The first session examines how problems become named, bounded and assigned before action begins. Participants look at the language surrounding their challenge, the history beneath it and the consequences of accepting its definition too quickly.
Identifying the problem as it is currently understood
Distinguishing observations, symptoms, causes and interpretations
Tracing the decisions and assumptions that shaped the present account
Recognising when a challenge needs to be opened before it can be addressed
What you gain:
You leave with a clearer account of the challenge, the thinking carried by its current definition and the questions that need to be opened.
Week 2: Framing the problem
The second session develops a deeper view of the situation.
Participants examine the people, relationships, values, evidence and institutional conditions surrounding the challenge. The aim is to build an account grounded in the situation without allowing any single perspective to define the whole.
Mapping the wider field around the problem
Understanding who is involved, who could be involved and what is important to them
Identifying relationships, patterns and competing accounts
Examining the values being protected, pursued or neglected
Broadening the problem, solution and value fields
What you gain:
You develop a frame that brings more of the situation into view and creates a stronger basis for inquiry.
Week 3: Creating new frames
The third session explores how new ways of seeing are developed.
A different frame often begins with something the current account cannot explain. A contradiction, overlooked detail or repeated failure can expose its limits. Participants use clues, themes, metaphors and connections from other fields to form alternatives.
Working with tensions, anomalies and unexpected observations
Finding patterns across different experiences and contexts
Developing themes that connect the deeper values in the situation
Using metaphor to establish new working principles
Comparing frames by what they reveal, enable and leave unresolved
What you gain:
You learn how to move beyond criticism of the current approach and create plausible alternatives that can be explored with others.
Week 4: From frame to action
The final session asks what a new frame can move.
Participants develop propositions and experiments that give the frame practical form. They then consider the organisational and strategic conditions needed for the emerging approach to travel beyond a workshop or isolated project.
Connecting values with working principles
Turning a frame into propositions that can be examined in practice
Building a portfolio of immediate, intermediate and longer-term action
Identifying the practices, relationships and decisions that need to change
Recognising the forces that may support, redirect or block movement
Using experiments to create learning and influence the wider field
What you gain:
You finish with a practical framing process, a portfolio of possible action and a clearer view of what needs to shift for the new approach to have lasting influence.
Who it is for
Framing is for people whose work begins before the answer is clear.
It suits people who are:
Working across organisations, disciplines, services or communities
Shaping policy, strategy or organisational priorities
Making decisions while the problem itself remains contested
Designing services, programs or public initiatives
Bringing together people who understand the situation differently
Questioning why an established response continues to disappoint
Moving promising work beyond a single project or team
Building the judgement needed to work beyond standard methods
No background in design or complexity is assumed. Bring a challenge from your own work and be prepared to examine the thinking that surrounds it.
Details
When: Tuesdays, 6:00 to 8:00pm AEST - 1 to 22 September 2026
Time commitment: 4 sessions, 8 hours total
Where: Online via Zoom, with recordings
Cost: $749 AUD
Materials and reading
Participants receive course notes and practical exercises developed for the program.
There is no prescribed reading and no expectation that participants complete academic work between sessions. Ideas and practices are introduced where they support the work.
The course is informed by:
Frame Innovation by Kees Dorst
The Reflective Practitioner by Donald Schön
How We Think by John Dewey
Designing for the Common Good by Kees Dorst, Lucy Kaldor, Lucy Klippan and Rodger Watson
Creative Reboot by Barbara Doran, Rodger Watson and Dianna Vo
Reinventing Strategic Innovation by Kees Dorst, Rodger Watson and Barbara Doran
Facilitator:
Rodger Watson
Director of Strategic Innovation, House of Complexit
Rodger Watson is a strategic innovation practitioner, educator and author whose work has shaped policy, strategy, systems, products and places.
Across more than two decades, he has worked with governments, institutions and organisations to redefine complex challenges and turn new ways of seeing into practical change. His work has contributed to tangible shifts in public policy, infrastructure, services and institutional practice.
Rodger is co-author of Reinventing Strategic Innovation, Creative Reboot and Designing for the Common Good, and a Visiting Research Fellow at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. His work has helped establish framing and strategic innovation as practical approaches to complex public and organisational problems.
His practice brings together framing, design, situated inquiry and transdisciplinary thinking. It begins with a simple question: what problem are we actually dealing with?
