Madhav Agarwal
Founder of Paxterra. Systems and futures work, based in Sweden.
Who I am
I'm Madhav Agarwal, strategic designer and Swiss Army Knife. I help teams understand the people inside a system, map what's actually driving it, and prototype the interventions worth testing.
Paxterra is my practice, based in Sweden.
Where the name comes from
The name started as an intent: work with the radical ideas, imagine futures where we change systems completely. Not tweak the current one. Overthrow it.
Mainstream consulting optimises the system we have and calls it transformation. Paxterra starts one level up: asking what a system is for, and prototyping what should come next.
From here, two paths. Business as usual rides the current arrangement to its endpoint. Or enough of us change things radically enough, soon enough, to soften the landing and start building what comes next.
The Berkana Two Loops model describes a dying system and an emerging one running side by side, and the emerging one making it when its pioneers find each other and become a community of practice. That is where I place Paxterra. So this site is an invitation more than a shop window: if you are building on the emerging loop too, I would genuinely like to hear from you.
Systems practice, futures practice, and service design, used to get from sense-making to something concrete enough to test. The specific maps and exercises flex with the problem. Run light and time-boxed, not as a year-long study.
The full process, and the engagements it runs inside, are on the Working together page.
Thinking along these lines too? Say hello. The coffee invitation is genuine.