[ APPROACH ]

Approach

How Rico Kerstan thinks about problems: problem-driven work, organizational resilience, and the connection between practice and research.

[ WORKING PRINCIPLE ]

P-DRIVEN

Problem-Driven Work

P-DRIVEN is not a framework, not a management system, and not a theoretical model. It is an operating model for managing uncertainty in complex problem situations – crises, emergencies, dynamic conditions. At its core is a disciplined problem-solving process, applied consistently. Leadership, team composition, and decision structures all align around this process.

Operational Applied stoically. Effective with minimal preparation.
Scalable For organizations of any size and type.
Focus Ensuring capability to act, prioritization, and situational adaptation.
Leadership Dual leadership of domain expertise and methodical guidance. Domain-based team composition.
[ CONCEPTUAL MODEL: ORGANIZATIONS ]

C]ORE

Corporate Organizational Resilience Excellence

Resilience is often misunderstood: as defense, redundancy, or crisis planning. The real question is: how does an organization stay functional when conditions change, disruptions occur, and decisions must be made under pressure?

  • Robustness and adaptability must be thought together
  • Crisis and non-crisis cannot be neatly separated
  • What matters is the interaction of structures, processes, accountability, and culture
  • Resilience is not a project goal – it is a permanent organizational property
[ CONCEPTUAL MODEL: MUNICIPALITIES ]

M]ORE

Municipal Organizational Resilience Excellence

Municipalities are not companies. They are complex, networked systems with public, private, and civic actors. Municipal resilience does not emerge from individual plans – it emerges from a robust ecosystem.

  • Municipal resilience requires connected actors
  • Public and private accountability must be thought together
  • Corporate models cannot be transferred unchanged
  • M]ORE is a distinct conceptual framework
[ RESEARCH ]

Practice and Research

The gap between practice and research in crisis management is real. There is extensive experiential knowledge – but little systematic examination of what actually works and why. That gap is the starting point.

Research themes

  • Effectiveness of crisis management approaches
  • Decision-making in dynamic situations
  • Crisis management exercises and training
  • Measurability in crisis preparedness
  • Organizational resilience as research subject

Ongoing PhD project

Effectiveness and effectivity of crisis management approaches: experimental study on different methodologies in German business context – TU Ostrava, since 2024

Selected publications

  • Kerstan, R. (2024): Methodenhandbuch für effektives IT-Notfallmanagement. 1. Auflage.
  • Röhl, A.; Kerstan, R. (2023): Kommunale Selbstverwaltung, 02/2023, S. 63–66.
  • Röhl, A.; Kerstan, R. (2021): Die Bedeutung organisationaler Ökosysteme, in: Vogt et al. (Hrsg.), Wirtschaftsschutz in der Praxis (2022).
  • Röhl, A.; Kerstan, R. (2020): Lehren aus der Corona-Pandemie, der Gemeinderat.
  • Kerstan, R.; Röhl, A. (2020): Wie resilient sind Organisationen in Deutschland?, Working Paper NBS Hamburg, No. 4/2020.
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