The history of Appreciative Inquiry

Jane Magruder Watkins has worked in the field of Organization Development for 40 years. She has worked in and consulted to organisations in the business, government and not-for-profit sectors. Her work in over 50 countries has grounded her work in a global consciousness that values the diversity and possibility. Since the mid-1980’s, she has worked with David Cooperrider to develop and spread Appreciative Inquiry (AI) around the globe.

Roger Rowett was fortunate enough to train with Jane in 2009. A wonderful experience and a wonderful lady! One of the many memorable quotes from Jane was ‘plan hard, hang lose’! Good advice for any group training process.

Jane is especially intrigued with the emerging global environment that is calling for new and innovative processes and approaches to change. She sees Appreciative Inquiry as a bridge that enables organisations, communities, individuals and couples to embrace the emerging paradigm, recreating themselves and their realities by imagining and living into their own unique visions of the future.

Jane has published several articles about Appreciative Inquiry and is co-author with Bernard Mohr of the best-selling book on AI called: Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination.


  • Thank you for an energising and informative day - a great mix of theory and practical experience which has shown the value of AI. I'm buzzing with ideas of how we can apply this approach across the organisation and we will be setting up an AI collaborative of the attendees at the workshop to explore all applications and cascade the techniques across the museum. Thank you Roger for your expertise and experience in leading us through this invaluable day and for setting us off on our journey.
    Head of Policy & Planning, National Museum Wales (2011)


  • The task of organisational leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make a system's weaknesses irrelevant.
    Peter Drucker

  • AI can be used as an evaluative technique, but its main purpose is to identify good practice, introduce and implement change successfully.
    NFER report

  • If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
    Abraham Maslow