The Strategy Testing Workbook: Politically-Smart Adaptive Programming in Complex Environments

Resource type
Authors/contributors
Title
The Strategy Testing Workbook: Politically-Smart Adaptive Programming in Complex Environments
Abstract
The guide begins with a section on what we at TAF have learned about practicing Strategy Testing, highlighting things that we didn’t know when we started out. Some of these lessons may seem obvious, but others may strike you as less so. In any case, we believe that, when taken together, they provide a useful reminder of some of the pitfalls that arise in efforts to practice Adaptive Management. Moreover, they help to remind us that there are multiple layers to doing Strategy Testing effectively as a system instead of reducing it to its component parts and applying them mechanistically. Thus these lessons are useful to read now and to revisit later. The guide then comprises three more sections: • Part 1, the Design Stage, involves constructing the system and making sure everyone is on board; • Part 2, the Inception Phase (start-up phase), helps the implementing team to make the leap from the ideal initially set out in the design stage to the grounding, support, and frameworks that the team will need to implement Strategy Testing in a meaningful and impactful way. We’ve found that the gap between design and implementation is very often the cause of an ineffective ‘all talk and no walk’ approach to Adaptive Management. And finally; • Part 3 covers Program Implementation – the practices, knowledge, and culture needed for the feedback loop that underpins Strategy Testing. The guide can be used for individual or group learning, or it can be used directly to inform Reflection Sessions (see Section 3) through the questions we raise or the activities herein.
Place
San Francisco, CA
Institution
The Asia Foundation
Date
2024-07-23
Language
en
Short Title
The Strategy Testing Workbook
Accessed
10/03/2025, 12:25
Citation
Nixon, N., O’Donnell, C., Rajalingam, G., Tweedie, P., & Sullivan, E. (2024). The Strategy Testing Workbook: Politically-Smart Adaptive Programming in Complex Environments. The Asia Foundation. https://asiafoundation.org/publication/the-strategy-testing-workbook-politically-smart-adaptive-programming-in-complex-environments/