The Systems Work of Social Change: How to Harness Connection, Context, and Power to Cultivate Deep and Enduring Change - Rayner, Cynthia; Bonnici, François (OUP Oxford, 2021)
The issues of poverty, inequality, racial justice, and climate change have never been more pressing or paralyzing. Current approaches to social change, which rely on industrial models of production and power to "solve" social problems, are not helping. In fact, they are designed to entrench the status quo. In The Systems Work of Social Change, Cynthia Rayner and François Bonnici draw on two hundred years of history and a treasure trove of stories of committed social changemakers to uncover principles and practices for social change that radically depart from these approaches. Rather than delivering "solutions," these principles and practices focus on the process of change itself. Through rich storytelling and lucid analysis, Rayner and Bonnici show that connection, context, and power sit at the heart of the change process, ensuring broader agency for people and communities to create social systems that are responsive and representative in a rapidly changing world. Simple yet profound, this book distills a timely set of lessons for practitioners, leaders, scholars, and policymakers.

Re-institute website - RE!NSTITUTE (Re!nstitute, 2023)
We are a dynamic non-profit organization with a unique approach to managing change and catalyzing innovation to support global systems transformation. We know that to achieve equal, just, and safe communities, we must collectively challenge and change the systems that people rely on — especially those most vulnerable. Together, we must RE!BUILD a system's resilience and capacity to take on our biggest generational challenges. Justice, housing, health, and other systems in every country are often struggling to come together, across institutions and organizations, to unite under a common vision for change, and implement those changes in effective and innovative ways. Our work and methodology — the 100-Day Challenge — are designed to support these systems to achieve extraordinary results. Our approach is rooted in the philosophy that frontline staff, supported by leadership, can unleash innovation and achieve incredible results by creating new relationships, experimenting with fresh ideas from across their system, and building authentic engagement with those with lived experience.

Strategic framework for mainstreaming citizen engagement in World Bank Group operations : engaging with citizens for improved results - Rebolledo, Miguel; Seyedian, Aaron; Peixoto, Tiago; Hernandez, Zenaida; Zakhour, Jad; Mahmood, Syed A.; Masud, Harika; Manroth, Astrid; Hamad, Qays (The World Bank, 2014)
The objective of this strategic framework is to mainstream citizen engagement in World Bank Group (WBG)-supported policies, programs, projects, and advisory services and analytics to improve their development results and within the scope of these operations, contribute to building sustainable national systems for citizen engagement with governments and the private sector. This framework will capture the diverse experiences, assess lessons learned, and outline methods and entry points to provide a more systematic and results-focused approach for the WBG. Progress toward this objective will be assessed using indicators included in program, project, and corporate results frameworks. The WBG strategy incorporates citizen engagement, including beneficiary feedback, specifically in its treatment of inclusion, which entails empowering citizens to participate in the development process and integrating citizen voice in development programs as key accelerators to achieving results. This framework builds on stocktaking and lessons learned from WBG-financed operations across regions and sectors. A key lesson is the importance of country context, government ownership, and clear objectives for citizen engagement. The approach to mainstreaming citizen engagement in WBG-supported operations is guided by five principles: 1) it is results-focused; 2) it involves engaging throughout the operational cycle; 3) it seeks to strengthen country systems; 4) it is context-specific; and 5) it is gradual. Under the right circumstances, citizen engagement can contribute to achieving development outcomes in support of the goals the WBG aims to support through all of the operations it funds: eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity in a sustainable manner.

Using Data to Influence Government Decisions. Opportunities and Challenges for User-Centered Design to Improve Governance Data Impact - Reboot (Reboot & OSF, 2015)

Implementing Innovation: A User's Manual for Open Government Programs - Reboot Design (2015)
This guide draws from our experience around the world helping government reformers achieve real change. It is a practical resource for anyone working to implement an open government initiative.

What is Social Learning? - Reed, Mark; Evely, Anna; Cundill, Georgina; Fazey, Ioan; Glass, Jayne; Laing, Adele; Newig, Jens; Parrish, Brad; Prell, Christina; Raymond, Chris; Stringer, Lindsay (Ecology and Society, 2010)
Reed, M. S., A. C. Evely, G. Cundill, I. Fazey, J. Glass, A. Laing, J. Newig, B. Parrish, C. Prell, C. Raymond, and L. C. Stringer. 2010. What is social learning? Ecology and Society 15(4): r1. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03564-1504r01

The Truth of the Work: Theories of Change in a changing world - Reeler, Doug; van Blerk, Rubert (The Community Development Resource Association, 2017)

Conjunctions: Introducing Cultural Participation as a Transdisciplinary Project - Reestorff, Camilla Møhring; Fabian, Louise; Fritsch, Jonas; Stage, Carsten; Stephensen, Jan Løhmann (Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, 2014)
In the introduction of Conjunction: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation we introduce 1) the aim of the journal, 2) the journal’s conception of transdisciplinarity as an important precondition for understanding contemporary processes and dilemmas of participation, 3) important trajectories in the existing literature on participation that focus on participation as linked to technological changes, to democratic processes of transferring power, and to complex social situations calling for analytical and evaluative frameworks able to grasp multiplicity and competing interests, and 4) the theme and articles of the this special issue: cultural participation and citizenship.
Keywords: Cultural participation; Participatory citizenship; Power dynamics; democracy; transdisciplinarity

Exploring ways to reconcile accountability and learning in the evaluation of niche experiments - Regeer, Barbara J.; de Wildt-Liesveld, Renée; van Mierlo, Barbara; Bunders, Joske F. G. (Evaluation, 2016)
While evaluation is seen as a mechanism for both accountability and learning, it is not self-evident that the evaluation of niche experiments focuses on both accountability and learning at the same time. Tensions exist between the accountability-oriented needs of funders and the learning needs of managers of niche experiments. This article explores the differences in needs and expectations of funders and managers in terms of upwards, downwards and internal accountability. The article shows that as the multi-stakeholder contexts in which niche experiments take place give rise to various requirements, tensions in evaluation are essentially a specific manifestation of tensions between niche experiments and their multiple contexts. Based on our findings, an adjusted accountability framework is proposed, including several strategies that can reconcile a learning approach with accountability needs in niche experiments aiming to change current practices in a more sustainable direction.

Appropriate ICT as a Tool to Increase Effectiveness in ICT4D: Theoretical considerations and illustrating cases - Reijswoud, Victor van (The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 2009)
The need to bridge the digital divide is no longer a point of discussion and therefore focus has shifted to the design and implementation of programs that have the potential to close the information and knowledge gap between the developing and developed nations. Unfortunately, the majority of these programs are small and mimic what has been successful in the developed world. It has become increasingly clear that these successes do not necessarily translate well in the context of developing nations. This paper develops the hypothesis that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects in developing countries will become successful only when they are adapted to local conditions. The general concept of Appropriate Technology (AT) will be explored for the field of ICT. AT has already been embraced by fields like architecture, building technology and agriculture, but has not yet been rooted in ICT. The paper proposes a preliminary theory of Appropriate ICT along the lines of existing theories in AT and System development. The theory identifies Appropriate Technology principles at three levels: hardware, software and ICT change management. By means of real life mini cases in the ICT for Development context in Africa, the guiding principles for Appropriate ICT are illustrated. The paper will conclude with an agenda for further research in the three identified levels. The research agenda targets academia, governments, NGO's and industry.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Confronting the Contradiction - An exploration into the dual purpose of accountability and learning in aid evaluation - Reinertsen, Hilde; Bjørkdahl, Kristian; McNeill, Desmond (Expertgruppen för biståndsanalys (EBA), 2017)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Integrating modelling and smart sensors for environmental and human health - Reis, Stefan; Seto, Edmund; Northcross, Amanda; Quinn, Nigel W. T.; Convertino, Matteo; Jones, Rod L.; Maier, Holger R.; Schlink, Uwe; Steinle, Susanne; Vieno, Massimo; Wimberly, Michael C. (Environmental Modelling & Software, 2015)
Sensors are becoming ubiquitous in everyday life, generating data at an unprecedented rate and scale. However, models that assess impacts of human activities on environmental and human health, have typically been developed in contexts where data scarcity is the norm. Models are essential tools to understand processes, identify relationships, associations and causality, formalize stakeholder mental models, and to quantify the effects of prevention and interventions. They can help to explain data, as well as inform the deployment and location of sensors by identifying hotspots and areas of interest where data collection may achieve the best results. We identify a paradigm shift in how the integration of models and sensors can contribute to harnessing ‘Big Data’ and, more importantly, make the vital step from ‘Big Data’ to ‘Big Information’. In this paper, we illustrate current developments and identify key research needs using human and environmental health challenges as an example.
Keywords: Big data; Environmental health; Environmental sensors; Integrated modelling; Population health

No Mechanism Without Context: Strengthening the Analysis of Context in Realist Evaluations Using Causal Loop Diagramming - Renmans, Dimitri; Holvoet, Nathalie; Criel, Bart (New Directions for Evaluation, 2020)
Realist evaluation is an approach with a strong emphasis on causal mechanisms and the context in which they are triggered. However, recent reviews of published realist evaluations show that context is often understudied. This is problematic, as a thorough understanding of the relationship between context and causal mechanisms is crucial in assisting policymakers to make appropriate and targeted decisions that improve the intervention. Therefore, we set out to test whether combining realist evaluation with the “systems thinking” approach and, more specifically, causal loop diagramming, could help strengthen the analysis of context. We did this through a study of a performance-based financing (PBF) intervention in the Ugandan health care sector by the Belgian development agency, Enabel. PBF allocates funds to health workers and/or health facilities based on their performance, and introduces additional management support tools, provides extra monitoring and supervision, and promotes community participation in management issues, among other activities. In this case, we found that the proposed combined methodological approach indeed adds value to the analysis, as it leads to insights into the role played by the underlying system that otherwise may have been overlooked. Moreover, such information may provide clear directions to policymakers on how to improve the intervention in a sustainable way. Finally, causal loop diagrams help to visualize complex causal interactions and to communicate them to policymakers.

(Breaking) The Iron Triangle of Evaluation - Reynolds, Martin (IDS Bulletin, 2015)
Keywords: Evaluation; impact

Models for Foresight Use in International Development - Rhydderch, Alun (IDS Bulletin, 2016)
This article sets out the components of the foresight approach that has been adopted by many governments in the developed world, and identifies elements of this 'dominant' approach that may hinder its uptake in developing countries. Instead, it suggests that a less rigid, more exploratory and normative approach may be better suited to many developing country contexts. With reference to the writings and practice of the creator of 'la prospective', Gaston Berger, it argues for an attitude that combines bold and inclusive thinking about how to create better futures with the pragmatic engagement with political and administrative systems that can help bring these about.

Does Foreign Aid Really Work? An Updated Assessment - Riddell, Roger C. (Social Science Research Network, 2014)
This paper draws widely from the book Does foreign aid really work?, building on that discussion to provide an updated answer to the question based on recent evidence and contemporary debates on aid effectiveness. It starts with a brief discussion (Section 2) of the question: ‘does emergency aid work?’ This is important to the wider debate for two linked reasons. Firstly, the harshest critics of development aid are all supportive of emergency aid, with a number calling for its expansion in spite of evidence of major weaknesses and failures. Secondly, the sharp historical distinction made between emergency and development aid is becoming increasingly strained, as more emergency aid is being used a year or more after emergencies strike to rebuild lives and restore livelihoods, while more development aid is used to directly save lives.The rest of the paper focuses exclusively on development aid. Section 3 provides a rapid overview of the evidence of the impact of individual aid projects, including those of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The picture is overwhelmingly positive: well over 75% of projects meet their immediate objectives and impact has improved, even though sustaining benefits remains a challenge and there continue to be aid failures. Section 4 reviews the evidence of the wider and long-term impact of aid at the sectoral and country level, including a brief discussion of academic studies on aid and growth. Though there are still major gaps in our knowledge, the quality of the data is improving. However, there is little firm, quantitative evidence to show the specific contribution that aid has made to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which are a central purpose of many current donor programmes (Section 4.2). More widely, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that aid has contributed positively to both growth and wider development at the sector and country level, though some studies suggest aid has had little or no impact. Overall, the contribution that aid makes to aggregate development is lower than the public has been led to believe (Sections 4.1, 4.3. and 4.4). Assessments of the overall impact of the aid provided by NGOs are rare, but a recent study suggests it has been positive (Section 4.5). More attention is now given to the issues of corruption in aid. Although there is evidence of aid funds being used for corrupt purposes and of aid worsening corruption, on balance it remains a minor issue. Aid has had significant successes in helping the poor affected by corruption (Section 4.6). The second half of the paper shifts focus to the large gap between what aid has done and what it might do. Section 5 discusses a range of inefficiencies within and across the aid system and their costs in terms of reduced impact, including the way aid is allocated, its growing complexity, and the volatility and unpredictability of aid flows (Section 5.1 and 5.2). These inefficiencies place in a different light the evidence of aid’s overall positive impact. The paper looks at the different initiatives that have been mounted to begin to address these weaknesses and failures, including the 2005 Paris Declaration, and discusses why donors have failed to honour the promises they have made to change the ways that they give aid.In Section 5.3, the paper argues that the most critical debate about whether aid works concerns the assessment of whether the short-term, immediate and extensive benefits that aid undoubtedly brings are outweighed by the direct and indirect systemic problems that it risks creating or accentuating. As increasingly over the last decade donors have channelled more of their aid into short-term, quick-impact projects, assessing the wider negative systemic effects of aid has become even more important. Some recent studies suggest that aid’s systemic problems are large and growing, narrowing the gap between aid’s harshest critics and broader analyses of aid impact. Against the backdrop of already too many proposals of how to make aid work better, Section 6 lays out nine concrete proposals for doing this: deepening knowledge of local contexts; ensuring short-term uses of aid are consistent with and supportive of long-term development, and that all aid is more closely related to overall recipient development goals and processes; helping build local capacities for recipients to be able to coordinate aid better; moving from rhetoric to reality in learning lessons from aid; using aid to help the poor in middle income countries; reducing volatility in aid at the country level; encouraging budget support by addressing donor-country political concerns; and rethinking ways of communicating about aid. Section 7 concludes. It suggests that, paradoxically, aid’s impact may well have been harmed by focussing too narrowly on trying to make short-term aid work better, and that the main focus of attention needs to widen to assess how aid can contribute more to a recipient’s own development goals. Additionally, donors need to help build the capacity of developing countries and developing country scholars to enable them to play a bigger role in helping to answer the question of whether aid works; unsettling though their assessments may be.

Adaptive Impact Management: An Integrative Approach to Wildlife Management - Riley, Shawn; Siemer, William; Decker, Daniel; Carpenter, Len; Organ, John; Berchielli, Louis (Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 2003)

The Science in Adaptive Management - Ripley, Matt; Jaccard, Sabine (ILO, 2016)
‘Adaptive management’ is all the rage in international development circles. But to avoid yet another buzzword – we need to learn from the experience of natural resource science.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Making Sense of ‘Messiness’. Monitoring and measuring change in market systems: a practitioner's perspective - Ripley, Matthew; Nippard, Daniel (2014)

Adaptive management: where are we now? - Rist, Lucy; Campbell, Bruce M.; Frost, Peter (Environmental Conservation, 2013)
Adaptive management (AM) emerged in the literature in the mid-1970s in response both to a realization of the extent of uncertainty involved in management, and a frustration with attempts to use modelling to integrate knowledge and make predictions. The term has since become increasingly widely used in scientific articles, policy documents and management plans, but both understanding and application of the concept is mixed. This paper reviews recent literature from conservation and natural resource management journals to assess diversity in how the term is used, highlight ambiguities and consider how the concept might be further assessed. AM is currently being used to describe many different management contexts, scales and locations. Few authors define the term explicitly or describe how it offers a means to improve management outcomes in their specific management context. Many do not adhere to the idea as it was originally conceived, despite citing seminal work. Significant confusion exists over the distinction between active and passive approaches. Over half of the studies reporting to implement AM claimed to have done so successfully, yet none quantified specific benefits, or costs, in relation to possible alternatives. Similarly those studies reporting to assess the approach did so only in relation to specific models and their parameterizations; none assessed the benefits or costs of AM in the field. AM is regarded by some as an effective and well-established framework to support the management of natural resources, yet by others as a concept difficult to realize and fraught with implementation challenges; neither of these observations is wholly accurate. From a scientific and technical perspective many practical questions remain; in particular real-world assessments of the value of experimentation within a management framework, as well as of identified challenges and pathologies, are needed. Further discussion and systematic assessment of the approach is required, together with greater attention to its definition and description, enabling the assessment of new approaches to managing uncertainty, and AM itself.
Keywords: Adaptive Management; Decision making; Natural resource management; conservation; experimental management; uncertainty

Why Software Fails - We waste billions of dollars each year on entirely preventable mistakes - Robert N., Charette (IEEE Spectrum, 2005)
We waste billions of dollars each year on entirely preventable mistakes. The biggest tragedy is that software failure is for the most part predictable and avoidable. Unfortunately, most organizations don't see preventing failure as an urgent matter, even though that view risks harming the organization and maybe even destroying it. Understanding why this attitude persists is not just an academic exercise; it has tremendous implications for business and society.
Section: Computing

Key Issues in Digitalisation and Governance - Roberts, Tony; Hernandez, Kevin; Faith, Becky; Prieto Martin, Pedro (SDC, 2022)
Digitalisation is perhaps the most important strategic challenge that governance will face over the coming decade. The process is delivering digital dividends as well as new exclusions and injustices, with the rapid but uneven increase in access to mobile and internet technologies transforming how social and economic life takes place. This report highlights the key opportunities and challenges arising from digitalisation.
Accepted: 2022-07-25T11:31:42Z Publisher: SDC Governance Network

Hospicing The Old - Robinson, Cassie (Stewarding Loss, 2019)
In 2010 I was introduced to the Berkana Institutes’s Two Loop model, and I come back to it again and again. As I’ve moved across different…

Thinking and Working Politically through Applied Political Economy Analysis. A guide for practitioners - Rocha Menocal, Alina; Cassidy, Marc; Swift, Sarah; Jacobstein, David; Rothblum, Corinne; Tservil, Ilona (USAID, 2018)
Thinking and Working Politically (TWP) through Applied Political Economy Analysis (PEA). A guide for practitioners Have you ever done everything right in a development program — followed every technical best practice — but still missed the mark? When this happens, it often relates to factors in the context beyond any external development actor’s ability to control.

Overcoming Premature Evaluation - Roche, Chris (2016)
Guest post from Chris Roche on practical ways of introducing adaptive management, learning from failure etc in aid programmes

Simplicity, Accountability and Relationships: Three ways to ensure MEL supports Adaptive Management - Roche, Chris (From Poverty to Power, 2018)
Based on a recent discussion in Manila, Chris Roche reflects on how Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning can better support 'adaptive programming'.

Monitoring and evaluation for adaptive programming - Roche, Chris; Kelly, Linda (Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre, 2018)
Chris Roche and Linda Kelly with six take-aways on what is being tried and learnt in setting up monitoring and evaluation frameworks for adaptive programs.

Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter - Rock, David; Halvorson, Heidi Grant (Harvard Business Review, 2016)
Research shows they’re more successful in three important ways.

Social Learning and Natural Resource Management: The Emergence of Three Research Perspectives - Rodela, Romina (Ecology and Society, 2011)
Rodela, R. 2011. Social learning and natural resource management: the emergence of three research perspectives. Ecology and Society 16(4): 30. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04554-160430

The New Development Economics: We Shall Experiment, but How Shall We Learn? - Rodrik, Dani (SSRN, 2008)
Development economics is split between macro-development economists - who focus on economic growth, international trade, and fiscal/macro policies - and micro-development economists - who study microfinance, education, health, and other social programs. Recently there has been substantial convergence in the policy mindset exhibited by micro evaluation enthusiasts, on the one hand, and growth diagnosticians, on the other. At the same time, the randomized evaluation revolution has led to an accentuation of the methodological divergence between the two camps. Overcoming the split requires changes on both sides. Macrodevelopment economists need to recognize the distinct advantages of the experimental approach and adopt the policy mindset of the randomized evaluation enthusiasts. Micro-development economists, for their part, have to recognize that the utility of randomized evaluations is restricted by the narrow and limited scope of their application. As the Chinese example illustrates, extending the experimental mindset to the domain of economy-wide reforms is not just possible, it has already been practiced with resounding success in the most important development experience of our generation.
Keywords: Economics; Finance; Health Care; International Development; International Economics; International Trade; Macroeconomics; Microeconomics; Social Policy; Welfare

Beyond enforcement: communities, governance, incentives and sustainable use in combating wildlife crime. Symposium Report. - Roe, Dilys (IIED, 2015)

A New Policy Narrative for Pastoralism? Pastoralists as Reliability Professionals and Pastoralist Systems as Infrastructure - Roe, Emery (ESRC STEPS Centre, 2020)
This paper proposes that pastoralist systems are better treated, in aggregate, as a global critical infrastructure. The policy and management implications that follow are significant and differ importantly from current pastoralist policies and recommendations. A multi-typology framework is presented, identifying the conditions under which pastoralists can be considered real-time reliability professionals in systems with mandates preventing or otherwise avoiding key events from happening. The framework leads to a different policy-relevant counternarrative to pastoralism as understood today. Some features of the counternarrative are already known or have been researched. The paper’s aim is to provoke further work (including case research and interactions with decisionmakers) on how robust the counternarrative is as a policy narrative for recasting today’s pastoralist policy and management interventions.
Accepted: 2020-01-14T10:22:59Z

Making the Most of Mess: Reliability and Policy in Today's Management Challenges - Roe, Emery (Duke University Press Books, 2013)
In Making the Most of Mess, Emery Roe emphasizes that policy messes cannot be avoided or cleaned up; they need to be managed. He shows how policymakers and other professionals can learn these necessary skills from control operators who manage large critical infrastructures such as water supplies, telecommunications systems, and electricity grids. The ways in which they prevent major accidents and failures offer models for policymakers and other professionals to manage the messes they face.Throughout, Roe focuses on the global financial mess of 2008 and its ongoing aftermath, showing how mismanagement has allowed it to morph into other national and international messes. More effective management is still possible for this and many other policy messes but that requires better recognition of patterns and formulation of scenarios, as well as the ability to translate pattern and scenario into reliability. Developing networks of professionals who respond to messes is particularly important. Roe describes how these networks enable the avoidance of bad or worse messes, take advantage of opportunities resulting from messes, and address societal and professional challenges. In addition to finance, he draws from a wide range of case material in other policy arenas. Roe demonstrates that knowing how to manage policy messes is the best approach to preventing crises.

Managing Policy Mess - Roe, Emery (Governance in Turbulent Times, 2016)
What are the conditions for political development and decay, and the likelihood of sustained political order? What are the limits of established rule as we know it? How much stress can systems tackle before they reach some kind of limit? How do governments tackle enduring ambiguity and uncertainty in their systems and environments? These are some of the big questions of our time. Governance in turbulent times may serve as a stress-test of well-known ways of governing in the 21st century. Governance in Turbulent Times discusses this pertinent challenge and suggests how governments and organizations cope with and live with turbulence. The book explores how organizations and institutions respond to precipitous, conflicting, and novel-in short, turbulent-governance challenges. This book is a comprehensive and ground-breaking endeavor to understand how governance systems respond to turbulent challenges, and how turbulent times provide excellent opportunities to investigate the sustainability of governance systems. The book illustrates how politics, administrative scale and complexity, uncertainty, and time constraints can collide to produce turbulence. Building on prior work in organization theory and political science, we argue that turbulence refers to four properties related to the interaction of demands for action: variability, consistency, expectation, and unpredictability. Turbulence occurs where the interaction of demands is experienced as highly variable, inconsistent, unexpected, and/or unpredictable.
Google-Books-ID: IYSuDQAAQBAJ
Keywords: Comparative Politics; International Relations; Political Process; Political science; Public Affairs & Administration

Policy messes and their management - Roe, Emery (Policy Sciences, 2016)
This paper presents a framework for better managing policy messes and draws implications for bad and good mess management in policy analysis and management. The framework has three foci: (1) the cognitive space in which policy messes develop, particularly in terms of gaps between macro-designers and micro-operators; (2) the unique domain of competence within that space where professionals manage the resulting messes by virtue of their skills in recognizing system-wide patterns, formulating locally specific contingency scenarios and translating both patterns and scenarios in highly reliable services; and (3) the ability of those mess and reliability professionals to be reliable in their domain and with these skills by maneuvering across different performance modes as conditions dictate—just-in-case, just-on-time, just-for-now or just-this-way.

When Complex is as Simple as it Gets: Guide for Recasting Policy and Management in the Anthropocene - Roe, Emery (Institute for Development Studies, 2023)
Many readers recognise and understand that complex is about as simple as it gets for major policy and management. This guide is for those unwilling in the Anthropocene to shrink back into the older platitudes about ‘keep it simple’ and ‘not to worry, we’ll scale up the analysis later on’. This guide offers key concepts, methods, counternarratives, and analogies that recast major policy and management issues in ways that do not deny their complexity but help render them more tractable for action.
Accepted: 2023-06-06T09:51:20Z ISSN: 2040-0209

Bridging the Gap: Synthesising Evidence from Secondary Quantitative and Primary Qualitative Data - Roelen, Keetie (IDS, 2016)

How to Make ‘Cash Plus’ Work: Linking Cash Transfers to Services and Sectors - Roelen, Keetie; Devereux, Stephen; Abdulai, Abdul-Gafaru; Martorano, Bruno; Palermo, Tia; Ragno, Luigi Peter (UNICEF Office of Research, 2017)
The broad-ranging benefits of cash transfers are now widely recognized. However, the evidence base highlights that they often fall short in achieving longer-term and second-order impacts related to nutrition, learning outcomes and morbidity. In recognition of these limitations, several ‘cash plus’ initiatives have been introduced, whereby cash transfers are combined with one or more types of complementary support. This paper aims to identify key factors for successful implementation of these increasingly popular ‘cash plus’ programmes, based on (i) a review of the emerging evidence base of ‘cash plus’ interventions and (ii) an examination of three case studies, namely, Chile Solidario in Chile, IN-SCT in Ethiopia and LEAP in Ghana. The analysis was guided by a conceptual framework proposing a menu of ‘cash plus’ components. The assessment of three case studies indicated that effective implementation of ‘cash plus’ components has indeed contributed to greater impacts of the respective programmes. Such initiatives have thereby addressed some of the non-financial and structural barriers that poor people face and have reinforced the positive effects of cash transfer programmes. In design of such programmes, further attention should be paid to the constraints faced by the most vulnerable and how such constraints can be overcome. We conclude with recommendations regarding the provision of complementary support and cross-sectoral linkages based on lessons learned from the case studies. More research is still needed on the impact of the many variations of ‘cash plus’ programming, including evidence on the comparative roles of individual ‘plus’ components, as well as the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour pathways which influence these impacts.
Series: Innocenti Working Papers Volume: 2017/10

CLARISSA Cash Plus: Innovative Social Protection in Bangladesh - Roelen, Keetie; Howard, Neil; Afroze, Jiniya; Aktar, Afrin; Ton, Giel; Huq, Lopita (Institute of Development Studies, 2023)
Social protection, and cash transfers especially, have been found to have many positive impacts on families’ lives and are now widely recognised as a cornerstone of any prosperous, fair society. The CLARISSA Cash Plus intervention is an innovative social protection scheme for tackling social ills, including the worst forms of child labour (WFCL). Combining community mobilisation, case work and cash transfers, it aims to support people in a poor neighbourhood in Dhaka to build their individual, family, and group capacities to meet their needs. An increase in capacities is expected to lead to a corresponding decrease in deprivation and community-identified social issues that negatively affect wellbeing, including WFCL.
Accepted: 2023-06-30T11:14:55Z Publisher: Institute of Development Studies

Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition - Rogers, Everett M. (Free Press, 2003)
Now in its fifth edition, Diffusion of Innovations is a classic work on the spread of new ideas.In this renowned book, Everett M. Rogers, professor and chair of the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico, explains how new ideas spread via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. To overcome this uncertainty, most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances—a process which typically takes months or years. But there are exceptions: use of the Internet in the 1990s, for example, may have spread more rapidly than any other innovation in the history of humankind. Furthermore, the Internet is changing the very nature of diffusion by decreasing the importance of physical distance between people. The fifth edition addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas.

Theory of Change - Rogers, Patricia (UNICEF, 2014)

The politics of public sector performance: pockets of effectiveness in developing countries - Roll, Michael (Routledge, 2014)
OCLC: 869850351

Citizen-generated data and sustainable development - Rono-Bett, Karen; Kenei, Steve (DevInit and DRT, 2017)
The potential of citizen-generated data in the sustainable development agenda

Complexity, Institutions and Public Policy: Agile Decision-making in a Turbulent World - Room, Graham (Edward Elgar Pub, 2011)
Graham Room argues that conventional approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of social and economic change are unsatisfactory. As a result, researchers are ill-equipped to offer policy advice. This book offers a new analytical approach, combining complexity science and institutionalism. It also provides tools for policy makers in turbulent times. Part 1 is concerned with the conceptualization of socio-economic change. It integrates complexity science and institutionalism into a coherent ontology of social and policy dynamics. Part 2 is concerned with models and measurement. It combines some of the principal approaches developed in complexity analysis with models and methods drawn from mainstream social and political science. Part 3 offers empirical applications to public policy: the dynamics of social exclusion; the social dimension of knowledge economies; the current financial and economic crisis. These are supplemented by a toolkit for the practice of 'agile policy making'. This is a stimulating, provocative and highly original book. It will appeal to academics and students in social and policy studies and to a wide range of scholars in other disciplines where complexity science is already well-developed. It will also be of major interest for decision makers coping with complex and turbulent policy terrains.Contents: Preface 1. Introduction Part I: Concepts 2. The Complexity Paradigm 3. Complex Adaptive Systems 4. The Economy as a Complex Adaptive System 5. Institutional Settings and Architectures 6. Institutional Dynamics 7. The Struggle for Positional Advantage 8. Conceptualising Social Dynamics Part II: Methods 9. Attractors and Orbits in Dynamic Systems 10. Patterns in Time and Space 11. Connections and Networks 12. Mobility on Social Landscapes 13. Towards a Generic Methodology Part III: Policies 14. Agile Policy-Making 15. Poverty and Social Exclusion 16. Social Dynamics of the Knowledge Economy 17. Global Turbulence and Crisis Postscript: Tools for Policy-Makers References Index

Pando - Root Change (Root Change, 2020)
Pando is a platform that gives organizations a way to visualize, learn from, and engage with the social systems in which they work. We have designed Pando to help users build trust, strengthen relationships, and work together to achieve greater social impact. Grounded in social network analysis, Pando allows users to collect and visualize organizations and their relationships in real-time on simple and easy-to-use relationship maps. Relationship maps are managed by map administrators. These are actors interested in learning about a particular system and making the tool available to those working in the system. Pando is integrated with Keystone Accountability’s Feedback Commons, an online tool that allows map administrators to collect and analyze qualitative feedback about levels of trust and relationship quality among map participants. Key features of Pando include relationship mapping, feedback surveys, and dashboards.

Development and the Learning Organisation: An introduction - Roper, Laura; Pettit, Jethro (Development in Practice, 2002)

Development and the Learning Organization - Roper, Laura; Pettit, Jethro; Eade, Deborah (Oxfam Publications, 2003)

Supporting Learning? Exploring the relationship between grantee learning and grantmaking practice in the transparency and accountability sector - Ross, Jenny (INTRAC, 2015)
Learning is fundamental to work on transparency and accountability in complex environments. But how can funding practices best support learning?

Adaptive Learning Guide: A pathway to stronger collaboration, learning, and adapting - Ross, Joey; Karlage, James; Etheridge, James; Alade, Mayowa; Fifield, Jocelyn; Goodwin, Christian; Semrau, Katherine; Hirschhorn, Lisa (USAID MOMENTUM Knowledge Accelerator, 2021)
The purpose of this Adaptive Learning Guide is to provide MOMENTUM project teams with the information and resources to integrate adaptive learning into the design, implementation, and improvement of MNCH/FP/RH programs. This guide provides a conceptual introduction to adaptive learning using links to existing resources and real-world examples of how adaptive learning can drive continuous learning and improvement in project work. The guide is built upon three foundational assumptions: We work in dynamic, often unpredictable environments. Unexpected turns of events will occur. Progress is rarely, if ever, linear. Integrating the principles and practices of USAID’s Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting Toolkit into projects and initiatives requires designing for learning and adaptation. We intend the guide to serve as a “starting point” for interested individuals and teams to begin or strengthen the processes that support the integration of adaptive learning into project work.

Developing a performance story report: user guide - Roughly, A.; Dart, J. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2009)
This report is a nuts and bolts guide to developing a Collaborative Outcomes Report (COR)/ Performance Story Report (PSR) produced by the Australian Government and Jess Dart. It includes practical tips, step-by-step process guides and definitions of key concepts surrounding these approaches.

Decide Madrid: A Critical Analysis of an Award-Winning e-Participation Initiative - Royo, Sonia; Pina, Vicente; Garcia-Rayado, Jaime (Sustainability, 2020)
This paper analyzes the award-winning e-participation initiative of the city council of Madrid, Decide Madrid, to identify the critical success factors and the main barriers that are conditioning its performance. An exploratory case study is used as a research technique, including desk research and semi-structured interviews. The analysis distinguishes contextual, organizational and individual level factors; it considers whether the factors or barriers are more related to the information and communication technology (ICT) component, public sector context or democratic participation; it also diﬀerentiates among the diﬀerent stages of the development of the initiative. Results show that individual and organizational factors related to the public sector context and democratic participation are the most relevant success factors. The high expectations of citizens explain the high levels of participation in the initial stages of Decide Madrid. However, the lack of transparency and poor functioning of some of its participatory activities (organizational factors related to the ICT and democratic dimensions) are negatively aﬀecting its performance. The software created for this platform, Consul, has been adopted or it is in the process of being implemented in more than 100 institutions in 33 countries. Therefore, the ﬁndings of this research can potentially be useful to improve the performance and sustainability of e-participation platforms worldwide.

State of the Field Review: Fiscal Transparency and Accountability - Rudiger, Anja (International Budget Partnership, 2018)

Evaluation of the market systems development approach: Lessons for expanded use and adaptive management at Sida Volume I: Evaluation Report - Ruffer, Tim; Bailey, Helen; Dahlgren, Stefan; Spaven, Patrick; Winters, Mark (Sida, 2018)
This report presents the findings of an evaluation of Sida’s management of the market systems development (MSD) approach. It aims to inform thinking on how Sida can best manage its growing portfolio of MSD programs. Beyond this, it provides insights relevant to Sida’s wider support to complex and adaptive programs. The evaluation identified several factors that affect Sida’s ability to ensure that conducive conditions are in place for effective MSD programs and good development programming more generally. Sida’s relatively flexible framework of rules, guidelines and systems for project management provide the space needed for staff to innovate and manage adaptively. But for this to happen consistently and effectively, Sida needs to invest more deliberately in building the capacity of its staff in relevant areas. In addition, leadership and incentives are key to shaping a culture of active experimentation and learning. This needs to be supported with clearer guidance for those involved in the design and appraisal of MSD projects; and strengthened oversight of project performance, including through adjustments to Sida’s contracts and funding agreements.

Evaluation of the market systems development approach: Lessons for expanded use and adaptive management at Sida Volume II: Case studies - Ruffer, Tim; Bailey, Helen; Dahlgren, Stefan; Spaven, Patrick; Winters, Mark (Sida, 2018)
This report presents the findings of an evaluation of Sida’s management of the market systems development (MSD) approach. It aims to inform thinking on how Sida can best manage its growing portfolio of MSD programs. Beyond this, it provides insights relevant to Sida’s wider support to complex and adaptive programs. The evaluation identified several factors that affect Sida’s ability to ensure that conducive conditions are in place for effective MSD programs and good development programming more generally. Sida’s relatively flexible framework of rules, guidelines and systems for project management provide the space needed for staff to innovate and manage adaptively. But for this to happen consistently and effectively, Sida needs to invest more deliberately in building the capacity of its staff in relevant areas. In addition, leadership and incentives are key to shaping a culture of active experimentation and learning. This needs to be supported with clearer guidance for those involved in the design and appraisal of MSD projects; and strengthened oversight of project performance, including through adjustments to Sida’s contracts and funding agreements.

Parliament and the people - Rumbul, Rebecca; Moulder, Gemma; Parsons, Alex (2018)
How digital technologies are shaping democratic information flow in Sub-Saharan Africa

An Introduction to Adaptive Management for Threatened and Endangered Species - Runge, Michael C. (Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management, 2011)
Management of threatened and endangered species would seem to be a perfect context for adaptive management. Many of the decisions are recurrent and plagued by uncertainty, exactly the conditions that warrant an adaptive approach. But although the potential of adaptive management in these settings has been extolled, there are limited applications in practice. The impediments to practical implementation are manifold and include semantic confusion, institutional inertia, misperceptions about the suitability and utility, and a lack of guiding examples. In this special section of the Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management, we hope to reinvigorate the appropriate application of adaptive management for threatened and endangered species by framing such management in a decision-analytical context, clarifying misperceptions, classifying the types of decisions that might be amenable to an adaptive approach, and providing three fully developed case studies. In this overview paper, I define terms, review the past application of adaptive management, challenge perceived hurdles, and set the stage for the case studies which follow.

Doing the Transparent State: open government data as performance indicators - Ruppert, Evelyn; others (A World of Indicators: The production of knowledge and justice in an interconnected world, 2013)

Causal Loop Diagrams: Little Known Analytical Tool | iSixSigma - Rushing, William (2010)
The causal loop diagram is an analytical tool that is seldom used in Six Sigma but nonetheless is still very valuable. It is a foundational tool used in system dynamics, a method of analysis used to develop an understanding of complex systems.

Towards ‘Targeted Systems Change’ - Rye, Sam (Fieldnotes by Sam Rye, 2019)
Modelling and communicating how to shift systems

Using AI to disrupt business as usual in small evaluation firms - Sabarre, Nina R.; Beckmann, Blake; Bhaskara, Sahiti; Doll, Kathleen (New Directions for Evaluation, 2023)
While many knowledge workers may fear that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) will threaten their jobs, this article argues that small evaluation businesses should embrace AI tools to increase their value in the marketplace and remain relevant. In this article, consultants from a research, evaluation, and strategy firm, Intention 2 Impact, Inc., make a case for using AI tools to disrupt business as usual in evaluation from theoretical and practical perspectives. Theoretically, AI may be another example of technology that was initially feared but is now ubiquitous in society. Using concrete examples, the authors describe how businesses and evaluators have evolved to keep up with changes in supply and demand. Lastly, it is posited that embracing AI will save time for those working in small businesses, which can ultimately increase added value and profitability.
_eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ev.20562

Volume 3: Participatory Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning in Complex Adaptive Environments - SACE (SACE Program, 2018)
This volume is the last in a series of papers about systems approaches in complex environments, which includes the use of the collective impact model to address large-scale social problems, and the application of participant-driven MEL techniques across 17 networks of civil society organizations. It is based on the experiences of Root Change and Chemonics, two development partners working on a USAID civic engagement project in Nigeria (2013-2018), as well as hundreds of civil society organization partners. This is the final paper in the series and aims to highlight how the adaptation of participatory monitoring, evaluation, and learning techniques (e.g., most significant change, outcome mapping, and outcome harvesting) evolved and ultimately empowered cluster members. The first paper in the series presented a brief introduction to systems approaches in advocacy settings, the SACE theory of change, and the scope of Root Change’s work as technical lead on capacity building and measurement. The second volume aims to address the innovative use of the advocacy strategy matrix, adapted from work by the Center for Evaluation Innovation, for collective impact and the Collective Impact Model, an approach that engages multiple players in working together to solve complex social problems.

Doing things differently: Rethinking monitoring and evaluation to understand change - Saferworld (Saferworld, 2016)
Doing things differently: Rethinking monitoring and evaluation to understand change Learning paper Over the past four years, Saferworld has put in place a way of monitoring, evaluating and learning from our work focused on behaviour and relationship change. This paper outlines the process we have gone through to adapt, embed, and embrace an approach inspired by Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting (OH). Key benefits of our monitoring, evaluation and learning approach are: It is simple, but promotes complex discussion and analysis. It allows conflict- and gender-sensitivity to be built into programmes; it promotes analysis of and adaptation to context. Bringing front-line staff and partners into wider conversations with others substantially increases cross-organisational learning.

The Blind Man and the Elephant: Analysing the Local State in China - Saich, Tony (On the Roots of Growth and Crisis: Capitalism, State and Society in East Asia, 2002)

Defining and using evidence in conservation practice - Salafsky, Nick; Boshoven, Judith; Burivalova, Zuzana; Dubois, Natalie S.; Gomez, Andres; Johnson, Arlyne; Lee, Aileen; Margoluis, Richard; Morrison, John; Muir, Matthew; Pratt, Stephen C.; Pullin, Andrew S.; et al. (Conservation Science and Practice, 2019)
There is growing interest in evidence-based conservation, yet there are no widely accepted standard definitions of evidence, let alone guidance on how to use it in the context of conservation and natural resource management practice. In this paper, we first draw on insights of evidence-based practice from different disciplines to define evidence as being the “relevant information used to assess one or more hypotheses related to a question of interest.” We then construct a typology of different kinds of information, hypotheses, and evidence and show how these different types can be used in different steps of conservation practice. In particular, we distinguish between specific evidence used to assess project hypotheses and generic evidence used to assess generic hypotheses. We next build on this typology to develop a decision tree to support practitioners in how to appropriately use available specific and generic evidence in a given conservation situation. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of how to better promote and enable evidence-based conservation in both projects and across the discipline of conservation. Our hope is that by understanding and using evidence better, conservation can both become more effective and attract increased support from society.
Keywords: Adaptive Management; Evidence-based conservation; Evidence-based practice; Natural resource management; Project management; biodiversity; environmental evidence

Adaptive Management: A Tool for Conservation Practitioners - Salafsky, Nick; Margoluis, Richard; Redford, Kent (Foundations of Success, 2001)

Defining the burden of proof in conservation - Salafsky, Nick; Redford, Kent H. (Biological Conservation, 2013)
Conservationists often must take action in the face of uncertainty about the costs and benefits of different options. Although this uncertainty can be paralyzing when the stakes are high, there is obviously a cost to inaction as well as action, and decision makers need to be encouraged to act when appropriate. Many other fields of human endeavor such as law, medicine, and public safety have formally developed the “burden and standards of proof” that decision makers have to meet in choosing to take action. In this paper, we review the standards developed in these other fields to help define a similar framework for conservation. Specifically we propose that a conservation decision maker must assume the burden of proof when there is a decision to act that substantially affects others, in which the decision maker has professional standing, where there is not immediate urgency, and where there is some, but not complete certainty about the outcomes of acting versus not acting. Once these initial tests have been met, in situations in which the decision maker is more worried about the consequences of not acting, then a relatively low standard of proof is required for taking action. If the decision maker is concerned with the consequences of acting in error, but the action is relatively reversible, then a medium standard of proof is required. And finally, if there are concerns about the consequences of acting in error, but the action is relatively irreversible, then a high standard of proof is required.
Keywords: Biodiversity; Burden of proof; Decision theory; Standard of proof; Uncertainty

From analysis to action: operationalising learning and adaptation in Savings at the Frontier - Salehi, Yusef (2016)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

The Internet and Democracy Building in Lusophone African Countries - Salgado, Dr Susana (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2014)
This timely book fills an important gap in the literature on the influence of the Internet and new media in Portuguese speaking African countries. Based on extensive field work throughout the region the author examines the influence of the Internet in the transition to democracy in Africa, and asks whether there are new possibilities for popular activism to emerge from evolving communication environments and media systems.The book analyses the different forms of democracy, the concept of development, and addresses the debate about the relationship between democracy and development and explores the influence of the media in the democratization process, the promises that digital media bring to this process and to development and the implications of the African digital divide. In certain countries in this region democracy and independent news media are in their infancy but are starting to take hold, giving an excellent opportunity to observe the dynamics of civil society and the influence of increased freedom, new voting powers and new media in particular. The book offers important insights into the roles and functions that the media in general, and the Internet in particular, can perform in the creation of a more democratic society, as well as in empowering and educating citizens in democratic values.
Google-Books-ID: WC3jBAAAQBAJ
Keywords: Business & Economics / Industries / Computers & Information Technology; History / Africa / General; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Democracy

Help! I’m hiring new staff and I want them to work adaptively. A guide to hiring adaptive employees. - Salib, Monalisa (USAID LEARN, 2019)
If you are involved in hiring, this tool can help you increase your chances of selecting staff members skilled in adaptive management. It will help answer the questions: Which competencies should I recruit for in order to hire more adaptive employees? Which desired qualifications should I incorporate into position descriptions to attract adaptive employees? Which interview questions should I ask to screen for adaptive employee competencies? You should use this tool when you decide to hire a new individual - whether that be a direct hire, contractor, or consultant - or when you are changing an individual’s current position description or scope of work. Specifically, this tool will help you determine which qualifications are most important for the position and offers interview questions you can use with candidates. — You’re in luck! We just released a new guide for hiring adaptive employees. This visual and user-friendly tool will help increase your chances of selecting staff skilled in adaptive management. Here are the details: What do you mean by “work adaptively” or an “adaptive employee”? An adaptive employee is an individual who, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, systematically acquires and uses knowledge to make decisions and adjustments in their work in order to achieve greater impact. Why focus on adaptive employees? Why does it matter? With industries, technologies, and organizations in a near constant state of flux, leaders are recognizing the importance of adaptability as a critical capacity. Because of this, it’s not surprising that a recent LinkedIn report found that adaptability was the most important soft skill hiring managers were screening for. In addition, evidence shows that teams that apply more data-driven and adaptive leadership practices perform better than those that focus less on these practices. It makes sense, then, that managers want to recruit more team members who are skilled in adaptive management - it helps achieve results. Who should use this tool? Anyone involved in hiring, responsible for developing or approving position descriptions, participating in interviews, and/or approving new hires. When should I use this tool? Use it as soon as you decide to hire a new staff person or when you’re adjusting existing position descriptions. What does the tool help me do? It will help you think through: Which competencies should I recruit for in order to hire more adaptive employees? Which desired qualifications should I incorporate into position descriptions to attract adaptive employees? (You can even copy and paste qualification language from the tool into scopes of work!) Which interview questions should I ask to screen for adaptive employee competencies? (You can copy and paste interview questions into your screening, interview, and reference check protocols!) Has the tool been tested? Yes, staff within USAID’s Global Development Lab and on the USAID LEARN contract tested the tool, providing feedback on the minimum viable product and subsequent versions. Testers confirmed finding the tool useful, and gave it a 9/10 score when asked if they would recommend it to colleagues. Some specific feedback from testers included: "The tool prompts deeper thought on what you might need and want in a job candidate" and "All [of the interview questions I used from the tool] worked well." What about the existing staff? How can they gain greater skills in adaptive management? Existing USAID staff and implementing partners can access online training in collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) and find resources in the CLA Toolkit. USAID staff also have access to an internal CLA community of practice and five-day, in-person CLA training.

Theory of Change Workbook: A Step-by-Step Process for Developing or Strengthening Theories of Change - Salib, Monalisa (USAID, 2022)
While over time theories of change have become synonymous with simple if/then statements, a strong theory of change should actually be a much more detailed, context-specific articulation of how we *theorize* change will happen under a program.

“There’s no money for that.” Three Ways to Resource Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting - Salib, Monalisa (USAID Learning Lab, 2016)
This blog is the third in an ongoing series exploring the components of USAID's CLA Framework. Here is the first blog on organizational culture and the second on effective learning.

Introducing the CLA Maturity Tool for Implementing Partners - Salib, Monalisa; Ziegler, Jessica (Social Impact, 2023)
On December 13, 2022, Social Impact hosted a webinar in our Evidence for Impact series, "Strengthen Your Team's CLA Practices: Introducing the CLA Maturity Tool for USAID Implementers." Through the session, we shared more about the origin and history of the USAID tool upon which this version is based, why and how we updated
Section: Uncategorized

Beneficiary Assessment: An Approach Described - Salmen, Lawrence (World Bank, 2002)
Beneficiary assessment is a tool for managers who wish to improve the quality of development operations. This is an approach to information gathering which assesses the value of an activity as it is perceived by its principal users. The approach is qualitative in that it attempts to derive understanding from shared experience as well as observation, and gives primacy to the centrality of the other person’s point of view. As the Bank and others engaged in development activities seek to do their work better, one key indicator will need to be how the ultimate customer, or intended beneficiary, assesses the value of this work, project or policy, as it affects his or her life. The illumination of how an intended beneficiary appreciates a planned or ongoing developmental activity is the primary objective of this approach. Beneficiary assessment is a systematic inquiry into people’s values and behavior in relation to a planned or ongoing intervention for social and economic change. This method draws heavily from the tradition in social science known as "qualitative research...that fundamentally depends on watching people in their own territory and interacting with them in their own language, on their own terms" (Kirk and Miller). Yet beneficiary assessment also includes direct observation, incorporating simple counting, and is expressed in quantitative terms. The ultimate goal of beneficiary assessment is to reveal the meaning people give to particular aspects of their lives so that development activities may better enhance people’s ability to improve their own living conditions, as they see fit. This demands close rapport between the practitioner of this approach, the beneficiary and the development manager. The beneficiary assessment approach is not intended to supplant the questionnaire survey but to provide reliable qualitative, indepth information on the socio-cultural conditions of a beneficiary population which is intended to be of immediate use to managers and policymakers responsible for improving people’s lives.

How to create an agile organization - survey - Salo, Olli; Ahlbäck, Karin; Fahrbach, Clemens; Murarka, Monica (McKinsey & Co., 2017)
Eighteen practices for organizational agility The survey asked respondents about a series of specific actions that underlie each of the 18 practices (9 of them stable, and 9 dynamic) of organizational agility; all of the practices are summarized in the table below. To rate respondents’ organizations, we asked how frequently their performance units engaged in each action that supports a given practice.

Has Kenya’s ICT revolution triggered more citizen participation? - Salome, Nyambura (Institute of Development Studies, 2016)
Lessons from policy in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Miradi Measures Dashboard Demo - Salzer, D (2013)
Live demonstration (view in HD) of a new online measures dashboard site (http://miradi.sitkatech.com) that allows users of the Miradi Adaptive Management software (http://miradi.org) to share the progress they are making towards achieving their desired results

Building a Movement of Public Problem Solvers - Building State Capability - Samji, Salimah (Building State Capability, 2021)
Solving public problems is a hard and thankless job. One that is undertaken with a shortage of time as well as resources, and often under pressure to deliver results. A common approach used to solve public problems is to develop a plan, sometimes with experts, and then to assume that implementation will happen on autopilot. To quote Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.” The question is, what do you do after you get punched? Continue with your existing plan? Or do you learn from the punch?

PDIA Course: Alumni are already practicing what they learned - Samji, Salimah (Building State Capability, 2017)
written by Salimah Samji We offered 4 free PDIA online courses between November 2015 and June 2016. They were well received and 365 people, living in 56 countries, successfully completed the course…

PDIA Notes 2: Learning to Learn - Samji, Salimah (Building State Capability, 2016)
written by Peter Harrington After over two years of working with the government of Albania, and as we embark on a new project to work with the government of Sri Lanka, we at the Building State Capa…

Caja de Herramientas PDIA - Un enfoque “hazlo tú mismo” para resolver problemas complejos - Samji, Salimah; Andrews, Matt; Pritchett, Lant; Woolcock, MIchael (Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2018)
(Spanish version of he PDIA toolkit) The PDIAtoolkit is designed to guide you through the process of solving complex problems which requires working in teams. We call it a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) kit, where the ‘you’ is a committed team of 4-6 people mobilized to work together to solve a complex problem that cannot be solved by one person.

PDIA Toolkit - A DIY Approach to Solving Complex Problems - Samji, Salimah; Andrews, Matt; Pritchett, Lant; Woolcock, MIchael (Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2018)
The PDIAtoolkit is designed to guide you through the process of solving complex problems which requires working in teams. We call it a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) kit, where the ‘you’ is a committed team of 4-6 people mobilized to work together to solve a complex problem that cannot be solved by one person.

HIV, food and drugs: Livelihoods, nutrition and Anti-retroviral Therapy (ART) in Kenya and Zambia - Samuels, Fiona; Rutenberg, Naomi (ODI, 2008)
Key points • ART has restored the health of many people living with HIV, but their livelihoods lag behind • Good nutrition is important for people on ART. Food supplementation can help, but is no substitute for sustainable livelihoods • The livelihoods of people on ART can be bolstered through skills, livelihood networks, assets and cash or food transfers

Perspectives on Participation in Design - Sanders, Elizabeth (Wer gestaltet die Gestaltung? Praxis, Theorie und Geschichte des partizipatorischen Designs, 2013)
OCLC: 930782596
Keywords: Design

Probes, toolkits and prototypes: three approaches to making in codesigning - Sanders, Elizabeth B.-N.; Stappers, Pieter Jan (CoDesign, 2014)
The role of making in the design process has been growing, taking on new forms and involving new players over the past 10 years. Where we once primarily saw designers using making to give shape to the future, today we can see designers and non-designers working together, using making as a way to make sense of the future. In this paper, we describe the landscape of design research and practice at the end of 2013 with special attention to the role of making across these perspectives: approach (cultural probes, generative toolkits and design prototypes), mindset (designing for people and designing with people), focus in time (the world as it is, the near future and the speculative future) as well as variations in design intent (provoking, engaging and serving).

What is Rapid Action Learning and how was it developed? - Sanitation Learning Hub (2020)
To celebrate the publication of our latest Frontiers of Sanitation, we had a series of conversations with our colleagues and partners on our work on Rapid Action Learning so far. To download the publication in full, head to https://sanitationlearninghub.org/res...

Using Systemigrams in Problem Definition: A Case Study in Maritime Resilience for Homeland Security - Sauser, Brian; Mansouri, Mo; Omer, Mayada (Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 2011)
The concept of resilience has been used among a diversity of fields with a myriad of definitions. A systems approach to discovering the essence of resilience could aid in understanding its concept and provide opportunities to distinguish its systemic characteristics that can be identified, planned, or analyzed regardless of the field in which it is considered. In order to begin executing such an approach, a comprehensive study of the literature on the topic and circumstances in which resilience has been used or referred to in several fields of studies is necessary. In this paper, the conceptual common denominator of resilience is identified based on the results of a literature survey and according to the way it has been used in different contexts. This basis leads to the objective of this effort, and that is to recognize the systemic characteristics of resilience and demonstrate the defining of a universally accepted definition. Using a soft systems methodology and a supporting systemic diagramming technique entitled Systemigrams, we present the formulation of defining resilience in maritime homeland security. In this effort, many stakeholders contributed their thoughts and concerns on the meaning and operational use of resilience through a repetitive process to formulate a definition of the term. The result of this methodic approach is a general definition of resilience that has been refined in a collaborative environment via the application the Boardman Soft Systems Methodology.

“Cash Plus” programmes for children - Save the Children (Save the Children, 2017)
This paper provides a resource on “Cash Plus” interventions for children. These interventions combine household cash transfers with complementary, context-relevant interventionsn in order to address the multiple drivers of childhood deprivations and generate more powerful impacts for children across Save the Children’s Breakthroughs, in both development and humanitarian contexts.

Introduction to SAVI's way of working - State Accountability and Voice Initiative (SAVI) - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
We are piloting a new approach to identifying and supporting our partners. This breaks with convention in many ways in order to improve impact. SAVI Approach Papers summarise key aspects of SAVI’s way of working. They explain what we do, and why – and link to relevant tools and frameworks. Our approach is summarized in...
Keywords: Practice

Nigeria Public Sector Accountability and Governance Programme - Business Case - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
In May 2016, SAVI transitioned into a successor programme – the ‘Engaged Citizens Pillar’ (ECP) of a wider DFID-funded governance reform programme ‘The Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn’ (PERL). ECP is managed by the same service provider, Palladium, and the same core management team as SAVI, and many of the SAVI front line staff...

SAVI Approach Paper 1: Core Values - SAVI (London, 2015)
Governance reform is about government and citizens working together in more responsive, inclusive and accountable ways for the benefit of citizens. More responsive, inclusive and accountable attitudes and behaviour on the part of government and non-government stakeholders are the critical factors which lead to meaningful reform processes, and replicate and sustain reforms beyond the lifetime...

SAVI Approach Paper 10: Engaging State Governments - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
SAVI as a programme does not directly work with state governments – but we work in close conjunction with sister programmes who are supporting state governments on governance and sector reforms. SAVI supports non-government and SHoA partners to play their part in promoting more responsive, inclusive and accountable state governance delivering better services for citizens....

SAVI Approach Paper 11: Managing and Staffing an Adaptive Citizen Engagement Programme - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
SAVI, a DFID funded programme implemented by Palladium, is an adaptive programme putting learning and adaptation at the centre of all decision-making. In relation to management and staffing SAVI has established the following approaches to facilitate this: – An adaptive approach to programme management: Full time strategic technical leadership, that works closely with and complements...

SAVI Approach Paper 12: Managing Programme Finances to Support Adaptive, Locally-led Processes of Citizen Engagement in Governance - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
SAVI, is seeking to support processes of citizen engagement in governance in ways that are effective in influencing reform, and that are able to take on a life of their own without continuing donor support. SAVI is also an adaptive programme, putting learning and adaptation at the centre of all decision-making. Money is used and...

SAVI Approach Paper 13: Measuring Value for Money and using Value for Money Analysis - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
SAVI has established its own framework for assessing Value for Money in annual performance – in relation to expenditure, economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equity. Routine tracking and analysis of expenditure and economy ensure that inputs are supplied and services delivered to partners in line with SAVI’s core values, whilst also meeting DFID requirements and competing...

SAVI Approach Paper 14: Learning, Adaptation and Communications - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
SAVI, a DFID funded programme implemented by Palladium, is an adaptive programme, aiming to put learning and adaptation at the centre of all decision-making. Learning and adaptation takes place in SAVI at three levels: the work of partners; the work of SAVI delivery teams; and the enabling environment of the programme as a whole. Achieving...

SAVI Approach Paper 15: Introduction to PERL: the SAVI Successor Programme - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
In May 2016, SAVI transitioned into a successor programme – the ‘Engaged Citizens Pillar’ (ECP) of a wider DFID-funded governance reform programme ‘The Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn’ (PERL). ECP is managed by the same service provider, Palladium, and the same core management team as SAVI, and many of the SAVI front line staff...

SAVI Approach Paper 2: Programme Design - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
SAVI supports citizen engagement in governance through a facilitated partnership approach, in contrast to the usual approach of grants to civil society organisations (CSOs). The overall aim is to facilitate and support working relationships and processes of reform that are home-grown, self-sustaining and, after initial engagement, not dependent on external support. Our way of working...

SAVI Approach Paper 3: Theory of Change - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
SAVI’s theory of change is a simple, practical guide that staff and partners use to plan and to monitor change – as well as to reflect on and enhance their own effectiveness. It sets out broad stages of attitude and behaviour change over time to facilitate effective citizen engagement in governance processes, systems and structures....

SAVI Approach Paper 4: Thinking and Working Politically - Supporting partners and staff through a participatory apporach to political economy analysis - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
Thinking and acting politically is central to the SAVI programme. We support staff and partners to analyse the power relations that shape change in their state, and to use this knowledge to inform their decision-making. This includes decisions made by SAVI state teams relating to the issues and partners they engage with and support, and...

SAVI Approach Paper 5: Defining and Measuring Results - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
SAVI aims to facilitate replicable and sustainable processes of citizen engagement in governance. The programme in each state is locally defined, flexible and adaptive, and results are not predictable in advance. Standardised monitoring tools are not applicable, and consequently we have evolved our tools and frameworks during the programme through processes of learning by doing....

SAVI Approach Paper 6: Engaging Civil Society - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
SAVI state teams provide support to CS groups to become more effective agents of citizens’ voice and public accountability, through a variety of mutually reinforcing interventions. These include: hands-on support to demonstration civil society Advocacy Partnerships (APs) facilitating working partnerships between civil society APs, SHoAs, and the media brokering working relationships between all of these...

SAVI Approach Paper 7: Promoting Gender Equality and Social Inclusion - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
We promote attention to gender equality and social inclusion in all of our engagement with CS groups, the media and SHoAs, and in all of the issues and processes they work on. In all the states we work in, we also support partners to focus on some issues and form some partnerships and networks which...

SAVI Approach Paper 8: Engaging the Media - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
The overall aim of SAVI engagement with the media is for media representation of citizens’ interests to become normal, and play its part in helping state governments to be more responsive, inclusive and accountable to their citizens. Media partners – individual media personnel and selected media houses – are supported to be more effective agents...

SAVI Approach Paper 9: Engaging State Houses of Assembly - SAVI (DFID, 2015)
The overall aim of SAVI engagement with SHoAs is to promote lasting reforms that are not dependent on external funding and which promote an increasingly more responsive and accountable relationship between Nigerian state governments and their citizens. SHoAs are supported to be more effective agents of citizen voice and public accountability, demanding better performance from...

State Accountability and Voice Initiative (SAVI) - Approach Paper Series - SAVI (DFID, 2016)
We are piloting a new approach to identifying and supporting our partners. This breaks with convention in many ways in order to improve impact. Our approach is summarized in the Introduction to SAVI’s way of working. We have broken our approach down into key components – depicted in the form of our ‘knowledge tree’ –...
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Learning from Life Story Collection and Analysis with Children who Work in the Leather Sector in Bangladesh - Sayem, Mashrique; Paul, Sukanta; Apgar, Marina; Snijder, Mieke (2022)
CLARISSA (Child Labour: Action-Research-Innovation in South and South-eastern Asia) is a participatory evidence and innovation generating programme. We are generating evidence on the drivers of the worst forms of child labour (WFCL) and exploring how to address them through participatory Action Research (PAR) with children and other stakeholders in the leather supply chain in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Our main intervention modality is Systemic Action Research (SAR) (Burns, 2007), of which life story collection and analysis (LSC&A) is the first step in our participatory design that will inform child-led PAR groups which will become the engines of innovative responses to WFCL. The LSC&A methodology is a storytelling and story listening methodology and was chosen because of the universal power of stories to make sense of complex realities and seek new futures. People across the world like to tell their stories; they like to feel listened to and they are interested in how their story connects and compares to others. By collecting and analysing stories from hundreds of children in WFCL we can visualise the bigger system that each individual story is connected to. We hypothesize that through engagement in the process of telling, listening, collecting, and analysing life stories, children engaged in harmful and hazardous work will use their understanding of systems dynamics to move into creating their own solutions to the drivers of WFCL. In 2021 in Bangladesh, we collected 405 life stories from children living in Hazaribagh, Hemayetpur, Lalbagh, and Bhairab in Dhaka, with more than one hundred of these stories collected by children themselves. Following the story collection and transcription, children were supported by the CLARISSA implementation team to collectively analyse the stories through identifying critical ‘factors’ (events which have causes and consequences) and understanding how they causally relate to each other. The analysis of the 405 life stories resulted in the development of large system maps that illustrate all the causal dynamics that underpin lived experiences of WFCL. Based on the systemic analysis process the children identified themes of the PAR to be set up in their localities. Our experience with the LSC&A methodology is the first in the context of children in WFCL. The methodology has been used in one other project in Bangladesh to date. We therefore intentionally aimed to learn from the implementation process and to evaluate if and how the telling of, listening to, collecting and analysing of life stories is empowering and in turn whether it leads to increased ownership of the problems which motivates collective action (Burns, 2021). In this learning note we share our methodological learning and reflect on operational implications for designing and facilitating an LSC&A process with children which we hope will support adaptation and use of the methodology by others working in participatory programming with children.
Accepted: 2022-07-21T08:43:41Z Publisher: Institute of Development Studies

Life Stories From Children Working in Bangladesh’s Leather Sector and its Neighbourhoods: Told and Analysed by Children - Sayem, Mashrique; Sayed, Sayma; Maksud, A. K. M.; Reaz Hossain, Khandaker; Afroze, Jiniya; Burns, Danny; Raw, Anna; Hacker, Elizabeth (Institute of Development Studies, 2023)
CLARISSA (Child Labour: Action-Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia) has a participatory and child-centred approach that supports children to gather evidence, analyse it themselves and generate solutions to the problems they identify. The life story collection and collective analysis processes supported children engaged in the worst forms of child labour in Bangladesh to share and analyse their life stories. Over 400 life stories were collected from children who worked in the leather supply chain, or who lived and worked in leather sector neighbourhoods. Using causal mapping, 53 children who were engaged in or had experience of the worst forms of child labour collectively analysed the data. This resulted in children’s life stories becoming the evidence base for revealing macro‑level system dynamics that drive the worst forms of child labour. This paper is a record of the children’s analysis of the life stories and key themes they identified, which formed the basis of a series of seven child-led Participatory Action Research groups.
Accepted: 2023-11-07T09:14:57Z Publisher: Institute of Development Studies

Scaled Agile Framework – SAFe for Lean Software and System Engineering 4.5 - Scaled Agile (2017)

Affordances Explained - Scarantino, Andrea (Philosophy of Science, 2003)
I examine the central theoretical construct of ecological psychology, the concept of an affordance. In the first part of the paper, I illustrate the role affordances play in Gibson's theory of perception. In the second part, I argue that affordances are to be understood as dispositional properties, and explain what I take to be their characteristic background circumstances, triggering circumstances and manifestations. The main purpose of my analysis is to give affordances a theoretical identity enriched by Gibson's visionary insight, but independent of the most controversial claims of the Gibsonian movement.

Rapid Results!: How 100-Day Projects Build the Capacity for Large-Scale Change - Schaffer, Robert H.; Ashkenas, Ron (Jossey-Bass, 2005)
Rapid Results! shows how to make large-scale changes succeed by using 100-day results-producing projects to develop this vital implementation capability. Written by Robert H. Schaffer, Ronald N. Ashkenas, and their associates—leaders in the field of change management—Rapid Results! describes an approach that has been field-tested by real organizations of every size and description to improve performance and speed the pace of change. Rapid results projects produce results quickly, introduce new work patterns, and enable participants to learn a variety of lessons about managing change. Step by step, the book describes how the use of rapid-cycle, or 100-day, projects will multiply your organization’s power to succeed at large-scale change. Schaffer and Ashkenas specifically outline the concept behind 100-day projects and show you how to Set up the architecture to implement rapid results projects Improve operational performance and also attain hard results in the soft areas of management Build rapid results into major organizational change such as reorganization, acquisition integration, and international development Use rapid results to drive leadership development and culture change

Qualitative comparative analysis: A valuable approach to add to the evaluator’s toolbox? Lessons from recent applications - Schatz, Florian; Welle, Katharina (IDS, 2016)

ING’s agile transformation - Schlatmann, Bart (McKinsey Quarterly, 2017)
Two senior executives from the global bank describe their recent journey.

(Draft) Managing to Adapt - Analysing Adaptive Management for Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (draft) - Schlingheider, Annika; Pellfolk, Erica; Maneo, Gabriele; Desai, Harsh (Oxfam, 2017)
Adaptive management is at the heart of ‘doing development differently’ (Wild et al., 2016). Whether it is here to stay depends on how much it is mainstreamed into existing development programming by donors and implementers alike, especially in planning, monitoring, evaluation, and learning (PMEL) cycles. In this report, we find that mainstreaming adaptive management in PMEL involves three strategies: 1. planning for flexibility; 2. developing locally owned monitoring and evaluation (M&E); and 3. creating an enabling environment for learning. Adopting these strategies contributes to virtuous cycles of PMEL

Special Issue: Causal Mechanisms in Program Evaluation - Schmidt, Johannes (New Directions for Evaluation, 2020)
_eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ev.20357

Independent Evaluation of SDC’s Results-Based Management System with a Focus on Poverty Reduction - Schmidt, Martin; Palenberg, Markus; Vähämäki, Janet (SDC, 2017)
The SDC's results-based management system ensures that the processes and instruments used for the design and implementation of programs and projects contribute to achieving the desired results (outputs, outcomes and impact). The independent evaluation examines the extent to which these processes and tools have fostered the results culture within the organization, and improved competencies for results-based management decisions, learning and communication. In addition to the findings, conclusions and recommendations, the evaluation report includes the management response of SDC’s Directorate.

The Causal Mechanism Claim in Evaluation: Does the Prophecy Fulfill? - Schmitt, Johannes (New Directions for Evaluation, 2020)
Despite increased discussions in the community and a common understanding about the virtue of mechanism-based explanation, little is known about the true benefits and challenges of applying causal mechanism analysis in practice. This chapter aims to introduce the reader to the topic of causal mechanisms and synthesize significant findings on this special issue. It begins by laying out definitions and concepts of causal mechanisms in evaluation literature and proposes a two-way classification of causal mechanisms along which the chapters to this issue are structured. The chapter continues by introducing the Causal Mechanism Claim and elaborates on how analyzing causal mechanisms is expected to increase policy relevance and causal capacity in evaluations. Drawing on this issue's rich corpus of firsthand practical experience, this introduction synthesizes key lessons that support or contradict the Causal Mechanism Claim. We find that both parts of the claim—increased policy relevance and strengthened causal capacity—are supported by the authors' experiences as bundled in this issue. However, we also identify challenges related to cross-cutting issues such as communication and practical applicability and point to the importance of method integration.

Set-theoretic methods for the social sciences: a guide to qualitative comparative analysis - Schneider, Carsten Q.; Wagemann, Claudius (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012)
"Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and other set-theoretic methods distinguish themselves from other approaches to the study of social phenomena by using sets and the search for set relations. In virtually all social science fields, statements about social phenomena can be framed in terms of set relations, and using set-theoretic methods to investigate these statements is therefore highly valuable. This book guides readers through the basic principles of set theory and then on to the applied practices of QCA. It provides a thorough understanding of basic and advanced issues in set-theoretic methods together with tricks of the trade, software handling and exercises. Most arguments are introduced using examples from existing research. The use of QCA is increasing rapidly and the application of set-theory is both fruitful and still widely misunderstood in current empirical comparative social research. This book provides an invaluable guide to these methods for researchers across the social sciences"–
Keywords: Comparative method; Mathematical models; Qualitative Methode; Set theory; Social science; Vergleichende Forschung

How to Make Sense of Weak Signals - Schoemaker, Paul J. H.; Day, George S. (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2009)
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Making design core to the agile process: a look into how we built Salesforce's Lightning Experience - Schoen, Ian (Medium, 2016)
A look into how we built Salesforce’s Lightning Experience

Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict - Schomerus, Mareike (2022)
Violent conflict and its aftermath are pressing problems, particularly for international development initiatives. However, the results of development in conflict contexts have generally been disappointing and their preventative potential thus questionable. Available Open Access, Lives Amid Violence argues that this is because practitioners adhere to a mental model that emphasises linearity, certainty, and causality, assuming that violence is best addressed through work plans that deliver state-building, stabilisation and services. Based on ten years of multi-method research from, in, and on conflict-affected countries, this book challenges this approach.Drawing on a significant collaborative body of scholarship, this work puts forward original and generalizable conclusions about how lives amid violence persist, offering an invitation to abandon restricting mental models and to embrace creative ways of thinking and working. These include paying attention to the long-term effects of conflict on individual behaviour and decision-making, the social realities of economic life, the role service delivery plays in negotiations between citizens and states, and to creating meaningful relationships. Transformation also requires reflection and therefore the book concludes with constructive suggestions on how to practice these insights to better support those whose lives are shaped by violence.More details are available at www.transformingdevelopment.orgThe eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

The Scrum Guide - Schwaber, Ken; Sutherland, Jeff (scrum.org, 2016)

What is Uncertainty and Why Does it Matter? - Scoones, Ian (STEPS centre, 2019)
Uncertainty defines our times. Whether it is in relation to climate change, disease outbreaks, financial volatility, natural disasters or political settlements, every media headline seems to assert that things are uncertain, and increasingly so. Uncertainty, where we do not know the probabilities of either likelihoods or outcomes, is different to risk, the implications of which are explored in this paper through five different ways of thinking about uncertainty, derived from highly diverse literatures encompassing societal, political, cultural, practice and individual perspectives. The paper continues by examining how these perspectives relate to four domains: finance and banking; critical infrastructures; disease outbreaks and climate change; natural hazards and disasters. Reflecting on these experiences, the paper argues that embracing uncertainty raises some fundamental challenges. It means questioning simple, linear perspectives on modernity and progress. It means rethinking expertise and including diverse knowledges in deliberations about the future. It means understanding how uncertainties emerge in social, political and economic contexts, and how uncertainties affect different people, depending on class, gender, race, age and other dimensions of social difference. And, if uncertainty is not reducible to probabilistic risk, it means a radically different approach to governance; one that rejects control-oriented, technocratic approaches in favour of more tentative, adaptive, hopeful and caring responses. The paper concludes by asking whether we can learn from those who live with and from uncertainty – including pastoralists in marginal settings – as part of a wider conversation about embracing uncertainties to meet the challenges of our turbulent world.

The Politics of Uncertainty : Challenges of Transformation - Scoones, Ian; Stirling, Andy; Stirling, Andy (Routledge, 2020)
Why is uncertainty so important to politics today? To explore the underlying reasons, issues and challenges, this book’s chapters address finance and banking,

Strategy Deployment and Spotify Rhythm - Scotl, Karl (AvailAgility, 2016)
Last month, Henrik Kniberg posted slides from a talk he gave at Agile Sverige on something called Spotify Rhythm - "Spotify’s current approach to getting aligned as a company". While looking through the material, it struck me that what he was describing was a form of Strategy Deployment. This interpretation is based purely on those slides - I haven't had a chance yet to explore this more deeply with Henrik or anyone else from Spotify. I hope I will do some day, but given that caveat, here's how I currently understand the approach in terms of the X-Matrix Model.

The struggle for organisational change: how the ActionAid Accountability, Learning and Planning System emerged - Scott-Villiers, Patta (Policy & Practice, 2002)
Change is driven not only by good ideas, but also by disagreement and frustration. This article takes the reader through a selective organisational history of the British NGO ActionAid from 1998 to 2001, looking at events and changes that had a bearing on the

The 2015 State of Scrum Report: How the world is applying the most popular Agile approach to projects - Scrum Alliance (Scrum Alliance, 2015)

Conflict Sensitive Programme Management: A quick guide - SDC (SDC, 2006)

Conflict-sensitive programme management (CSPM) - SDC (2006)

Dispatch on Switzerland's International Cooperation 2017–2020: Key points in brief - SDC (Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA, 2016)
The “Dispatch on Switzerland’s International Cooperation, 2017–2020”, is a report to the Swiss Parliament outlining the strategic priorities proposed by the Federal Council in this area. It includes framework credits for each of the five policy instruments used by Switzerland to implement its international cooperation strategy. These are implemented by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), the Human Security Division (HSD) of the FDFA’s Directorate of Political Affairs, and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER).

Guidelines for the Monitoring System for Development-Related Changes (MERV) - SDC (SDC, 2013)

Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Strategy for SDC’s work in fragile and conflict contexts - SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC, 2015)

Swiss Cooperation Strategy Pakistan, 2017-2019 - SDC (2016)

Was bedeutet “Staying Engaged” im Kontext der aktuellen Krise in Nicaragua? Überlegungen und Strategien der ALAK (Internal memo) - SDC (SDC, 2018)
«Mitigation» (im Sinne von Notlinderung) und «Transformation» sind die zwei Schlagworte, an welchen sich die Neuausrichtung des Portfolios in Nicaragua über die nächsten Monate orientieren wird. Ziel ist es, dass die Schweiz ihr über die letzten Jahrzehnte akquiriertes politisches Kapital und ihre Expertise nutzt, um zu einer Linderung der Auswirkung der Krise für die Bevölkerung beizutragen und mithilft die Grundlagen für eine Transformation der politischen Kultur und eine langfristig angelegte Demokratisierung zu schaffen.

Adaptive Programming: The “Space of Possibility” - Seavey, Sara Mizuta (USAID Learning Lab, 2016)
Sara Mizuta Seavey, M.A., is a Senior Program Officer at FHI360 for the Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project, where she works with USAID’s Digital Development Team to conceive, design, and test how real-time data systems can enable a more adaptive and participatory approach to development. She is passionate about systems thinking and participatory approaches to international development. What does space travel have to do with international development?

Managing and Adapting a development program: Lessons from PRISMA - Seely, Kevin (PRISMA, 2019)
This case study is part of the AIP-Rural Learning Series. Funders and implementers of international development programs largely agree that adaptive management is industry best practice. Most development experts also broadly agree on what ‘adaptive management’ means. In this case study, we use a common definition of ‘adaptive management’, including the following features: Flexibility. Implementers create, modify and drop interventions when circumstances change or new information emerges, in order to tailor strategies to context and maximise impact. Purposeful experimentation. Implementers test different activities at the same time, monitoring them to learn what will achieve the desired impact. Since 2015, the number of publications calling for and praising adaptive management in development programs has grown fast. These publications give us an idea of the state of adaptive management in development programs. They reveal progress in some areas, such as tailoring interventions to local context and using evidence for decision-making. Yet they also reveal multiple, ongoing, real-world constraints to adaptive management. This case study explores how one development program, PRISMA, has avoided and overcome some of these constraints, whilst continuing to battle others. Four major constraints revealed in the adaptive management literature are discussed in this case study: Programs are designed in ways that make it hard to adapt interventions, target regions or sectors based on new learning or changing circumstances. Programs struggle to create an organisational culture that encourages learning and adapting. When staffing programs, recruiters prioritise sectoral expertise and length of experience over adaptive managerial competence. Program managers face pressures to spend their budgets predictably and before their program ends. Learning and testing take time and cost little, so managers feel pressure to deprioritise them. The first of these constraints is explored in the next section, ‘Design’, which looks at how the selection of target sectors and performance targets affects PRISMA implementers’ ability to manage adaptively. The third section, ‘Organisational Culture’, shares lessons on encouraging staff to test and improve interventions. Section 4, ‘Staffing’, looks at hiring adaptive managers, and freeing up their time to improve interventions. The final section summarises this case study’s key lessons. Throughout this paper, findings are based on 16 in-depth interviews with PRISMA’s junior, mid-level and senior staff, and its funders. To contextualise these findings, the authors reviewed the ‘adaptive management’ literature, and drew on their experience with development programs worldwide.

Evaluation for equitable development results - Segone, M (UNICEF, 2011)
This document is made up of a range of Evaluation Working Papers (EWP) focused on evaluation for equitable development. Put together by evaluation specialists they present strategic evaluation findings, lessons learned and innovative approaches and methodologies. Part 1:Evaluation and equity Evaluation to accelerate progress towards equity, social justice and human rights 2 Human rights and gender equality in evaluation 13 When human rights is the starting point for evaluation 25 Strengthening Equity- focused evaluations through insights from feminist theory and approaches 39 Decolonizing evaluation in a developing world. Implications and cautions for Equity-focused evaluations 59 Part 2: Methodological implications for Equity-focused evaluations Methodological issues to design and implement equity-focused evaluations 86 Developmental evaluation for Equity-focused evaluations 102 Systems thinking and Equity-focused evaluations 115 Methodological challenges in using programme theory to evaluate pro-poor and equity-focused programmes by Patricia Rogers, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University and Richard Hummelbrunner, Independent consultant 142 Case Study and equity in Evaluationby Saville Kushner, University of the West of Englan 172 Values-Engaged Evaluationsby Jennifer Greene, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 192 Part 3: Examples of Equity-focused evaluations Evaluating the contribution of UNDP to equity-focused public policies in Brazil and China 210 Using a human rights approach to evaluate ILO’s discrimination strategy 222 CONEVAL experience in evaluating interventions for Indigenous populations in Mexico 244 UNICEF supported evaluations with elements of equity-focused evaluations 258

What We Do: Getting Beyond Statistics - Sense Guide (Sensemaker narrative monitoring, 2018)
Our approach Understanding daily life reality with micro-narratives Narratives and more specifically micro-narratives are a fundamental and ancient way by which humans interpret their experience and make decisions. SenseMaker® provides the ability to capture and understand those narratives. Through the web or app environment the software allows the capture of pictures, recordings and writing in various combinations to reflect how the respondents are making sense of the world. Reducing cognitive bias with self signification In a patented method, the respondent then interprets their own story into a series of abstract constructs (‘signifiers’) that feel more like a game than a survey, but allow profound meaning to emerge. This interpretation adds layers of meaning rather than simply interpreting the story and provides quantitative data to detect visual patterns among stories. The patterns are linked back to the original material enabling a deeper dive into individual stories. If the researcher first look for patterns in the metadata using statistical or visual tools, he or she is less likely to be biased by content and prematurely converge on an interpretation. Evidence based insights that enables action The output of SenseMaker® is statistical data backed up by explanatory narrative. This means that advocacy is an integral part of the system. Numbers on their own appear objective but are not persuasive; anecdotes on their own may be persuasive but are not objective. SenseMaker® puts the two together and provides a powerful means of persuasion. It also enables action. Instead of saying “How do we create a culture of X?” we say “How do we create more stories like this and fewer stories like that?” Then, as actions are initiated, we see the impact in real time.

Nimble adaptation: Tailoring monitoring, evaluation, and learning methods to provide actionable data in complex environments - Serpe, Lauren; Ingram, Mason; Byom, Kate (New Directions for Evaluation, 2022)
This chapter examines good practices in implementing effective Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) systems within complex international development Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) programs, which are characterized by challenges of non-linearity, limited evidence of theories of change, and contextual and politically contingent nature of outcomes. The chapter presents three cases of MEL systems in complex projects implemented by Pact across distinct and diverse operating contexts – Zimbabwe, Cambodia, and Somalia – to illustrate those projects’ MEL approaches that enabled continuous adaptation. The authors analyze the cases to respond to two questions: (1) What are the key elements of effective adaptive management-focused MEL systems in complex environments? (2) What is practical guidance for designing and enabling complexity-responsive and effective adaptive management-focused MEL systems? The case studies illustrate three key elements: (1) Information gathering that closely links context, research, and performance data; (2) Systems for reflection that offer scheduled learning moments of varying frequency and intensity, as well as multiple feedback mechanisms; and (3) Enabling structures that promote adaptive mindsets and attitudes within project teams.
_eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ev.20523

Glossary of Knowledge Management - Serrat, Olivier (Knowledge Solutions: Tools, Methods, and Approaches to Drive Organizational Performance, 2017)
The knowledge management discipline can be cryptic. These Knowledge Solutions define its most common concepts in simple terms.
Keywords: Definitions; Knowledge management; Taxonomy; Terminology

Be a participant not a spectator - Sharp, Cathy (The Evaluator - UK Evaluation Society, 2022)
My focus here is on the realities of evaluating in complexity where ‘nothing is clear, and everything keeps changing’. I outline how I use a series of ‘provocations’ that allow people to choose their own starting point. Sharing those choices fuels conversations that discover, explore, and co-create (rather than manage) our mutual expectations and assumptions and track how these might themselves be influenced by the work as it unfolds. This account draws on a review of literature and my practice experience, including reflections from others brought into local, national, and international conversations about what it means for evaluation to recognise complexity.

Exploring new territories for evaluation - Sharp, Cathy (Collective Leadership for Scotland, 2018)
Drawing on action research, this paper recasts evaluation as ‘action inquiry’, an embedded evaluative learning practice that can help navigate complexity when enacting collective leadership. It is offered as an invitation to inquiry amongst a reasonably well-informed audience of policy makers and practitioners who work in and for public services. It will particularly interest those who provide research, evaluation and facilitation support, and those seeking to develop a more relational approach to research and evaluation. Action inquiry is a model of practising change together in environments where ‘nothing is clear, and everything keeps changing’ that significantly challenges the prevailing discourse on evaluation. Action inquiry can be wrapped around and enmeshed within initiatives and programmes that work with complexity - anywhere where success will depend on the quality of relationships that can be developed. The paper reviews some important interrelated concepts that underpin the ideals of collective leadership and public service reform and which confront deeply embedded traditional notions of leadership, expertise and participation. These offer important challenges to ideas about how change happens and recognise that relationships are at the heart of practising change. This warrants a re-examination of the high expectations of evidence-based or informed practice. Collective leadership makes new demands of evidence as it rests on help to determine ‘wise actions’ in real-life situations. This confronts the practical reality of how to work together in conditions often expressed as ‘dynamic’ or ‘turbulent’ and the added human complexities of power, emotions and relationships; too often these elements are denied or avoided aspects of a change process. Facilitated action inquiry makes these elements part of the conversations, in the midst of ‘work-as-we-are-doing-it’, to increase areas of choice for individuals and a group as a whole. Within public policy, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence about ‘what works’ yet change seems to be stubborn and slow. The paper explores some of the deep-rooted vestiges of a ‘hierarchy of evidence’ and assumptions about standardisation and generalisability that act as a ‘barrier to transformation’. These include the narrow framing of what counts as evidence and consequent relegation of community perspectives, lived experience and practice-based evidence. The paper acknowledges the clear appetite for different approaches to evaluation, especially those that better reflect deeply held values and avoid creating a culture of ‘gaming’, rooted in fear of failure and loss of funding, at the expense of learning. The need for new forms of developmental evaluative thinking, collaborative inquiry and action research to create embedded learning is well overdue. Action inquiry is a desirable and necessary response to the complex situations and challenges of human services and recognises the essentialness of knowledge co-production. It is a model of co-creation at every stage and endorses the idea that people learn from participation in evaluation and by testing theories of change through action. Action inquiry builds on the idea of inquiry, or a moment-to-moment awareness and quality of attention and draws from several elements of action research practice. It sees inquiry as an intervention in itself, one that furthermore, explicitly seeks to enhance the probability of the success of a programme, focus on learning, the collaborative development of practice-based knowledge and positive relationships. The paper highlights the importance of building inquiry into living systems, the role of facilitation, systemic inquiry, and evaluative thinking. It proposes an expansion of ideas of appreciation as a relational and collaborative practice that is a driver of emergence. Social recognition that acknowledges someone’s social value to the community and implies mutual moral obligations to cooperation and participation is particularly crucial in a work context that requires successful coordination and multiple contributions to achieve results across hierarchies of position, professional rank and sectors. Hence, appreciation goes beyond the idea of positivity to include social recognition, valuing more explicit forms of inquiry, building participants’ aspirations to design new social systems and acting in new ways to embed change. In developing this discussion, the paper contributes to emerging dialogues about the need for a model of ‘5th generation evaluation’. Such a model would be based on the idea that appreciative and challenging inquiry that is contextual, relational and open-minded will create better opportunities for change and development. The paper sets out some ‘provocative propositions’ that can help us to navigate this terrain, perhaps of a fledgling ‘5th generation approach’ to inquiry. Facilitated action inquiry can hold the key to developing both new knowledge and an adaptive, collaborative and improvisational skill-set, able to respond in new ways to systemic and complex issues on the ground. It’s common to hear the expression ‘it’s all about relationships’ and it is clearly time to shift our focus to relationships; not relationships as ‘things’, but as co-created and dynamic relational processes in which we are embedded. In this way we can bring new qualities to our talking to each other about our various and shared visions of a better future.

Exploring new territories for evaluation - Provocative propositions - Sharp, Cathy (2018)

Practising change together – where nothing is clear, and everything keeps changing - Sharp, Cathy (Action Learning: Research and Practice, 2020)
This paper explores the thinking and practice of ‘action inquiry’ an embedded learning practice that can help navigate complexity when practising change together. The paper uses examples from social contexts where there are concerns about community wellbeing and health care. These are drawn from collaborative or collective leadership development programmes within public services that seek to bring new attention to the qualities of how people think, converse and interact, as part of their collective professional practice. This treats social action as a relational and dialogical practice, something that we do together as professionals by engaging in reflective inquiry and action. The paper suggests that action inquiry offers a prospect of rekindling the links between ‘action learning’ and collaborative leadership by developing a co-mission and a mutual commitment to a new type of learning partnership. Action inquiry can be wrapped around and enmeshed within initiatives and programmes that work with complexity, anywhere where effective social action will depend on the quality of relationships that can be developed. This research was funded by two separate Scottish Government commissions, where the author was a learning partner. The paper also draws on the further reflections of some of the practitioners most centrally involved.
Publisher: Routledge _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2020.1712838

How do we know we are doing good work? - Sharp, Cathy; McLaughlin, Dot; Whitley, Janet; Lawson, Karen (Collective Leadership for Scotland, 2022)
Collective leadership feels timely and important in an uncertain, fast changing, and challenging world. This report comes at this heightened moment of urgency and appetite for renewal, bringing potential to do things differently in public services and communities. The opportunities and challenges of true collaboration-in-practice, in the absence of blueprints, mean that it has never been more necessary to change ways of working and foreground learning. As outcomes remain important, and time and resources are scarcer than ever, the approach of collective leadership makes the creation of impact a shared, conscious, and actionable choice. A pathway to ultimate impact at scale is co-created through dialogue about expectations and contributions, and by design, not assuming change will happen because we have good intentions. Collective Leadership for Scotland (CLfS) has a strong vision and enjoys continuing active interest, drawing together participants from a variety of agencies working in public services. People are looking for fresh thinking, space and time for reflection, connection with others, a chance to think about how to tackle difficulties, and to test out what it takes to do, and continue to do, the work of collaborative public service. These motivations are deepened and brought into sharper focus by the pandemic, with an added interest in developing skills in online facilitation. CLfS contributes to building a critical mass for system change, to help to sustain the ambitions of the Christie Commission and the delivery of the National Outcomes for Scotland. There remains further potential to realise wider and deeper impact amongst organisations, communities, and wider systems. The conclusions of this report are likely to have wider resonance beyond interests in the CLfS programmes. This report deepens understanding of some of the challenges of commissioning, convening, and the scope for deeper impact through building reflective and relational leadership practices. It also outlines social and experiential sensemaking and facilitation practices to strengthen the action inquiry approach as a deliberate learning strategy, building cultures that support new forms of collaborative inquiry and systemic action research.

USAID/Colombia Introduces Political Economy Analysis to Better Adapt Programming to Local Contexts - Sharp, Preston (USAID, 2015)

Lessons learned from PERL and partners' response to the COVID-19 crisis - Sharp, Samuel; Nwachukwu, Tochukwu; Srivatsa, Sripriya Iyengar (PERL Programme, 2021)
The first case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was confirmed on 27 February 2020, with the first lockdown orders issued on 30 March 2020. The pandemic and resultant containment measures have had farreaching socio-cultural, economic, financial and political implications, globally as well as in Nigeria. For the Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL) and its partners, the pandemic has required considerable adaptation of their strategic approach and working practices. This report reflects on how COVID-19 changed the operating context for PERL’s partners, how PERL responded and what lessons have been learned across delivery teams. For government partners, the most substantial impacts have been to budgets, struck by falling oil prices and reduced economic activity. Universally, states have had to adjust budgets and reforecast, revising budgets downwards and shifting the focus of expenditure towards healthcare. The World Bank’s State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme has generated powerful incentives for this budget revision, which PERL has been able to work alongside. A range of new governance structures – such as public response committees and task forces – have been established to deal with various aspects of COVID-19 policy, and PERL has had to grapple to maintain its ongoing engagement with these. For civil society organisations (CSOs), the closure of offices from 30 March 2020 has changed the nature of engagement with government. CSOs often developed innovative approaches to maintaining access, including use of social media and direct calls. But the shift to virtual working has been challenging for many CSOs, both in terms of covering the costs of data for virtual meetings and the risks of disengagement and marginalisation for some organisations. In response to this changed context, from March 2020 PERL began to restrategise. The flexible nature of the programme’s workplans, progress markers and budgets enabled activities to be adjusted in a relatively timely manner, with a new workplan approved by the end of April 2020. Central PERL management developed a COVID-19 response strategy which provided a broad framework for adaptations, but allowed substantial autonomy to state and regional teams to lead on reprioritisation according to their understanding of the local context. This was valued by both management and delivery staff. Challenges manifested themselves more in effectively delivering on these adapted workplans than in the process of restrategising – due to two rounds of budget cuts, the merger of DFID and the FCO to form the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the difficulties of engaging partners virtually. Overall, the pandemic undoubtedly delayed activities (by roughly three months for deprioritised areas of work), but resulted in an array of new, tailored interventions under its broad categories of work. Interventions relating to the health sector became more prevalent, as did work supporting budget adjustments. Domestic resource mobilisation and education interventions were often adjusted to be more relevant to the COVID context or experienced delay. The report provides short illustrative case studies of PERL’s adaptations to: support budget revisions; work with media partners on COVID-19 sensitisation; tracking and advocacy for palliative distribution; and support for the introduction of tax relief. There is some evidence, albeit partial, that PERL was able to take advantage of windows of opportunity offered by the pandemic to drive ahead with certain ongoing reform initiatives.

Evidence-led adaptive programming: Lessons from MUVA - Sharp, Samuel; Riemenschneider, Nils; Selvester, Kerry (ODI, 2022)
Calls for more ‘adaptive programming’ have been prominent in international development practice for over a decade. Learning-by-doing is a crucial element of this, but programmes have often found it challenging to become more learning oriented. Establishing some form of reflective practice, against countervailing incentives, is difficult. Incorporating data collection processes that generate useful, timely and practical information to inform these reflections is even more so.This paper explores MUVA - an adaptive female economic empowerment programme in Mozambique. MUVA, we suggest, is atypically evidence-led. It combines systematic, inclusive reflective practice with extensive real-time data collection. We describe the fundamental features of MUVA’s monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) approach that supported this. One, how data collection and analysis are synchronised with set cycles for learning and adapting projects. Two, how MEL systems are designed to prioritise actionable learning, with data collection oriented more to the needs of implementing staff than to the reporting requirements of funders.This approach was enabled by building collective ownership over the programme’s objectives and the purpose of MEL from the outset. Implementers are asked about their motivations, and these are related to the programme’s Theory of Change. The evidence culture is supported by the proximity of MEL staff to implementing staff; and through structuring upwards accountability to funders around justifying evidence-based adaptations instead of reporting on more narrow indicators. We conclude by considering the relevance, or not, of MUVA’s approach to programmes in other contexts or issue areas trying to replicate a similarly evidence-informed approach to adaptive management. Key messages Learning-by-doing is essential to adaptive programming, but it can be challenging to establish data collection processes that generate useful, timely and practical information. MUVA – a female economic empowerment programme in Mozambique – has an atypically evidence-led adaptive management approach. This has two fundamental features. One, data collection and analysis are synchronised with set cycles for learning and adapting projects. Two, data collection is oriented more to the needs of implementing staff than to the reporting requirements of funders. Monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) systems are designed to prioritise actionable learning. This approach was enabled by building collective ownership over the programme’s objectives and the purpose of MEL from the outset. Implementers are asked about their motivations, and these are related to the programme’s Theory of Change. The evidence culture is supported by the proximity of MEL staff to implementing staff; and through structuring upwards accountability to funders around justifying evidence-based adaptations instead of reporting on more narrow indicators.

How DFID can better manage complexity in development programming - Sharp, Samuel; Valters, Craig; Whitty, Brendan (ODI, 2019)
The United Kingdom’s (UK) Department for International Development (DFID) is an ambitious government department that is committed to reducing poverty and conflict overseas. Many of the issues on which DFID works are complex; whether focused on climate change, gender equality, health or other priorities, simple solutions rarely exist. And to tackle these complex challenges, DFID staff must interact with unpredictable systems of political, organisational and individual behaviours and incentives. There is a risk that complex problems spur more complicated programmes; that the complexity of development challenges is addressed through designing programmes with too many projects and implementers. While there may be valid reasons for this, too many of these complicated programmes will overburden staff. This briefing note is the outcome of an ongoing process within DFID to confront these issues and answer the question: how can DFID design and manage programmes to address complex development challenges without creating too much staff workload? Key messages DFID deals with complex problems, which require flexible systems to support testing, learning and adaptation. • Complex problems do not necessarily require workload-heavy delivery structures, but simpler approaches depend on delivery partners’ experience and competence. • However, programmes that tackle complex problems do require more hands-on engagement and face more workload from inflexible compliance requirements. We suggest that DFID and similar agencies: • Pay closer attention to delivery options in programme design, making use of existing options where possible and, where not, fostering local organisations through long-term investments. • Encourage programme designers to articulate how ambition matches resources and consider ‘good enough’ design. • Reduce the burden of compliance by cultivating partner autonomy, reassessing results and valuefor-money requirements and promoting more flexible contracting and procurement. • Plan and prioritise management resources across a portfolio of programmes to make sure they can be focused in the right areas, where the complexity of the problem requires greater engagement.

Opportunities and challenges for DAC members in ‘adapting to context’ - Sharp, Samuel; Wild, Leni (2021)
Key Messages New principles for OECD DAC members on ‘Managing for Sustainable Development Results’ emphasise tailoring result management approaches to different contexts; balancing internal compliance with empowerment at ground level; and adapting implementation in the pursuit of long-term outcomes. However development organisations face numerous challenges in aligning with these principles in practice. Reporting and evidence collection processes do not consistently encourage adaptive practice, reflecting their orientation towards accountability over learning. Context analysis is common during programme design, but used less on an ongoing basis. Popular tools –such as logical frameworks and theories of change - are often intepreted in linear ways, not as ‘living documents’ that react and change over time. Organisations need to meaningfully empower staff to work adaptively, including examining incentives and cultures that can make staff more comfortable with traditional results management. Even when senior leadership is supportive of adaptive ways of working, they can lack a clear understanding of the resourcing required and appropriate governance and management processes. Development organisations and their partners have attempted to address these challenges through the use of different monitoring and evaluation tools and methods, changes to reporting frameworks and templates, and initiatives to create positive incentives and motivate staff, leadership and partners at different levels.
Keywords: _tablet

Achieving disability inclusive employment – Are the current approaches deep enough? - Shaw, Jackie; Wickenden, Mary; Thompson, Stephen; Mader, Philip (Journal of International Development, 2022)
Diverse approaches to promoting disability inclusive employment aim to transform workplaces into truly inclusive environments, usually with intervention strategies targeting two main groups: employers and jobseekers with disabilities. However, they do not always consider other relevant stakeholders or address the relationships and interactions between diverse actors in the wider social ecosystem. These approaches often neglect deeper ‘vexing’ difficulties which block progress towards disability inclusive work environments. Most interventions rightly embrace hegemonic ‘social models of disability’ and use human rights arguments but may neglect entrenched structural factors. Disability inclusive employment is complex, with unaddressed invisible aspects that continue to limit progress. We explore some key relevant disability concepts and then interrogate evidence from the ‘Inclusion Works’ programme working in four middle- and low-income countries, considering some intractable barriers underlying the slow movement towards inclusive employment. Finally, we propose that a more participatory action orientated approach involving disabled people and others is needed to both generate deeper understanding and provide pathways towards new solutions to obstinate problems through progressive action learning processes in context. Programmatic interventions that work across the levels of the ecosystem and address power relations and interactions between stakeholders could lead to more substantial forms of disability inclusive employment.
_eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jid.3692

Is your evidence robust enough? Questions for policy makers and practitioners - Shaxson, Louise (Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice, 2005)
This article examines the reasons we need evidence for policy, discusses where evidence is needed in the policy-making process, and the nature of the evidence base for strategy and policy. Working relationships between policy makers and their advisers are key: as policy makers come from a variety of backgrounds, developing a common language helps set discussions about the robustness of the evidence base on a sound footing. The article identifies five components of robustness, proposes a series of questions that could be used to address them and discusses the implications for the processes of policy making.

Scenarios: An Explorer's Guide - Shell International (Shell International BV, 2008)
Exploring the Future The future is ‘terra incognita’: although we may be able to guess the outcome of events that lie close to us, as we project beyond this we enter an unmapped zone full of uncertainty. Paradoxically, the range of options this reveals can seem paralysing. No one can definitively map the future, but we can explore the possibilities in ways that are specifically intended to support decision-making. At Shell we use scenario building to help us wrestle with the developments and behaviours that shape what the future may hold and prepare ourselves more effectively. We also believe it can inspire individuals and organisations to play a more active role in shaping a better future - for themselves, or even on a global scale. In this book, we use a metaphor of exploration and map-making to describe how we think about building scenarios. Like a set of maps describing different aspects of a landscape, scenarios provide us with a range of perspectives on what might happen, helping us to navigate more successfully. Exploration - of a territory or the future - involves both analytical thinking rooted in whatever facts are clear, and also informed intuition. This book describes the approach used to develop a set of global scenarios, ‘People and Connections’ several years ago under the guidance of Ged Davis. Since then, scenarios guided by Albert Bressand have been published, and more recently Shell has published a summary of its Energy Scenarios, ‘Scramble’ and ‘Blueprints’, developed under the guidance of the current leadership. These have built on, and extended, our approach. Indeed, Shell has been working with scenarios for almost 40 years, and we are still learning. Since the environment we live and work in is constantly changing, building scenarios demands continual innovation and creativity.

Conflict Aid Goes “Lean” - Shinkle, Whitney (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017)
Iterative design methods are essential to development work—even (or especially) in regions marked by war and violence.

The Art of Agile Development - Shore, James; Warden, Shane (O'Reilly Media, 2007)
The Art of Agile Development contains practical guidance for anyone considering or applying agile development for building valuable software. Plenty of books describe what agile development is or why it helps software projects succeed, but very few combine information for developers, managers, testers, and customers into a single package that they can apply directly. This book provides no-nonsense advice on agile planning, development, delivery, and management taken from the authors' many years of experience with Extreme Programming (XP). You get a gestalt view of the agile development process, including comprehensive guidance for non-technical readers and hands-on technical practices for developers and testers. The Art of Agile Development gives you clear answers to questions such as: How can we adopt agile development? Do we really need to pair program? What metrics should we report? What if I can't get my customer to participate? How much documentation should we write? When do we design and architect? As a non-developer, how should I work with my agile team? Where is my product roadmap? How does QA fit in? The book teaches you how to adopt XP practices, describes each practice in detail, then discusses principles that will allow you to modify XP and create your own agile method. In particular, this book tackles the difficult aspects of agile development: the need for cooperation and trust among team members. Whether you're currently part of an agile team, working with an agile team, or interested in agile development, this book provides the practical tips you need to start practicing agile development. As your experience grows, the book will grow with you, providing exercises and information that will teach you first to understand the rules of agile development, break them, and ultimately abandon rules altogether as you master the art of agile development."Jim Shore and Shane Warden expertly explain the practices and benefits of Extreme Programming. They offer advice from their real-world experiences in leading teams. They answer questions about the practices and show contraindications - ways that a practice may be mis-applied. They offer alternatives you can try if there are impediments to applying a practice, such as the lack of an on-site customer.–Ken Pugh, Author of Jolt Award Winner, Prefactoring "I will leave a copy of this book with every team I visit."–Brian Marick, Exampler Consulting
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Bringing children into the life story collection process - Shrestha, Kapil (CLARISSA, 2021)
The CLARISSA Social Protection (SP) intervention provided six months of unconditional cash transfers to every household in the Gojmohol neighbourhood,...

Towards an Alternative Development Management Paradigm? - Shutt, Cathy (Expertgruppen för biståndsanalys (EBA), 2016)
Demonstrating results has been a concern in international development cooperation ever since it was started and in recent years there has been an increased focus on achieving and reporting on “results”. Despite the fact that everyone involved in development cooperation wants to make a difference there has been a growing criticism from practitioners about the “results agenda” based on a concern that the approaches used are not fit for purpose. In the EBA-report, Cathy Shutt, at the University of Sussex, scrutinizes the recent critical debate about results based management, and the main arguments and motives behind the criticism. She shows that the debate is not only a matter of obsessive measurement and reporting of meaningless numbers for political accountability, but also a matter of problematic assumptions and how we think about development, evidence and learning. In the report, Shutt also explores what could be learned from those who are not just critiquing results based management approaches but also proposing alternatives. Are these new alternatives an answer to the criticism?
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Improving the Evaluability of INGO Empowerment and Accountability Programmes - Shutt, Cathy; McGee, Rosemary (Centre for Development Impact, 2013)

Online Learning and collaborative platform for systems thinking and systems change - SI (Systems Innovation, 2021)

System Innovation Network - Si Network (Si Network, 2020)
The Si Network is an online platform for building the developing of systems innovation - connecting people around the world to learn and apply the ideas and methods of systems innovation towards addressing complex challenges and building better systems that work for all. Not sure what systems innovation is? Systems innovation is a new approach to innovation that tries to tackle complex social and environmental challenges through the use of more holistic & innovation driven approaches. It is a kind of innovation that aims to change the underlying structure of a system, thus potentially enabling a more transformational kind of change - systems change - rather than incremental "innovation as usual". What Do You Do? We are building an ecosystem of individuals and organizations co-learning and co-creating systems innovation across geographies and sectors. This ecosystem is enabled by our online platform which provides educational content, toolkits, organizes events and projects as well as provides various support services for organizations. Purpose Statement Our purpose is to build the world’s capacity for systems innovation - so as to better understand and address complex challenges and co-create a world where systems work for all. We envision a world where everyone thinks in systems and has an understanding of complex systems. From this understanding, we are able to design and develop regenerative systems that work for everyone. Our mission is to grow the field of systems innovation as a pathway to co-learn the ideas of systems thinking and apply them to co-creating new systems Who's Involved? We are a networked organization of some 17K+ members forming part of 20+ hubs in major cities around the world. Our community is broad and diverse in areas of work and interest from designers, innovators, and entrepreneurs, to researchers and management but they all share a common interest in learning and applying systems thinking ideas. The Si platform is developed and managed by a small core team based in London UK. We are registered as a business but operate as a social enterprise focused on our purpose of advancing the area of systems innovation in theory and practice. Core Value Creativity - We put creativity at the centre of what we do. Holding a space for curiosity, diversity of views, exploration and critical thinking as a pathway to transformative innovation. Openness - We strongly believe in openness in our ways of being, thinking and organizing as a sustainable pathway to creating an adaptive, scalable and dynamic community. Growth Mindset - We embrace challenges as opportunities for continuous personal and collective learning and development, with a never-ending potential to grow and start with a new beginning. Perseverance - When facing uncertainty and failure, perseverance is what is needed to maintain commitment and a resilient pathway aligned with our purpose. Care - Care is one of our core principles. We foster relationships based on honesty and empathy, striving to be present and conscious in what we do and taking responsibility for the effects of our actions.

Webinar - Practicing Thinking and Working Politically (TWP): Voices from the Field - SID (Society for International Development., 2020)
Current thinking on effective international development interventions highlights the importance of “thinking and working politically” (TWP). Among the emerging lessons of experience is that thinking politically, using tools such as political economy analysis, is more easily undertaken than working politically. How can the two pillars of TWP be effectively integrated? What challenges exist and how have practitioners confronted them? This session focuses on listening to voices from the field to explore answers to these questions. The organizers solicited proposals from implementers, reaching out to SID-W members and the Washington, D.C.-based TWP community of practice. They selected the following four projects that illustrate different approaches to practicing TWP. • Mercy Corps: Integrated Maji Infrastructure and Governance Initiative for Eastern Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo • Asia Foundation: Tourism Strategy Project, Timor-Leste • Counterpart International: Rights and Dignity Project, El Salvador • RTI International: Knowledge Sector Initiative, Indonesia Their voices will be bookended by Sarah Frazer (RTI International), who will summarize a recent study, Thinking and Working Politically: Lessons from Diverse and Inclusive Applied Political Economy Analysis, and Alina Rocha Menocal (Overseas Development Institute), who will provide commentary on the four projects and the study findings. Ann Hudock (Counterpart International) will moderate.

Digital authoritarianism in Bangladesh: Weaponising a draconian law to silence dissent in the pandemic era | Association for Progressive Communications - Siddiki, Zayed (2022)

Achieving reforms in oligarchical democracies: the role of leadership and coalitions in the Philippines - Sidel, John T. (Developmental Leadership Program, 2014)
This paper examines the role of developmental leadership in two major reforms introduced in the Philippines in 2012: the passage into law in December of excise tax reform which significantly raised taxes on cigarettes and alcohol – generally referred to as the Sin Tax Reform – and, in July, the re-registration of voters in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). These reforms have a) strengthened government finances and healthcare; and b) improved the quality of elections and promoted good governance and conflict resolution in the southern Philippines. Key points: These reforms were not achieved exclusively through the executive leadership of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, this paper argues. A broader form of developmental leadership was critical to their passage into legislation and their subsequent implementation, made up of reform coalitions that incorporated elements of government, the legislature, and civil society. While these coalitions were diverse and flexible in their form and composition, their core strength came from established advocacy groups and experienced activists. These groups and activists used highly labour-intensive, specialized and complex forms of mobilization. The success of these reform coalitions, it is argued, has implications for economic and governance reform in the developing world, particularly in systems characterised by oligarchical democracy, where competition for elected office is closely linked to the entrenched interests of business and industry.

Amateur hour: CfC's 'surprising' success in addressing school congestion in the philippines - Sidel, John T. (Asia Foundation, 2017)
The international development community has increasingly embraced the idea that finding durable solutions to complex development problems requires new ways of working that move beyond industry norms. This paper makes an important contribution to the current debate by outlining an innovative monitoring system called Strategy Testing (ST). This is the third paper in the Working Politically in Practice paper series, launched together with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Keywords: IMPORTANT

Thinking and Working Politically in development - Coalitions for Change in The Philippines - Sidel, John T.; Faustino, Jaime (The Asia Foundation, 2020)
The Asia Foundation and the Australian Embassy in the Philippines today released a new publication, Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines. Written by London School of Economics and Political Science Professor John T. Sidel and The Asia Foundation’s Jaime Faustino, the book examines the first phase of the Coalitions for Change program (2012-2018) and the contributions to key development policy reforms in the Philippines. The book is a rigorous treatment of the Coalitions for Change program’s transformative policy reforms—alongside lessons from its failures—across diverse policy arenas and in a wide variety of cities and provinces. The chapters are organized thematically: excise tax reform (Chapter 2), land governance reform (Chapter 3), education (Chapter 4), electoral reform (Chapter 5), disaster risk reduction and management (Chapter 6), and subnational governance reform and conflict resolution in Mindanao (Chapter 7). The co-authors together combine an independent, academic perspective on the program’s impacts (Sidel) with a front-row view of doing policy reform in the Philippines – both its political and technical dimensions (Faustino). Based on the empirical research and comparative analysis undertaken by the authors, the book articulates – and substantiates – a strong set of arguments that help to explain the program’s mixed pattern of achievements and disappointments. Overall, the book concludes that the seven-year program achieved significant and sustainable impact using problem-driven, adaptive, and iterative approaches to developmental change. The authors assert the program was at the forefront of notable development approaches: aid effectiveness and development around thinking and working politically, doing development differently, and adaptive programming. Graham Teskey, an early advocate of ‘thinking and working politically’ explores how development agencies can replicate the conditions for success in his Afterword. With illustrative case studies and analyses, the book provides valuable lessons for policymakers, scholars, bilateral agencies, think-tanks, and anyone interested in successfully maneuvering the shifting dimensions of development in the Philippines and elsewhere.

How to Monitor and Evaluate an Adaptive Programme: 7 Takeaways - Sikustahili, Gloria; Adkins, Julie; Makongo, Japhet; Milligan, Simon (From Poverty to Power, 2020)
Monitoring and Evaluation needs to be different to support the new generation of 'adaptive programmes' in aid. 4 M&E specialists in Tanzania explain how.

Learning to ADAPT: monitoring and evaluation approaches in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction – challenges, gaps and ways forward - Silva Villanueva, Paula (IDS, 2011)
This working paper is a methodological contribution to the emerging debate on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the context of climate change adaptationand disaster risk reduction. Effectively managing disaster risk is critical for adapting to the impacts of climate change, however disasters risk reduction M&E practice may be limited in capturing progress towards adaptation. The unique nature of adaptation to climate change calls for experience-based learning M&E processes for discovering the key insights into adaptive capacity and its links to adaptation processes, and to risk and vulnerability reduction at large. The ADAPT guiding principles and indicators set the foundations towards this end.

Beyond Logframes - Simister, Nigel (Intrac, 2017)
The logical framework, otherwise known as a logframe, is a commonly used planning tool. Initially designed for use within simple projects, it is increasingly being applied to complex programmes and organisations. In these cases the logical framework has limitations. There are several options that can help overcome these limitations. These include expanding the logframe, and using multiple logframes.

How Adaptive Management is challenging the monitoring and evaluation of complex programmes - Simister, Nigel (INTRAC, 2018)
By Nigel Simister Adaptive management is a broad approach designed to support development or humanitarian programmes in complex or uncertain …

In pursuit of the deep and sustained shifts necessary for adaptive management - Simister, Nigel (INTRAC, 2018)
The final blog in Nigel Simister's series on adaptive management and the M&E of complex projects and programmes.

Summarising portfolio change: results frameworks at organisational level - Simister, Nigel (Intrac, 2016)

Learning and Accountability - Simister, Nigel; Scholz, Vera (INTRAC, 2020)
Most people agree that monitoring and evaluation (M&E) should be used for both learning and accountability. However, there is no consensus about which one is more important. The debate matters as there is sometimes tension between the two purposes. In the past there has often been a disconnect between M&E and learning. Many M&E systems are primarily designed to enable accountability to donors.

Digital Democracy: The Tools Transforming Political Engagement - Simon, Julie; Bass, Theo; Boelman, Victoria; Mulgan, Geoff (NESTA, 2017)
This paper shares lessons from Nesta’s research into some of the pioneering innovations in digital democracy which are taking place across Europe and beyond

Routledge international handbook of participatory design - Simonsen, Jesper; Robertson, Toni (Routledge, 2013)
"Participatory Design is about the direct involvement of people in the co-design of the technologies they use. Its central concern is how collaborative design processes can be driven by the participation of the people affected by the technology designed. Embracing a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies, tools, environments, businesses, and social institutions more responsive to human needs, the International Handbook of Participatory Design is a state-of-the-art reference handbook for the subject. The Handbook brings together a multidisciplinary and international group of highly recognized and experienced experts to present an authoritative overview of the field and its history and discuss contributions and challenges of the pivotal issues in Participatory Design, including heritage, ethics, ethnography, methods, tools and techniques and community involvement. The book also highlights three large-scale case studies which show how Participatory Design has been used to bring about outstanding changes in different organisations. The book shows why Participatory Design is an important, highly relevant and rewarding area for research and practice. It will be an invaluable resource for students, researchers, scholars and professionals in Participatory Design"–
OCLC: 754734489

SystemCraft - a primer: How to Tackle our Toughest Problems - Simpson, Kate; Randall, Ian (Wasafiri, 2020)
Systemcraft is our applied framework to help leaders and organisations get started and keep going when faced with complex problems. It is built on our practical experience. It draws on a broad body of research, action and theory from the worlds of complexity thinking, systems theory, adaptive management, leadership development, social movements, development theory and beyond. Systemcraft has been designed to make systems thinking something any leader can apply when they find themselves faced with a complex problem and asking, ‘So what do I do next?’

Adaptive Bureaucracies: lessons from DFID to the world - Simpson, Lea (LearnAdapt, 2020)
How many times have you worked on something that you know is failing, or just isn’t going as well as we’d all have hoped, but haven’t had…

Development Delusions and Contradictions: An Anatomy of the Foreign Aid Industry - Sims, David (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
This book analyses the shortcomings of the Western development aid programme. Through exploring the evolution of aid over more than seven decades, development is examined as an industry with a variety of motives and actors. The driving forces and dynamics in the relationship between aid and economic development are highlighted in relation to faulty development structures and misaligned aims. With a particular focus on Egypt, radical questions are posed on how global aid and development can be improved, including how it can respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.This book aims to present an alternative aid framework to help overcome the dysfunctionality of the current international development system. It will be of interest to researchers and policymakers working within development economics and development policy.

Risk navigation for Thinking and Working Politically: The work and disappearance of Sombath Somphone - Sims, Kearrin (Development Policy Review, 2020)
Abstract Motivation On December 15, 2012 Sombath Somphone was abducted at a police checkpoint in his home city of Vientiane, the capital of Laos; his whereabouts remain unknown. This article considers his work and disappearance through the lens of Thinking and Working Politically (TWP) approaches to development. The article is supportive of TWP, but emphasizes the significant risks of politicized programming in authoritarian contexts. Purpose By examining the case of Sombath Somphone, the article seeks to offer insights for safer, and more effective, TWP programming. It considers how specific events in authoritarian contexts can suddenly reposition development workers and/or organizations as political dissidents. Approaches and Methods The argument draws on analysis of grey literature; conversational and observational knowledge accrued during 18 months of fieldwork in Laos between 2011 and 2018; on‐going formal and informal interviews with members of Laos’ civil society sector; and extensive dialogue with Sombath Somphone’s wife, Ng Shui Meng. Findings The article identifies four key factors that contributed to the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone: international exposure; timing; particular elites; and strategies of oppression. It highlights the need for further consideration of how to anticipate and mitigate the dangers of politically oriented development work, as well as the different forms of risk experienced by local and international development actors working in authoritarian contexts. Policy Implications TWP has much to offer to development practice, but its contributions should not threaten the safety of local development actors. More attention must be given to preventing and mitigating such risks.

Top-down vs. Bottom-up Hierarchy: Or, How to Design a Self-Managed Organization - Sisney, Lex (Organizational Physics - Systems thinking for breakthrough business performance, 2016)
Top-down vs. Bottom-up Hierarchy: Or, How to Design a Self-Managed Organization

Real World SAFe – Leapfrogging a successful waterfall company into Scaled Agile - Skarin, Mattias (CRISP, 2017)

Built to improve: Leveraging realtime M&E for adaptive youth employment programming - Skelton, John (Mercy Corps, 2016)
Recognising that aid and development programming takes place in complex contexts, Mercy Corps is increasingly seeking to understand how best to manage programs which iterate, adapt and respond to the consistently evolving settings in which we work. This brief Practice Paper provides some examples of what adaptive management looks like in practice on the Prospects youth employment program in Liberia. It does not seek to function as a manual or set of guidelines, but simply provides some practical examples and insights into how a youth employment program governed by principles of adaptive management operates.

Impact networks: measuring towards success - Small Foundation (Small Foundation, 2021)
How does Small Foundation think about the impact…

Small Foundation Network Partner Evaluation Toolkit: Network Evaluation for Network Coordinators - Small Foundation (2021)
This Toolkit This Toolkit presents an approach to network evaluation that is designed for network coordinators. This Toolkit provides guidance for network coordinators on how to: • More effectively use information they are already collecting as part of their routine coordination duties; • Collect other useful data that would support their network’s health and development; • Integrate network evaluation tasks into network activities, like convenings, to streamline the process; • Use data to effectively coordinate, grow, and sustain their networks. The Toolkit also provides examples of surveys, questionnaires, and dashboards, as well as tips for easy implementation.

Small Foundation Network Partner Evaluation Toolkit Network Evaluation for Network Coordinators Frequently Asked Questions - Small Foundation (Small Foundation, 2021)
This Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document is written for Small Foundation network partners. It accompanies Network Partner Evaluation Toolkit, which outlines four evaluation tools that Small Foundation is encouraging, and supporting, its network partners to use to improve their operations and, ultimately, increase their impact. This FAQ document answers typical questions about these evaluation tools and provides additional detailed recommendations for how network coordinators can effectively implement them. This document has five sections: 1) A brief introduction to network theory and the value of evaluation for network coordinators. 2) An overview of the four evaluation tools and answers general questions about incorporating evaluation into network coordination duties. 3) Recommendations regarding the Network Coordinator Administrative Information (tool #1). 4) Information about Social Network Analysis (tool #2). 5) Recommendations regarding the Network Participant Survey (tool #3). 6) Information about the Collaborative Activity Dashboard (tool #4).

I know what I know (but how do I know what I don’t?) - Smit, Debbie; de Lanerolle, Indra; Braam, Tamara; Byrne, Deborah; Legong, Gontse (MAVC, 2017)
An important support function of Making All Voices Count South Africa is to design, plan and facilitate community of practice gatherings for sustained learning and sharing across Making All Voices Count grantees. This report aims to capture the content of a one-day Making All Voices Count South African Community of Practice (CoP) Meeting held in November 2016. The South African MAVC CoP has been running for three years and has met between two and four times a year. It is a space for MAVC grantees and others working to foster innovation in the fields of transparency and accountability, to share experiences and knowledge, and collaborate in learning and improving work.

Participation for Humanitarian Innovation - Background Paper - Smith, Amy; Thompson, Martha; Saida Benhayoune; Crespo Cardona, Omar (Elrha, 2023)
A resource designed to help organisations, teams and individuals manage innovation journeys responsibly and successfully. We have partnered with MIT D-Lab to develop a new resource to drive greater diversity and inclusion within project design and implementation. The Participation for Humanitarian Innovation (PfHI) toolkit sets out a robust approach to setting expectations for and monitoring the degree of participation within research and innovation projects for, with, and by people affected by crisis. The PfHI toolkit is composed of five tools: Opportunity Adviser: Identify and prioritise the desired benefits of participation while weighing the potential barriers. Participation Matrix: Agree on the precise degree of participation to target at a given project stage. Resource Navigator: Select tools and processes to address the needs of stakeholders, the project objectives and context. Quality Guidance: Ensure engagements are delivered to the highest standard. Assessment Matrix: Collectively evaluate the degree of participation achieved during an activity or project phase, learn and adapt. By applying these tools before, during and after a research and/or innovation project, implementors can ensure that stakeholders/end-users are included and participating at the highest possible degree. We encourage users of the PfHI toolkit to consider how else to integrate the tools into existing practices. For instance, the Evaluation Matrix could be used to supplement existing MEAL activities to: Establish baselines to measure changes in participation over time. Track the degree of participation/engagement of stakeholders. Regularly assess the degree of participation. Seek feedback from participants about the degree of their participation. Monitor the progress of activities related to stakeholder engagement. Our Participation for Humanitarian Innovation toolkit represents our ongoing commitment to responsible research and innovation across our portfolio of grants and for the humanitarian sector more broadly. We hope you will consider downloading and using the toolkit on your next project.

Participation for Humanitarian Innovation - Toolkit - Smith, Amy; Thompson, Martha; Saida Benhayoune; Crespo Cardona, Omar (Elrha, 2023)
A resource designed to help organisations, teams and individuals manage innovation journeys responsibly and successfully. We have partnered with MIT D-Lab to develop a new resource to drive greater diversity and inclusion within project design and implementation. The Participation for Humanitarian Innovation (PfHI) toolkit sets out a robust approach to setting expectations for and monitoring the degree of participation within research and innovation projects for, with, and by people affected by crisis. The PfHI toolkit is composed of five tools: Opportunity Adviser: Identify and prioritise the desired benefits of participation while weighing the potential barriers. Participation Matrix: Agree on the precise degree of participation to target at a given project stage. Resource Navigator: Select tools and processes to address the needs of stakeholders, the project objectives and context. Quality Guidance: Ensure engagements are delivered to the highest standard. Assessment Matrix: Collectively evaluate the degree of participation achieved during an activity or project phase, learn and adapt. By applying these tools before, during and after a research and/or innovation project, implementors can ensure that stakeholders/end-users are included and participating at the highest possible degree. We encourage users of the PfHI toolkit to consider how else to integrate the tools into existing practices. For instance, the Evaluation Matrix could be used to supplement existing MEAL activities to: Establish baselines to measure changes in participation over time. Track the degree of participation/engagement of stakeholders. Regularly assess the degree of participation. Seek feedback from participants about the degree of their participation. Monitor the progress of activities related to stakeholder engagement. Our Participation for Humanitarian Innovation toolkit represents our ongoing commitment to responsible research and innovation across our portfolio of grants and for the humanitarian sector more broadly. We hope you will consider downloading and using the toolkit on your next project.

40 Agile Methods in 40 Minutes - Smith, Craig (2014)
My presentation from Scrum Australia 2014 called “40 Agile Methods in 40 Minutes” is available on Slideshare. With 73% of the world using Scrum as their predominant Agile method, this session will …

40 Agile Methods in 40 Minutes - Smith, Craig (2015)

Chris Argyris: theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning - Smith, Mark K. (The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education, 2013)
Chris Argyris: theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning. The work of Chris Argyris (1923-2013) has influenced thinking about the relationship of people and organizations…

10 years of Outcome Mapping - Smith, R; Mauremootoo, John; Ambrose, K.; Hearn, Simon (2012)
This webinar from the Outcome Mapping Learning Community (OMLC) presents the key findings from research conducted into the extent of Outcome Mapping use and the support required for its implementation.

Ten years of Outcome Mapping adaptations and support - Smith, Richard; Mauremootoo, John; Rassmann, Kornelia (Outcome Mapping Learning Community, 2012)
An analysis of how and where Outcome Mapping has been applied, how users have experienced OM and the support options available and required for its use. This research was commissioned by the OMLC Stewards.

Outcome mapping: A method for tracking behavioural changes in development programs - Smutylo, Terry (2005)
This guide published by the Institutional Learning and Change (ILAC) Initiative provides a detailed overview of using outcome mapping as an evaluation tool. Contents Expressing results as changes in behaviour Outcome mapping terms The three stages of outcome mapping Figure 1. The three stages and twelve steps of outcome mapping Stage 1. Intentional design Figure 2. The four basic questions of the intentional design stage Stage 2. Outcome and performance monitoring Stage 3. Evaluation planning Using outcome mapping The Ceja Andina Project The Agro-industry and Market Development project for Arracacha

External Review of the Building Effective and Accessible Markets (BEAM) programme - Snedden, Ewan; Freer, Gordon; Moffatt, Michelle (WYG International, 2016)

How Does Participatory Action Research Generate Innovation? Findings from a Rapid Realist Review - Snijder, Mieke; Apgar, J. Marina (Institute of Development Studies, 2021)
This Emerging Evidence Report shares evidence of how, for whom, and under what circumstances, Participatory Action Research (PAR) leads to innovative actions. A rapid realist review was undertaken to develop programme theories that explain how PAR generates innovation. The methodology included peer-reviewed and grey literature and moments of engagement with programme staff, such that their input supported the development and refinement of three resulting initial programme theories (IPTs) that we present in this report. Across all three IPTs, safe relational space, group facilitation, and the abilities of facilitators, are essential context and intervention components through which PAR can generate innovation. Implications from the three IPTs for evaluation design of the CLARISSA programme are identified and discussed. The report finishes with opportunities for the CLARISSA programme to start building an evidence base of how PAR works as an intervention modality, such as evidencing group-level conscientisation, the influence of intersecting inequalities, and influence of diverse perspectives coming together in a PAR process.
Accepted: 2021-07-23T08:48:45Z

Using a ‘Partnership Rubric’ in Participatory Evaluations - Snijder, Mieke; Hicks, Jacky; Paul, Sukanta; Arulanantham, Amit; Apgar, Marina; Afroze, Jiniya; Karki, Shanta; Mareschal, Sophie; Prieto Martín, Pedro; Uddin, Forhad; Veitch, Helen (Institute of Development Studies, 2023)
Programmes that aim to tackle complex societal issues, such as the worst forms of child labour, require rich partnerships that bring together different perspectives. CLARISSA’s consortium partnership adopts an empowerment approach to the interventions we deliver and our ways of working together. Part of this approach involves ongoing reflection and learning about how we work together in our partnership, and how this can be adapted if needed. This learning note focuses on a method used in CLARISSA to both reflect on and strengthen how we work in partnerships – the partnership rubric. We found that using the rubric flexibly was key to mitigating some of the challenges of such a complex consortium. This included using it in different sizes of forum, with different levels of preparation. Periodically adapting it for country context and as new partners came on board also helped ensure a shared sense of our preferred ways of working as the project progressed.
Accepted: 2023-07-13T10:20:02Z Publisher: Institute of Development Studies

How are Research for Development Programmes Implementing and Evaluating Equitable Partnerships to Address Power Asymmetries? - Snijder, Mieke; Steege, Rosie; Callander, Michelle; Wahome, Michel; Rahman, M. Feisal; Apgar, Marina; Theobald, Sally; Bracken, Louise J.; Dean, Laura; Mansaray, Bintu; Saligram, Prasanna; Garimella, Surekha; et al. (The European Journal of Development Research, 2023)
The complexity of issues addressed by research for development (R4D) requires collaborations between partners from a range of disciplines and cultural contexts. Power asymmetries within such partnerships may obstruct the fair distribution of resources, responsibilities and benefits across all partners. This paper presents a cross-case analysis of five R4D partnership evaluations, their methods and how they unearthed and addressed power asymmetries. It contributes to the field of R4D partnership evaluations by detailing approaches and methods employed to evaluate these partnerships. Theory-based evaluations deepened understandings of how equitable partnerships contribute to R4D generating impact and centring the relational side of R4D. Participatory approaches that involved all partners in developing and evaluating partnership principles ensured contextually appropriate definitions and a focus on what partners value.

Cynefin St David’s Day 2020 (1 of 5) - Snowden, Dave (Cognitive Edge, 2020)
Series of blog posts discussing the last version (as of 2020) of the Cynefin framework.

Naturalizing sensemaking - Snowden, Dave (Informed by Knowledge: Expert Performance in Complex Situations, 2010)
The focus of this book is on how experts adapt to complexity, synthesize and interpret information in context, and transform or "fuse" disparate items of information into coherent knowledge. The chapters examine these processes across experts (e.g. global leaders, individuals in extreme environments, managers, police officers, pilots, commanders, doctors, inventors), across contexts (e.g. space and space analogs, corporate organizations, command and control, crisis and crowd management, air traffic control, the operating room, product development), and for both individual and team performance. Successful information integration is a key factor in the success of diverse endeavors, including team attempts to climb Mt. Everest, crowd control in the Middle East, and remote drilling operations. This volume is divided into four sections, each with a specific focus on an area of expert performance, resulting in a text that covers a wide range of useful information. These sections present well-researched discussions, such as: the management of complex situations in various fields and decision contexts; technological and training approaches to facilitate knowledge management by individual experts and expert teams; new or neglected perspectives in expert decision making; and the importance of ‘modeling’ expert performance through techniques and frameworks such as Cognitive Task Analysis, computational architectures based on the notion of causal belief mapping such as ‘Convince Me,’ or the data/frame model of sensemaking. The volume provides essential reading for researchers and practitioners of Naturalistic Decision Making and those who study Expertise; Organizational and Cognitive Psychologists; and researchers and students in Business and Engineering.

A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making - Snowden, Dave; Boone, Mary E. (Harvard Business Review, 2007)

Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis. A field guide for decision makers inspired by the Cynefin framework - Snowden, Dave; Rancati, Alessandro (Publications Office of the European Union, 2021)
This field guide helps to navigate crises using the Cynefin framework as a compass. It proposes a four-stage approach through which we can: - assess the type of crisis and initiate a response; - adapt to the new pace and start building sensing networks to inform decisions; - repurpose existing structures and working methods to generate radical innovation; - transcend the crisis, formalise lessons learnt and increase resilience. The guide stresses the importance of setting and managing boundaries, building informal structures, keeping options open, distributing engagement and keeping an ongoing assessment of the evolving landscape. Action items, real life examples and demonstrations complement the references to the developing theoretical framework.