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Outcome Mapping: A realistic alternative for planning, monitoring and evaluation. 

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Outcome Mapping: A realistic alternative for planning, monitoring and evaluation. 

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Outcome Mapping makes explicit something that has been accepted by development practitioners for a long time: the most successful programs are those that pass on the power to the stakeholders.

The focus of Outcome Mapping is on people. The originality of the methodology is its shift away from assessing the development impact of a program (defined as changes in state — for example, policy relevance, poverty alleviation, or reduced conflict) and toward changes in the behaviours, relationships, actions or activities of the people, groups, an orgs which a development program works with directly.

Outcome Mapping establishes a vision of the human, social, and environmental betterment to which the program hopes to contribute and then focuses monitoring and evaluation on factors and actors within that program's direct sphere of influence.

For each change in state there is a correlating change in behavior.

Outcomes of a project determined by the effectiveness of who ever is responsible for continuing the change

Community members are ultimately responsible for their own development. What has to change in stakeholder behavior in order to maintain a sustainable result?

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Process includes stakeholders as much as possible

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Process includes stakeholders as much as possible

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Get data on external results and internal performance

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Get data on external results and internal performance

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-monitoring and evaluation as intrinsic to program design
-Must consider immediate, intermediate and ultimate goals
- "logical framework analysis" (LFA) or "results-based management" (RBM) are ways the management world integrate monitoring and evaluation
- when donors and recipients try to be accountable for achieving impact, they are severely limiting their potential for understanding how and why impact occurs. The drive to claim credit interferes with the creation of knowledge.
-Linear cause and effect models distort /simplify a messy situation
-The bureaucratization of NGOs has led to a distraction on reports as a way to do better development work rather than strategic and vision focused partnerships
-By NGO-s taking credit for impacts they take ownership away from stakeholders
-As projects progress local input and action should increase
-Many time program results occur throughout time, but NGO's are most often asked to show immediate impacts and then alter the program to produce stronger immediate results.
-Outcome mapping shows the incremental steps to get lasting results
- A corresponding change in reporting requirements would be for donors to make their recipients accountable for demonstrating that they are progressing towards impact and improving in their effectiveness — but not accountable for the impact itself
-Connect everything
-Keep the vision and mission of the org as the most important test of relevance and as a guide

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-It helps by expanding beyond the orgs capacity in order to understand the bigger picture over time
- the program is unwilling or incapable of recognizing and adapting to the roles of its stakeholders then it will eventual defeat its own purpose
-Must be flexible to the environmental changes

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Questions related to the 6 sections (ASK VRF?)

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Questions related to the 6 sections (ASK VRF?)

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1. Designing and articulating the  program's logic: • What are our development goals? • How can our program contribute to those development goals? » Who are our boundary partners? » How do we need to change in order to influence our boundary partners' contribution to the broader development goals?
2. Recording internal and external monitoring data: • How far have our boundary partners progressed towards achieving outcomes? » What are we doing to support the achievement of outcomes? « How well have we performed?
3.Theory Indicating cases of positive performance and areas for improvement: • What worked well? Why? Are all the necessary strategies included? • Are we spreading ourselves too thin by trying to use too many strategies? « How can we maximize our contributions?
4. Evaluating intended and unexpected results: • Who changed? How did they change? • If they did not change as expected, do we need to do something different or reorient our expectations?
5.Gathering data on the contribution that a program made to bringing about changes in its partners: • What activities/strategies were used? • How did the activities influence individuals, groups, or institutions to change?
6.Establishing evaluation priorities and an evaluation plan: « What strategies, relationships, or issues need to be studied in depth? • How, and from where, can we gather relevant data?

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The outputs of an Outcome Mapping design workshop include: « A brief representation of the logic of the macro-level changes to which the program wants to contribute (vision, mission, boundary partners, and outcome challenges);
• A set of strategy maps outlining the program's activities in support of each outcome (strategy maps);
« A change ladder for each boundary partner to monitor the progress towards the achievement of outcomes (progress markers, outcome journal);
• A self-assessment sheet for monitoring what the program is doing internally to manage its work and contribute to change in its boundary partners (organizational practices, performance journal);
• A data collection sheet for data on the strategies being employed by the program to encourage change in the boundary partner (strategy journal); and
• An evaluation plan detailing: the priority evaluation topics, issues, and questions; a utilization strategy for the evaluation findings; the person responsible for conducting the evaluation; the date; and the cost (evaluation plan)

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When deciding who should participate in the Outcome Mapping workshop, the program should consider: « What they can contribute to the discussion (What is their perspective on, relationship to, or interest in the program? Are all the viewpoints and expertise necessary to make informed decisions present?); » Whether they can effectively participate in the discussion (Are there any barriers in terms of language, substantive knowledge of the programming area, hierarchy, or politics?); • What they will get out of participating in the design workshop; " Whether information from them is better gathered prior to the workshop and then fed into the discussion (Will their participation hinder the openness and honesty of the conversation?); • Whether the necessary time, human, and financial resources are available; and • Whether the timing and location of the meeting(s) fit their schedule

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• A historical scanning activity that reviews the program's history and the events and issues that have influenced its development to date; and • An activity designed to help participant

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Outcome Mapping results are measured by the changes in behavior, actions and relationships of those individuals, groups or organizations with whom the initiative is working directly with and seeking to influence.

The paper reviews Outcome Mapping principles to guide donors considering support for projects using OM and other decision- makers seeking methods to improve the effectiveness of aid policies and practice asking:
-What makes OM unique and of value
-For which programmes, projects, contexts and change processes is it most useful
-How can donors facilitate its use, and what are the potential barriers

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• Evaluation is intended to improve program planning and delivery —
• Evaluations are designed to lead to action —
• No single, best, generic evaluation method exists
• Evaluations should enlist the participation of relevant stakeholders —
• Evaluation processes should meet standards for ethical research
• Monitoring and evaluation planning add value at the design stage of a program
*Evalutation should be valuable to those being evaluated
*Evaluations should generate information that benefits the recipient institution.
*Evaluations are a means of negotiating different realities — Evaluations provide opportunities for program stakeholders to reconcile their various perspectives or versions of reality.
*Evaluations should leave behind an increased capacity to use evaluation findings — Organizations need some level of internal evaluation capacity in order to be able to devise, participate in, or utilize evaluations effectively. Exclusive reliance on external expertise can limit an organization's ability to be clear and specific about its goals and to learn and apply lessons.

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(PME) Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation framework 

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(PME) Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation framework 

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The choice of PME framework for a project or programme can influence the values and practices embedded within the project or programme, so the choice requires an explicit focus on what is needed in the specific context. The decision matters, as it may influence
whether or not a project or programme is effective

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Four guiding principles
1) Actor-centered development and behavior change:

Understanding and influencing change requires engaging with these actors, their role, their
relationships, their mindsets and motivations.

2) Continuous learning and flexibility:

OM aims to foster learning about the actors, contexts and challenges involved in influencing social change.

3) Participation and accountability:

By involving stakeholders and partners in the PME process and emphasizing reflection on relationships and responsibilities, participation incorporates valuable perspectives and fosters a two-way accountability that is often missing in frameworks oriented towards upward accountability

4) Non-linearity and contribution, not attribution and control:

To produce sustainable changes, projects should contribute to and influence these processes of social change, rather than focusing on controlling specific outcomes and claiming attribution.

Honest approach can generate a more meaningful picture of the actual contribution and role of a project/ programme in achieving results.

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vision
Mission
Boundary Partners (stakeholders)
outcome challenges
graduated progress markers (stakeholder ladder)
Strategy Maps
Organizational Practices

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inspirational
-Reflects the large-scale development-related changes the program hopes to encourage
-achievement is beyond orgs capacity
-programs capacity to attain the vision is measured in evaluation

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-How the program intends to support the vision
-Does not list all activities which program will undertake
-Rather its an ideal statement of how the program will contribute to the vision
-What the program wants to grow into

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-individuals, groups, or organizations with whom the program interacts directly and can anticipate opportunities for influence.
-the program doesn't control these people, though it may influence them.
-most programs only have 4-5 boundary partners.
-the program wants to encourage changes in behavior of its partners.
-relations are dialogical: they go both ways.

TYPES OF PARTNERS
-Intermediary institutions: NGOs that are implementing small-grants programs.
-Applied Research Community: NGO, govt, or university that is primarily responsible for activities.   -Development Agents or System Gatekeepers: have the power, block, or influence how the benefits will be reached.
-Beneficiaries: individuals or groups who are willing to help improve their economic, political, or environmental well being.

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-Outcomes are the effects of the program 'being there', with a focus on how actors behave as a result of being reached.
-it stresses that development is done by, and for, people
-although the program can influence the achievement of outcomes, it cannot control them.
-the "challenge" is the for program to help bring about these changes.
should not include information about the strategies or activities that the program intends to employ but rather change in behavior.

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-a change model for the boundary partner that illuminates the depth and complexity of change being sought.
Expect to see - relatively easy to achieve and listed first
Like to see - require more active learning and engagement, listed second
Love to see - truly transformative and listed third.
-combined, they illustrate the complexity and logic of the change process.
-need to be mutually agreeable and worthwhile to both the program and boundary partner.

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-identify the strategies used by the program to contribute to the achievement of an outcome.
-a mixed set of strategies has a greater potential for success
I(individuals) because they are aimed at specific people or groups
E(environment) because they are aimed at the environment in where said individuals operate.
0appropriateness of strategies depends on the type of changes that the program wants to encourage in its boundary partner.

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how it is going to operate to fulfill its mission.
A well-performing organization that has the potential to sustain change interventions over time.
-1st: it provides an opportunity to reflect on what is going on internally in the organization.
-2nd: unintended results often occur in relation to organizational practices.
-unintended outcomes may be important to the survival of a program and may also contribute to new program directions.
-Pratice1: they should be looking for relationships to ongoing activities, as well as entirely new opportunities
P2: they should keep in mind other actors who are already in the field who are not regularly involved, but who have expertise and a robust knowledge.
P3: Good ideas must be presented in an appealing manner that can be understood by decision makers in the context of broader organizational objectives.
P4: A product or service needs to be continually modified once it releases.
P5: The program needs to work with its boundary partners to address and fix such problems.
P6: dissemination procedures in place to share its learning
P7: explore new directions, tools, and partnerships.
P8: efforts should be made to create time for reflection on program performance and direction and on resource allocation.

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When working in partnership:

Helps to clarify the roles of different stakeholders – beneficiaries, partners, strategic allies or implementers

OM is suited to ensuring that projects and programmes work through local partners and institutions rather than through parallel structures

Open questioning of donor representatives in monitoring
meetings helped to balance skewed power relations.

When Building Capacity:

By presenting the overarching objective as a series of progressive behaviour changes of the actors involved, programme staff can track progress towards the goal and learn as they work.

For example, the Vredeseilanden Country Office (VECO) Indonesia project used OM to systematise the way it built the capacity of local NGOs, farmer organisations and networks to promote sustainable agriculture.

When a deeper understanding of social factors is critical:

OM is particularly useful where the focus is on human-centred development and the actors involved, rather than technical and scientific factors.

For example, in the Ceja Andina project on natural resource management in Ecuador, the framework facilitated a shift in mindset and ways of working for a team comprised largely of natural scientists.

When promoting knowledge and influencing policy:

Its logic suits changes at the level of knowledge, ideas and decision-making.

By focusing on people’s behaviour, mindsets, attitudes, relationships, decisions and actions, the framework is naturally sensitive to crucial aspects of these problems and processes.

When tackling complex problems:

By integrating learning and reflection, and highlighting the need for projects to be flexible and adapt to lessons learned as they go along, the framework puts in place processes to help address such large challenges.

To embed reflection and dialogue:

It encourages the building of the space that project teams and partners need to reflect on their progress. While this is always valuable, there are times when it is the top priority.

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Focus on timing-The process is more intensive because it requires meaningful participation, and it aims to provide knowledge that is of direct relevance to the running of the programme

Foster capacities and mindsets- It can also mean collecting and valuing a different kind of knowledge, and a different dimension of change, in the recognition that factors that are further ‘upstream’ than traditional quantitative data may be able to capture

Use OM to work together-      encourages a community of practice for those carrying out the work so that they can collaborate to develop tools, establish a common language and set up common practices.

Manage shifts In organizational culture- the willingness of decision-makers to allow experimentation with new tools and approaches is important, and may be limited where institutional demands restrict projects, such as finance departments demanding particular data.

Apply OM flexibly-OM cannot be used explicitly, or where OM is required only for a small part or stage of a project or programme.

Conclusion:

donors need to focus on timing, capacities, and organisational imperatives. In contexts where decision-makers find it hard to integrate OM, it is important that they advocate for its core principles to achieve the required shift in mindset. look for opportunities to apply aspects of OM within existing constraints.

Shifting PME to a more
learning-oriented mode requires the donor to adopt a
more realistic view of the nature of change and what
is possible in the project being funded, and dispense
with the idea of ‘controlling’ the change processes.

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Don't assume things. Make sure the details of the proposal are laid out before writing it out.

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-The program plan should show that you have a thoughtful, workable solution to the problem that you described in the need statement.
-The program description must match the funder's priorities.
-When organizations change their programs to chase funding, they lose touch with what they're working for.
-The program description must address your problem.
-You need to include enough details to demonstrate.
-The program has a good chance of succeeding in achieving those objectives and making a positive impact.

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-The program description must be consistent with the parts of the proposal.
-The program description must show how the proposed program fit into the organization.
-Grant-funded programs services, and staff members cannot be suddenly slapped into a nonprofit setting and have it still work.

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-The program narrative should describe how you will handle obstacles, including unanticipated disasters.
-Other obstacles may become more relevant during crises.
-Many of these issues may never come to the fore, but now, even for proposals that are not requesting a large sum of money, you should be able to show that you've thought about them.
-Writing a proposal without a plan of operation is like building a house without blueprints.
-grantmakers must see exactly what you plan to do with the grant money before they fork it over.

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-You need to recognize a need in the community.
-If you don't look critically and repeatedly at objectives as activities are being planned or developed, it can look haphazard and random.
Background information and commitment to the community must be deeply involved in the development of the program and the fleshing out of activities.

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-Use planning meetings to flesh out the program elements and address potential obstacles to achieving your objectives.
-Construct a timeline, whether or not the application requires one.

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-If you need an advisory report, establish relationships before implement the program.
-If you're working through the government, start the hiring process before you've won the grant.

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-Offering a great new program doesn't always bring participants.
-Give gift certificates or a pizza party upon completion, to incentivize people working through it.
-The activities involves are your sales pitch.

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Use concise statements to define the specific and measurable results the program is expected to produce.

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The difference between methods and outcomes is the difference between means and ends......

The means are the activities-the methods.

The ends are the results-the outcomes

Words describing Methods:
To provide
To offer
To create
To distribute
To implement
To develop
Words describing Outcomes:
To increase
To reduce
To decrease
But using these words don't guarantee that you've described an outcome.

Methods are what your organization will do to produce a change in the problem. The hours of service the organization will provide and the numbers of people it will serve are aspects of the method.
Outcomes describe the results created by the methods. Improved air quality, decreased traffic congestion, and quicker response time by the fire department are examples of outcomes.

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1. Who or what will change?

People or things that will change as a result of the program must align with those described in the Problem Section.

2. How many?

Give the number of people or things that will change.

3. How much change will take place?

Use numbers to tell the reader the exact amount of change that s predicted, and be sure to identify the starting point for measurement.

4. What type of change?

The type of change will depend on the problem described. If the problem is Obesity, a decrease in the body mass index of participants may be the desired improvement.

5. When?
Over what time period will the proposed outcomes take place? Establish a realistic time frame for accomplishing outcomes.

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S=Specific
M=Measurable
A=Achievable
R=Reasonable
T=Time Limited
How would "improved opportunity" be measured and why would anyone care?

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How do the scope and intensity of the services stack up against the severity of the problem? For example a drug-treatment group that meets once a week for one hour cant be expected to produce the same results as a program that includes weekday for one hour sessions and weekend activities.

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Outcomes define benefits expected during the finite period of grant funding.
Long term change is sometimes called a goal. And in the variable terminology of the grants world, what some call goals, others call long term outcomes, and program impact tend to be expressed in broad and lofty language.

In contrast, outcomes are statements of specific, measurable changes within a defined time frame.
Goals can clue the reader in on your highest motivations for proposing a program, AND GOALS ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR OUTCOMES.

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Increased awareness is a huge "who cares?" it doesn't guarantee behavior change. People know that smoking is dangerous, but many continue to smoke.

Even if awareness motivates change, increased awareness is not an outcome because it is not a change in the problem itself.

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Prevention Programs & Delayed Outcomes  

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Prevention Programs & Delayed Outcomes  

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All proposals must define realistic and meaningful outcomes that can be measured during the period of grant funding. When it's not possible to measure changes in the problem, you must propose outcomes that reflect a change in the causes of the problem.

Once the risks are identified, then the community can design a program that will decrease threats.

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Big vision + Smaller goals = improved state
-What conditions need to be in place for this change to be possible?
Goals are big orienting statements
Outcomes are measurable expressions of improvement

Vision statement describes how the future will look if the project achieves its mission

Will actually be doing the outcomes