Making Outcome Mapping Work: Innovations in Participatory Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation

From the Introduction: "The Outcome Mapping Learning Community is an informal group of over a thousand members from around the world. It acts largely as a dynamic platform for sharing knowledge and experiences relating to Outcome Mapping [OM], a methodology for planning, monitoring and evaluation of projects and programmes developed by the International Development Research Centre. Members come together to solve problems, to showcase and trade their discoveries and good practices, and to support one another in applying Outcome Mapping.

In order to capture, record, and disseminate the knowledge shared through the community, a practice of summarising and synthesising discussions has emerged. This book is a product of that practice and is designed to be a reference and a summary of how OM is evolving and being adapted and applied around the world.

The knowledge and experience presented here broadly fits around four strands which carry through the various discussions and topics:

1. Application: Applying OM in the most efficient and effective way
   
2. Adaptation: Adapting OM to fit the purpose and making sure it is appropriate for the users
   
3. Contextualisation: Ensuring OM is sensitive to the local geopolitical, socioeconomic and thematic context
   
4. Communication: Best practices for communicating OM to partners, donors, colleagues and peers
   

This book is divided into two sections. The first section is a series of syntheses which pick up the lessons from the discussions and presents them by topic: OM steps, OM in specific sectors, complimentary tools and approaches, communicating and advocating for OM, and complexity and OM. The second section is a collection of twenty discussion summaries, representing a year’s worth of knowledge shared among community members...."

The document summarises OM using 3 stages and a total of 12 steps throughout, as follows:

Intentional Design:

• Vision - "...projects dealing with emergent change processes are better guided by shared values, principles and purpose (rather than planned outcomes)..." using, for example, some of the following techniques: weaving a group vision statement from common themes in vision pictures drawn by the participants; accessing the vision-action-request tool; evolving storylines; and using the relationship between the project, the boundary partners, and the ultimate beneficiaries.
  
• Mission - Using "realistic thinking after a group has gone through the 'collective dreaming' of the vision" through identifying key areas of work, accountability to the people served,
  and the appropriate scope of responsibilities, participants can draft a mission statement.
• Boundary Partners - ...used to "recognise the limits of your influence and to think realistically about whom you want to work with to affect change. It is wise to constantly re-assess the boundary where control ceases and influence begins; Intense monitoring of boundary partners and the changes in their behaviour, relationships and actions is more important than planning or evaluation. It can often be beneficial to undertake a comprehensive stakeholder analysis to complement the boundary partner step...." 
• Outcome Challenges
  
• Progress Markers - ..."two tips were given to tackle this issue: 1) Don't get bogged down by the sequence of the 'like to see' progress markers. The actual sequence of change will emerge during the monitoring and evaluation process. 2) First develop 'the love to see' progress markers as they are derived largely from the Outcome Challenge statements. Thereafter proceed with the 'expect to see' ones. When developing the intentional design there is need for sensitivity towards language and culture. In some parts of the world, 'behaviour change´' and 'influence' have negative connotations. In such cases the jargon may have to be adapted to suit the cultural context...."
• Strategy Maps
• Organisational Practices

Outcome and Performance Monitoring:

• Monitoring Priorities - "OM community members indicated that using an OM-based monitoring system means expressing performance indicators as changes in the behaviours of partners and target audiences with which we interact directly. Such approach can lead to greater accuracy in differentiating between outputs and outcomes. The OM monitoring plan worksheet [available in MS Word format] can help to clarify some important questions.... An outcome mapping based monitoring system, including the monitoring tools, is often customised or adapted according to the specific needs and available capacities of projects. Examples of such customized monitoring tools... can be accessed [here]. Many OM users have also used other approaches such as most significant change, alignment interest matrix and Lot quality assurance sampling [LQAS], to complement the OM based monitoring system... "
  
• Outcome Journals
  
• Strategy Journal
  
• Performance Journal

Evaluation:

• Evaluation Plan - "OM is specifically useful for evaluations that seek to develop deeper understanding about how broader social change can be brought about. As such OM based evaluations support organizational learning and focus on converting the generated knowledge into action. Shared experience around the application of OM in evaluations is still limited. There is therefore need for OM practitioners to document and share case studies about OM based evaluations."

This document includes reflections on OM Implementation in specific sectors including: better parenting projects, organisational restructuring, multi-layered international networks, the education field, the social development sector (where behaviour change is a primary objective), and the field of development cooperation. "Members conclude that a theory of change is a required underlying motivation for social interventions and an important pre-requisite to apply OM. Interventions without aspiration to contribute to social change can opt for traditional cost/benefit methods to account for the funds spent."