General impression of PSO workshop on Outcome Mapping

I experienced a fresh and unexpected start to the first day of the workshop on Outcome Mapping (OM). It fitted perfectly with the philosophy of OM, which tells us that life is far too complex to be planned out in line with a mathematical formula.

On the morning of the day I was to facilitate a PSO workshop, I looked out of the window and the streets were filled with branches of trees. Not very surprising after the storm that hit the Netherlands the night before. It was still very early and I decided to take an early train as chances of delays in the trains' schedules were high.

I could hardly make my way to the railway station as there were so many branches blocking my path. The cycle tunnel I always take was filled with residue waters from the heavy rains. While splashing through the small pond that had formed, I congratulated myself on my second shower that morning. Of course there were delays and about one hour after my train departure, I found myself in the middle of a meadow with grazing cows.

My colleague called me slightly panicked. 'Where are you? None of the facilitators have arrived yet and it is almost nine o'clock!' 'I am somewhere in a field with grazing cows', I replied. 'But don't worry, most workshop participants will be late as well.'

What is Outcome Mapping?

According to Outcome Mapping, instead of having a well thought out plan, we should have a clear vision and mission. Once we know what our dream and beacon is, we need to map out how to fulfill this mission, and work towards the vision, while constantly verifying whether we are on track. Thus, OM focuses on where we are going, but also whom our co-travellers are, or should be.

OM is about the people and organizations we relate to, how these relationships take shape and influence changes in behaviour, instead of focusing on systems and products. Even though we were all delayed that day, our mission of sharing insights on Outcome Mapping with PSO members had not altered. Watching those cows from my immobile train, I did not worry as I knew the train would eventually move on. As facilitators we would still be on track.

Day one

During the first day of the workshop, participants were asked to put aside everything they knew about Planning, monitoring and evalaution (PM&E) and Log Frames.

For participants who are used to working with logframes, OM is a change of mindset. That means 'unlearning' what one already knows, before 'learning' something new. People showed both enthusiasm and curiosity. As one participant put it: 'I am so excited, but I don't know why!'

It was as if we were off on a journey together to explore the possibilities of OM. The participants felt the need to look for ways and means to do away with exhaustive and rigid pre-implementation planning efforts that are followed by producing tons of boring data that do not tell us what exactly happened.

These practices lead to an eternal dance with irritated practitioners on one side, feeling their work is unduly interfered with. On the other side, there are panicky donor representatives in the North, who frantically try to make sense of the continuous stream of data.

'The question is how to get away from the huge planning upfront to more continuous, frequent and short learning cycles', a participant expressed.

Day two 

On the final day, we embarked on learning more about the M&E part of OM. It turned out that the M&E part of the methodology is not easy to apply 'out of the blue'. It requires a real life situation to think the planning through and then monitor 'the do's and don'ts during implementation'.

Some participants got lost in the monitoring journals. One expressed her confusion exclaiming: 'I am so complicated now!' The participants agreed that confusion is healthy when dealing with complex situations.

They expressed relief and excitement rather than frustration. At the end of the day, some participants were still confused. They realised that a crash course was not sufficient to get to grips with the method and its application.

Learning more about Outcome Mapping

The Pit stop held two weeks later provided a chance to learn more about Outcome Mapping (OM). During the Pit stop, it was helpful to hear the case of Vredeseilanden, presented by Christ Vansteenkiste.

Vredeseilanden introduced OM in 2007 and adapted the methodology to the needs and requirements of their organisation. Vansteenkiste's presentation shows that OM is a flexible mould that one can, and should, adapt to one's own unique situation.

It is difficult to use it as a methodology that prescribes in detail what to do, and how. A lot of the tools made more sense once Vansteenkiste explained how they were applied throughout his organisation. Moreover, he had compared the Log Frame with OM and presented the differences in a clear way.

Many organisations expressed their interest in starting to experiment with OM. This interests PSO, since it intends to take an additional step and apply OM in a number of its 'Learning by Practice trajectories (LWT)' and in evaluations as well.

The group of participants and PSO intend to start a network and meet again later this year to exchange experiences so far. PSO will facilitate this. Also PSO will organize another event and Pit stop on Most Significant Change in September. This method is compatible with OM.  

All in all, PSO feels inspired to move on with exploring alternative methods for PM&E like OM and MSC. The Community Development Resource Association (CDRA), PSO's partner in South Africa will join in this effort. In September they will host an OM training in Cape Town. After all, partner organisations in the South deserve a careful PM&E method that allows them, as the real champions of civil society practitioners, to show what they really are doing, to learn from their experiences, and teach us about their insights as well.  

Background

This meeting is part of a series of sessions about qualitative and participatory methods of PM&E organised by PSO. The first session took place in April 2008 and was on learning from innovation. The second one was in October 2008, in collaboration with the Institute for Research & Evaluation in International Cooperation.  

For 2009, PSO has planned two introductory workshops: one on Outcome Mapping (OM) and another on Most Significant Change (see invitation).