'I came here to get some answers to my questions'

'I was touched by the stories of other organisations’ experiences with Most Significant Change which I heard during the ‘Pit stop’ meeting,' says participant Deidre Casella (IRC). The PSO ‘Pit stop’ ‘Most Significant Change Technique’ took place on 13 October 2009 at Madurodam in The Hague.

How can I apply Most Significant Change techniques (furthermore to be referred to as MSC)? In which situations can I apply the method? These are just a few of the questions participants had. At the end of the day, most of these questions had been answered in an inspiring manner. 'We are going to study how we can use MSC within our organisation,' says Gerinke Fountain (Niza).

The sun shines through the large glass doors of the Hollandse Meesterszaal (Old Masters Room) at Madurodam (Miniature City). Preceding this Pit stop, PSO had organised two meetings. There was a lot of interest; a total of 38 people attended the meetings.

The people who attended the ‘Pit stop’ included PSO, Niza, WASTE, War Child Nederland, Oxfam Novib, ICCO en Kerk in Actie, Mensen met een Missie, IRC, Cordaid and ETC Foundation staff. The participants knew each other from the prior meetings. They discussed what they had heard during the earlier meetings and what they expected the day to provide.

Afghanistan

At the start of this Pit stop, Anneke Maarse (PSO) addressed those present and explained the day’s schedule. Wim Hiemstra of ETC Foundation provided a presentation on an ETC COMPAS case: Collecting quality of life change stories during which he explained ETC’s experience with MSC. The second presentation was provided by Endry van den Berg of War Child Nederland. She shared her experiences with MSC in Afghanistan. Click here to read the report.

After the presentations were over, the group of twelve participants were subdivided into two groups. This was done to enable them to continue talking in smaller groups about the examples from the cases discussed during the presentations and also about questions participants had.

Gerinke Fountain (Niza) is very satisfied with her participation in the PSO meeting. 'I’m inspired,' she explained. 'I really appreciated being able to talk things through in smaller groups. And the examples referred to have given me new ideas which I am going to work on.'

Everyone participates in ‘Pit stop’ for their own reasons. This was also true of Deidre Casella (IRC): 'We have been using narrative methods in IRC for some time now, but we are also examining how to improve things. I was touched by many of the other participants’ examples.'

Stories

Deidre Casella continues: 'We had already collected a lot of stories when we heard about MSC. In the past, we’d used MSC in Uganda. Now I am here to learn from others.' And what did she learn? 'That selecting questions with an open mind is a challenge. The same applies to asking good questions without influencing the interviewee. That is tricky.'

Martijn van Beek (Mensen met een Missie) and Ivo Haenen (WASTE) also participated in the ‘Pit stop’. 'We’re examining whether there are new methods, whether these are effective and whether we can apply these to our projects,' explains Martijn van Beek. Ivo Haenen also turned up with a lot of questions: 'WASTE has proposed using MSC to its partners. I therefore wanted to know what was going on, what’s available and what other Dutch organisations do with it, but also what their field experiences have been like.'

Were Martijn van Beek and Ivo Haenen’s questions answered? 'My organisation is primarily engaged in consciousness raising projects. It is intangible, intrinsic. That is hard to measure, but perhaps we can reveal this using MSC,' says Martijn.

Ivo Haenen learned a great deal. 'During the discussions, I wondered what MSC’s benefit would be for WASTE. It became apparent to me that MSC helps you to get the details about something. Moreover, if you apply it properly it can be used to motivate your partners.'

Augmentation

The participants were inspired by the ‘Pit stop’ concerning the MSC technique. Are they also going to start using MSC? Deidre Casella: 'We already use the method. What to do next requires detailing.' Gerinke Fountain wishes to use MSC to augment methods which Niza already uses: 'We are going to study how we can use MSC within our organisation.'

Most of the participants had questions and went home with a number of answers and new questions. 'We learned a lot from each other. It was a very inspiring day,' says Deidre Casella. PSO hopes the participating organisations will start experimenting with MSC so that the Association’s members can provide answers to the abovementioned new questions.