This week we have announced the Mesopartner Summer Academy 2016 on Territorial Economic Development. This year, the academy will have a special focus on green economic development in territories. The academy will take place from 4 to 6 July in Berlin, one of the most exciting capitals in Europe with a rich history of economic transition and development. I will be there an I hope to meet some of my readers as well. Continue reading
Getting too eager about building the perfect Theory of Change (ToC) for your organisation, programme or project can lead to an over-designed ToC that can be more of a hindrance than a help to manage and learn. It sucks up a lot of time and team resources to build but then gets out-dated extremely quickly. A ToC should be an idea that is alive and dynamic. For me a ToC is more useful if it is a sketch on the back of an envelope after an intense discussion rather than a page in a high-gloss brochure. A ToC in a complex setting is necessarily imperfect. But it can still be extremely useful. Continue reading
Continuing my little emerging series on Theories of Change, there is another issue that I feel is very important in connection with complexity-informed Theories of Change: they do not need to be based on total agreement among the stakeholders. On the contrary, it is important to understand where there is agreement on causalities among the stakeholders and where there is not as this gives us important insight on the complexity of specific links in the logical chain.
When we look at the Theory of Change literature, participation comes up as an important if not central element of a Theory of Change process. And it undeniably is. Bringing in a wide range of stakeholders ensures that we get all or many of the diverse perspectives reflected in the Theory of Change process – and as I have written earlier, understanding diverse perspectives is a corner stone of systemic thinking. Continue reading