Capacity building for social change in complex environments (1)

(Re)-introduction to the blog

Over the next few months I will be blogging about some of the findings from my PhD research, which I recently completed.   This initial post is meant to frame my overall research so that the subsequent posts will make more sense.   

 My research attempted to contribute to an area that is virtually absent in capacity-building literature: capacity-building methodology that is relevant and meaningful in supporting organizations working for social change in complex environments (also see: http://organizational-capacity.blogspot.com/2010/03/capacity-building-project-management.html). Essentially, I was looking for ways to develop methods and broader organizational strengthening approaches that took into account the complexity of real life social change situations that organizations in international development face.  

The main audiences for my research are organizations and organizational change facilitators (internal or external) who are seeking improved methodological clarity on how they can strengthen capacities to contribute to emergent, social change in complex realities. I think the blog may be particularly relevant to practitioners who attempt to strengthen organizations that themselves are trying to influence change, yet realize that much of which they aspire to influence is outside of their direct control. It may also be of interest to practitioner/academics who are seeking better theoretical/practical connections between methodology and organizational change.

Some of my motivations for the research   

My dissertation explores ways in which “capacity-building” might contribute to processes of social change in complex environments. This exploration emerged as part of a personal journey as a capacity-building practitioner to help make sense out of my prior work experience. In my experience, I learned first-hand how many of the “capacity” challenges that my colleagues and I were trying to address in different organizations were complex, “messy” and uncertain. At the same time, many of the capacity-building tools and methodological processes I commonly used assumed a world that was predictable, neat and controllable. These assumptions led to many occasions in which capacity-building processes and methods did not make sense in specific situations, or did not generate expected significant changes. I saw my PhD as a way of addressing many unanswered questions and developing capacity-building methodology that would be relevant to the complex realities in which I worked.

At the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), I became much more aware not only of the complexity of my prior capacity-building work in development, but also of its apolitical nature. I was well aware of the contested nature of social change, both from my prior studies and my previous life and work experiences. However, after nine years working as a capacity-building process designer and facilitator for a large American Non-governmental Organization (NGO), I had come to use methodology without considering whether it might even be compatible with concepts of social change. I mostly assumed methodology to be neutral and apolitical, but did not see this as a problem. In my PhD process, I was fortunate to see first-hand how methodology that practitioners assume to be apolitical actually lacks a theory capable of explaining change, and thereby may reproduce the status quo.  This is a strong political position indeed.

Core assumptions and methodology

My research starts from the assumption that the way people and organizations change in relation to economic, social and environmental concerns is complex and contested. Complex, in that multiple actors and factors—many of them unknowable—combine to affect how social change actually emerges in real life. Contested, in that power relations enable and constrain the fields of possibility for positive change for all people, and thereby generate winners and losers in the process. Indeed, the contested nature of social change is one of its primary sources of complexity. 

Methodologically, I conducted two action-research processes over 18 months; one with a progressive organization that supports social movements in Perú, and the other with a private environmental conservation organization in Ecuador. I used an emergent, learning-based action-research (AR) approach strongly influenced by systemic theories, with a particular focus on Peter Checkland’s Soft Systems Thinking (SST). Different methodological principles emerged in each organizational AR process, providing important insights into how capacity-building can support social (and socio-environmental) change processes in complex environments.

Whereas SST and AR prominently informed my methodology, Ralph Stacey, Patricia Shaw, and Douglas Griffin’s “Complex Responsive Processes” (CRP) was the main theory I used to connect methodological capacity-building intervention to complexity theory. CRP is a theory that explains how complex adaptive systems (CAS) emergently self-organize from local, communicative interaction.

Main themes in my research findings

Drawing on these different sources and based on my empirical data, my dissertation explores the following themes:

• How organizational learning and change occur through the shifting interacting dynamics of conversations and other forms of communicative interaction, and how organizational capacity emerges in these shifting dynamics.

• How capacity-building methodology can help surface—via communicative interaction—the complexity of social change that organizations face. Particularly:

• How methodology that engages multiple ways of knowing (by use of “extended epistemologies”) is helpful in accessing doorways to diverse thought, feelings, and identity, and how this diversity plays a key role in influencing the patterns of communicative interaction that emerge.

• How the intentional contrasting of multiple, diverse perspectives, and worldviews (i.e.—SST focus) charges conversations with meaning and is capable of shifting patterns and generating learning in communicative interaction. 

• How two ostensibly oppositional forms of methodology—methodological redundancy and unstructured reflection—enable and constrain how patterns of communicative interaction emerge and support learning, when diversity is also present.

• How all communicative interaction enacts power relationships that generate dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and how these dynamics affect the patterns of communicative interaction—i.e. learning and change—that emerge.

These methodological findings lead to some interesting implications for how CB is conceived and practiced.  If capacity as learning emerges in complex environments via shifts communicative interaction, then a core purpose of CB becomes strengthening the ability of organizational participants—“within” an organization and in relation to key “system” stakeholders—to actively relate and interact with each other in organic (i.e. uncontrived) ways. This active relating is situational and as such implies looking for opportunities to “add” systemic methodological support to real-life situations and experiences.       

Contributions

My research has contributed new knowledge by helping explain how systemic capacity-building methodology can support processes of social change in complex environments. Systems thinking is often used anecdotally in capacity-building, without making explicit connections between theory and practice. Complexity theory, when referenced at all in capacity-building literature, is limited to claims about the need to act differently in a complex world. My research has made the following important contributions:

1. Provides empirical cases that connect systemic capacity-building methodology to Complex Responsive Processes theory in a plausible manner, and thus, make these connections more explicit.
2. Develops plausible connections between concepts of extended epistemologies (as a source of diversity) and complexity theory
3. Demonstrates the relative importance of critical reflection alongside the use of more-structured methods to generate organizational capacity
4. Offers—as a conversation starter—an alternative interactive communication understanding of capacity development, which asks critical questions of much dominant CD theory and practice.

I believe that the findings and learning from this research can help generate critical, non-linear approaches to capacity-building methodology that serve the needs of people in complex, contested social change realities, in a more meaningful manner.  

 I will use the blog to unpack some of these themes with concrete examples from my research.

Defining action research

The quest for living knowledge is directly connected with working with people in their life situations, working with how people experience their worlds and how we might work together to change them. (Reason, 1996: 19)

What?

Action research (AR) is a process that has the dual purpose of supporting practical transformation and advancing knowledge (Huxham and Vangen, 2003: 384) in pursuit of worthwhile practice purposes (Reason, 2006: 189). AR represents ‘a collective commitment to investigate an issue or problem, a desire to engage in self- and collective reflection to gain clarity about the issues under investigation, a joint decision to engage in individual and/or collective action that leads to a useful solution that benefits the people involved, and the building of alliances between researchers and participants in the planning, implementation, and dissemination of the research process’ (McIntyre, 2008: 1) [i See note on participation at bottom].  

How?

The concept of action research…is obviously applicable to an examination of human activity systems carried out through the process of attempting to solve problems.  Its core is the idea that the researcher does not remain an observer outside the subject of investigation but becomes a participant…in the action, and the process of change itself becomes the subject of research. (Checkland, 1981, 1993: 152)

AR is an emergent engagement process that utilizes many ways of finding out about issues and learning (ibid).   Key processes include planning a change, acting and observing the process and consequences of change, reflecting on these processes and consequences, and then continuing within the same spiral of self-reflective cycles by re-planning, acting, reflecting, etc. (Kemmis and McTaggart, 2005: 563).  AR processes will generate knowledge about a particular area of concern to researchers (A), but they also generate knowledge about the action-based methodology we use to intervene in a situation (M), and about existing theory or conceptual frameworks (F) that might inform and enrich our process (see figure 1).   

Figure 1—Cycle of action research in human situations, adapted from (Adapted from Checkland and Holwell, 1998: 15)

This action research cycle allows for addressing worthwhile practical purposes , while at the same time being concerned about how we link the practical things we do with a wider field of scholarship (Reason, 2006: 189).  In fact, action research offers opportunities for theory development that other methods do not, including generating rich data about what people say and do—and what theories relevant—when we are faced with a real need to take action (Huxham and Vangen, 2003: 384).  ‘Action research is particularly appropriate for developing theory that relates closely to practice and is concerned with the process of managing’ (ibid: 399).

Why?

‘From our perspective the error is to separate these two [(theory and action)]; rather, we seek a living knowledge or action inquiry in which we act with knowledge and reflection; we seek a knowledge that is useful to us and others in action’ (Reason, 1996: 27, italics original)

‘But action research goes beyond the notion that theory can inform practice, to a recognition that the theory can and should be generated through practice, and, … that theory is really only useful insofar as it is put in the service of a practice focused on achieving positive social change’ (Brydon-Miller et al., 2003: 15).

‘The case for action-based research appears to me to be particularly strong if the aim of the research is to facilitate human advancement and social change’ (Dreze, 2002: 818).  

Perhaps the most basic but bold claim made by action researchers is that effective learning comes through the process of trying to change things. Action is a way of knowing [and learning] because life itself is conducted through action – people come to know of the world as they interact with it every day. As people work, create, stir things up, advocate, react, adapt and relate in many other ways we make sense out of life. This sensemaking combines simultaneous action and adaptive reflection as people navigate their way through real-life situations in order to survive, learn and in some cases thrive. Knowledge informs our actions, which can generate further knowledge that can inform further action – towards any human purpose. This knowledge can be put to use for practical purposes such as addressing climate change and its effects on children and communities, violence in Brazilian favelas (illegal housing settlements), community-led sanitation efforts, community engagement by universities, power relations in community and voluntary organizations, strengthening militant organizational identity, and many others (Entire paragraph reproduced from Burns et al., 2012: 2). 

References

BRYDON-MILLER, M., GREENWOOD, D. & MAGUIRE, P. 2003. Why Action Research? Action Research, 1, 9-28.

BURNS, D., HARVEY, B. & ORTIZ ARAGÓN, A. 2012. Introduction: Action Research for Development and Social Change. IDS Bulletin, 43, 1-7.

CHECKLAND, P. 1981, 1993. Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, Chichester, John Wiley & Sons Inc.

CHECKLAND, P. & HOLWELL, S. 1998. Action Research: Its Nature and Validity Systemic Practice and Action Research, 11, 12.

DREZE, J. 2002. On Research and Action. Economic and Political Weekly, March 2, 2002, 3.

FALS BORDA, O. 2001. Participatory (action) research in social theory. In: REASON, P. & BRADBURY, H. (eds.) Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. London: Sage.

GREENWOOD, D. J. & LEVIN, M. 2007. Introduction to action research: social research for social change, Thousand Oaks, Calif., Sage Publications.

HUXHAM, C. & VANGEN, S. 2003. Researching Organizational Practice through Action Research: Case Studies and Design Choices. Organizational Research Methods, 6, 383-403.

KEMMIS, S. & MCTAGGART, R. 2005. Participatory Action Research: Communicative Action and the Public Sphere. In: DENZIN, N. K. & LINCOLN, Y. S. (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. 3rd ed.: Sage.

MCINTYRE, A. 2008. Participatory Action Research. In: UNIVERSITY, S. (ed.) Qualitative Research Methods Series.

MCTAGGART, R. 1991. Principles for Participatory Action Research. Adult Education Quarterly, 41, 20.

REASON, P. 1996. Reflections on the Purposes of Human Inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 2, 13.

REASON, P. 2006. Choice and Quality in Action Research Practice. Journal of Management Inquiry, 15, 187-203.

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[i] Special note on participation: AR attempts to involve collaborators in participative and democratic relationships (Reason, 2006: 189).  This has implications on the role of the facilitator and the balance between: a) action and research—i.e.in the relative emphasis placed on the practical transformation vis-à-vis the advancement of more general knowledge or theory (Huxham and Vangen, 2003: 384); and b) researcher control versus broad democratic participation in AR phases.  This then affects whether organizational participants are aware that they are participating in research beyond the practical action or learning they seek (ibid: 386).  At one extreme, perhaps, is action taken in an organization by a researcher in which the organization only seeks practical improvements, while the researcher also desires to generate more general, theoretical knowledge.  This is still AR to the researcher, but to the organization it is simply practical ‘action’.  At the other end of the spectrum are AR definitions that seek practical action and knowledge generation but with a highly participative and democratic social change worldview, opening up the entire process to co-design and co-implementation and sense-making with participants (for example, see: Fals Borda, 2001, Greenwood and Levin, 2007, McIntyre, 2008, McTaggart, 1991). 

Action Research?

From January to June of last year (2009) as I was putting together my research outline for my PhD fieldwork I came across the concept of action-research. I have to admit that at that point I was relatively new even to the concept of "research", in that I had never really internalized how research exists as an intentional knowledge-generation process. In my master's degree program several years ago I had the standard quantitative research methods class and I had to write multiple papers—usually from a list of books, or a topic that a professor had provided for me in a syllabus—but I never conceived of what I was doing as a form of research. And outside of academia I was as exposed as anyone else to NPR and other news stories that began with "researchers found that…", or "in a survey of 10,000 master's degree students…", but for some reason I didn't "get" what research was all about. Entering into my PhD program I was clear that I wanted to read, study, reflect, write, and yes, generate new knowledge, but how research figured in to all of this was very hazy to me. In future blog posts on this subject I will revisit some of the problematic reasons that I got this far without a better understanding of research (always under the assumption that I was at least an "average" master's degree student—perhaps not the sharpest tool, nor the dullest, but certainly a perfectly good shovel!). But suffice it to say that if my understanding of research was hazy, action research was a completely new concept to me.

Although I lacked a deep understanding of the research side of the AR concept, I had significant experience on the action side of things through my work as an organizational "capacity building" practitioner over the previous ten years or so. In that role I had worked with multiple organizations who were seeking support on intentional change processes, usually meant to improve some organizational process, system, behavior or "capacity". Usually after some process for diagnosing organizational needs we would take action with members of the organization to dig deeper into the problem areas, the underlying factors, and exploring potential ways forward. This work was almost always done in intense 2-3 day participatory workshops in which we combined brainstorming, small group reflection and synthesis exercises, and occasionally the use of participatory techniques such as sociodramas, drawing, and other more creative means of expression and analysis. So I had quite a lot of experience on the action side of things, and since action research almost always starts with a question of the kind, "how can we improve this situation?" (Reason and Bradbury, 2008: 11), it seemed I was halfway to understanding what AR was all about.

But what did we learn from these processes? Beyond diagnosing needs, identifying underlying "causes" and developing action plans to move forward, did we learn anything about how improvement comes about in these organizations, about how they learn and change, or remain the same after the workshops are through? After the cathartic moment of getting multiple key folks together in one place and putting important, often ignored issues on the table, —after so much overwhelming work "in the field"—, what happens next? Did we examine how organizational culture and power relationships often allow us to change just enough in symbolic spaces such as workshops, so that when the workshops are finished things can "get back to" remaining the same? Did we introduce any critical thinking or even theory that might be relevant, and might help us reflect on how we reproduce unhealthy worldviews and behaviors with the people we work with inside and outside of our organization? Did we document key reflections that might be helpful later on, beyond the fully cooked workshop matrices, syntheses, action plans and other outputs that we have to report on?

My answer to these questions is "sometimes, not often enough", and definitely not with an intentional learning focus in mind—neither for the organizations nor the facilitators. So I have helped many organizations address organizational sustainability, financial management, strategic planning and other needs not by helping them learn through the incredible complexity in which they are immersed, but by shot-in-the-arm intense action processes largely devoid of learning and research. I am not suggesting many of these processes were not helpful in some way; I think they often generated important reflection and responded to expectations in many ways. But I do feel that they reinforced a non-critical action culture that most of the organizations and facilitators I know work within, in which the deeper, structural problematic issues around transformational change and one's role in that change are not discussed, and deep organizational assumptions are left unmoved.

This is problematic to me and it relates to a dichotomy that exists in much development practice, which Reeler (2007) frames in terms of "the ungrounded academic versus the unthinking practitioner". The idea is that much academic thinking on development is very critical and important but not grounded in ideas on how to go about doing things differently. On the other hand, much development intervention—often run through projects—lacks spaces and practices of reflection, theorizing and critical thinking. As Smit (2007) frames it, we're too much in the "to do" mode. Action research, with its focus on combining theory and practice, action and reflection, and respecting emergent change, challenges both poles in this dichotomy and invites us to develop new methodologies for intervening in complex change situations that incorporate A/R principles. The idea that this type of research / practice existed heavily resonated with me as I thought about how to go about my own doctoral research. So I dug deeper and made AR the core part of my research methodology and I have also started trying to more intentionally incorporate AR into the classes I teach.

In future blog posts I will go deeper into what is AR to me (and others), how that is playing out in my work and life, and why I think students, organizational change facilitators, development practitioners, and social change organizations in general, should incorporate more AR into their work. As Dreze (2002: 818) notes, "the case for action-based research appears to me to be particularly strong if the aim of the research is to facilitate human advancement and social change". But for now I'll end with a quote by Peter Reason, an author that was particularly helpful to me in understanding "why research?", which I believe is important before assuming that learned research techniques (the "how" of research) might be meaningful to students and practitioners.

The quest for living knowledge is directly connected with working with people in their life situations, working with how people experience their worlds and how we might work together to change them. (Reason, 1996: 19)

References

DREZE, J. 2002. On Research and Action. Economic and Political Weekly, March 2, 2002, 3.

REASON, P. 1996. Reflections on the Purposes of Human Inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 2, 13.

REASON, P. & BRADBURY, H. (eds.) 2008. The Sage Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, London: Sage.

REELER, D. 2007. A Theory of Social Change and Implications for Practice, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. CDRA.

SMIT, M. 2007. We're Too Much in 'To Do' Mode: Action Research into Supporting International NGOs to Learn (Praxis Paper 16). In: INTRAC (ed.) Praxis Papers. Oxford: INTRAC.

The capacity building / project management echo chamber

[This post is taken from an email I wrote focusing on capacity building of biodiversity conservation organizations]

For the last few years I have worked as an organizational development facilitator as well as coordinator of various 'capacity building' programs, projects and consultancies in Africa and Latin America primarily. I would say that about half of the work I have done has been in the conservation sector, and the rest in other development sectors (obviously, much of this work crosses the somewhat arbitrary lines of sectors). In much of my experience I found myself trying to help organizations strengthen their capacity to manage their project cycles better, from conceptualization, proposal writing and design (often using 'logical' frameworks), to monitoring and evaluation. Organizational sustainability (often narrowly understood as 'we need more money'!) was also frequently a priority theme, as were issues of financial management, organizational governance and other capacity areas. In quite a few cases, either because the organizations (often local partners of larger NGOs) desired it, because their donors 'encouraged' it, or because me and my colleagues explained the merits of it in a spirited and convincing way , organizations decided to take a look at their overall organizational capacity, setting aside a block of time to brainstorm, debate and 'improve' the relationships (read, 'gaps') between actual and ideal capacities in multiple areas of organizational development. This overall look at an organization brought together programmatic areas and support areas, and eventually, usually, ended up in an 'action plan' conspicuously similar to the types of plans the organizations used in their projects and programs.

Over time I started noting three major problems with the premises that much of our strengthening was based on. First the premises or 'assumptions':

1. Projects, usually based on cause and effect logics, are taken as given—as 'making sense'—as the main vehicles through which development interventions should be carried out
   
2. Capacity building increases capacities (in whatever area), which leads to an increase in effectiveness, or performance as some like to call it. The application of this capacity increase is expected to be relatively timely as well; otherwise it can't really be justified within the 'logic' of the time boundaries of a project
   
3. Organizations have the bandwidth to tackle multiple capacities at one time (and it is desirable to do so in the first place)
   

There are some problems with these assumptions, some which I 'felt' or saw as things didn't work as planned, and others that I have picked up as I have been in my PhD process. First, much of the social change (i.e. literally human change in behavior—socioeconomic, socio-environmental, etc.) that most of the organizations I have worked with (and my own at the time) were trying to support was outside their control. In other words, for the long-term behavioral changes that they were pursuing to actually take place, multiple other 'factors and actors' would also need to intervene to generate the conditions needed for change, and those actors and factors were not programmable or controllable by the organization—regardless of how neatly packaged a logframe and project was. But not only were many of the known actors and factors largely outside the control of the project; many of these broader conditions for change were unknowable to start with. From multiple perspectives on what might constitute meaningful change at a micro level, to broader issues of enabling environments, governance, power, culture (even the weather!); the inherent complexity of many change situations rendered them uncontrollable, 'unplannable' (at least in the traditional sense)—'unprojectable' (Reeler, 2007). The objectives, results and indicators could really only be known and defined emergently, along the way, and might get more precise towards the end as a team of people learned in continual execution and redefinition of activities what they couldn't possibly have known going into it. This would obviously require a change in planning mentality—from preplanned to iterative (see Ortiz and Taylor, 2009); from linear (i.e. direct cause and effect) to nonlinear (accepting complexity), from optimization (often in unrealistic logframes) to learning (concept from Checkland, 1985).

Enter capacity building. Organizational change is also a complex endeavor, yet much capacity analysis assumes a similar design to the linear project model. Capacity is thought of as an objectively definable and obtainable 'thing' that can be strengthened through a relatively short process of capacity assessment and action planning. The changes needed, in multiple areas (financial management, leadership, HR, etc.), can be addressed at once and, once gotten onto the annual organizational activities docket, can be sure to be carried out and improve organizational performance. But in practice, 'just as development interventions cannot be thought of to linearly 'cause' development outcomes, capacity strengthening cannot be thought of to linearly 'cause' improved capacities, nor can these capacities be assumed to contribute linearly to social change' (Ortiz, 2010 forthcoming). But much capacity building is implicitly geared towards trying to increase an organization's ability to carry out the project management cycle—from fundraising and proposal writing to execution and M&E. Poor capacity is implicitly understood to be poor ability to generate project funds, design projects, manage projects, and evaluate projects. Or, it is defined as project cycle capacities and organizational management capacities, which can be transferred to any organization in a 'best-practice' framework. 'Every organization needs HR, financial management, leadership, etc., and the business world has been doing that forever', the assumption goes. 'We just need to professionalize organizations a bit by strengthening these broader management capacities, so that they will better support the organization's ability to carry out its technical work (read 'projects')'.

I'm intentionally over-generalizing a bit to make a point, which is that capacity building is often implicitly conceived of as a way of strengthening organizational project cycle and general management capacities, without regard for whether these capacities actually help the organization deal with—make more sense of—the complexity that they face as they try to support meaningful change. By taking the linear project model and worldview as givens, capacity building unwittingly becomes a process that helps organizations increase their ability to use planning instruments, to account for outputs and render accounts in a more 'professional' way, and to structure organizations to be better at this very cycle; even when (in many cases) the complexity of the change that they wish to support is unresponsive to this type of model and thinking. So the problem is often not a project management capacity issue, but a problem of the indiscriminate use of linear planning models (and the worldviews behind this) that don't take into account the inherent complexity of what organizations are trying to do. And missing is capacity building that might actually help an organization take purposeful action as it grapples with complexity.

In response to this, in my research we (two co-action-researchers in Ecuador and Peru and me) are working with (developing) a methodology (tentatively called 'Systemic Theories of Change'—STOC) that tries to better match the way conservation organizations (and other social change organizations) strengthen themselves, with the changes (i.e. impacts) that they are trying to support. It tries to customize capacity development to what a particular organization needs, based on its purposes and a deeper understanding of its complex environment. This is in contrast to more general best practice models that apply the same standard capacity categories to every organization, regardless of their unique circumstances. We believe those models can still be useful as devices for generating debate about certain areas of capacity that most organizations need, but not very helpful in strengthening organizations to confront their particular and unique realities in complex situations. We also think that regardless of the framework(s) used, the process should not assume that the world is simple and controllable; rather that the 'sustainable' human change ideal is complex and often reveals itself along the way (if at all). This requires new ways of seeing the world and planning (and strengthening oneself to do so), which we hope to discover with the organizations we're working with. We are conscious of the pressing realities of immediate problems of funding, or project management, or organizational governance, or human response capacity; but we think that these issues shouldn't be addressed in reference to themselves, but in relation to the change that the organization supports, understood from a non-linear complexity lens (which, by the way, comes to development studies via biology).

What capacities does an organization need in relation to the complex change it wishes to support? We think the answers to this question are not necessarily so straightforward and 'logical', and may demand capacities that are outside of the frameworks that we're used to operating within.

References

CHECKLAND, P. 1985. From Optimizing to Learning: A Development of Systems Thinking for the 1990s. The Journal of the Operational Research Society, 36, 757-767.

ORTIZ, A. & TAYLOR, P. 2009. Learning purposefully in capacity development: Why, what and when to measure? In: IIEP (ed.) Rethinking capacity development. Paris: IDS.

REELER, D. 2007. A Theory of Social Change and Implications for Practice, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. CDRA.

The logframe made me do it

[Note—this was a response I posted to an interesting conversation on complexity and systems thinking on the discussion board 'Pelican Initiative: Platform for Evidence-based Learning & Communications for Social Change'--
http://dgroups.org/groups/pelican. See http://dgroups.org/ViewDiscussion.aspx?c=3c4b8b5b-d151-4c38-9e7b-7a8a1a456f20&i=277c1aeb-1993-4b61-a84f-c24a19d68d88; and http://dgroups.org/ViewDiscussion.aspx?c=3c4b8b5b-d151-4c38-9e7b-7a8a1a456f20&i=0b9ba608-cf2a-403b-afc2-85a2d4bea34a; for the full discussion.]

I'm currently carrying out my PhD fieldwork with three organizations and Peru and Ecuador. One of the Peruvian organizations is trying to figure out how to offer meaningful, 'empowering' support to individuals and organizations working in community development in an economically-depressed area on the limits of Lima (literally on the edge of chaos!). The possible entry points are numerous, the available resources are limited, and there are multiple organizations (public and private, formal and informal, legal and illegal, etc.), individuals, and 'enabling' or un-enabling conditions and factors in play at all times. Any changes that come about over time—in people's attitudes, capacities, family life, job situation, material resources, etc.—are influenced by so many factors that even 'emergence' becomes too precise a term for describing things. The complexity situation is similar in Ecuador, with a biodiversity conservation organization that owns a 12,000-hectare private reserve in the afro-Ecuadorian northwest region of the country, where most people generally have little or no land and eke out a subsistence living by working for large landholders in the banana and African palm industries. In the middle of the denuded countryside is this private reserve, standing out like an island oasis—unconquered territory for mining, logging and other human activity. The reserve is important biologically, and in contrast to the surrounding destruction, is something that many feel is worth conserving. But there are so many factors that are not only complex (as a general explanation) but inherently irreconcilable, and a major part of the development 'agenda' is figuring out the balances that are feasible and possible in a macro setting that has tended to yield lose-lose alternatives for the majority of the people, and the environment in the process.

Leaving aside the ubiquitous monocrop-solution of the project model for a moment, each of these organizations has to figure out 'what' to do as an overall organizational offering or response in their respective situations—i.e. what should our organizations' strategy be in these realities? To qualify a bit, this example is obviously not the road-building project that Bob mentioned, with its well funded team, resources and enabling environment that allow it to define the goals from the outset, and bring massive resources to bear on constructing that most people would agree to call 'road' or 'bridge' once complete. They have their complexities, but the risk column of their logframe is tied to a budget that virtually guarantees that the project is not going to fail. The amount of resources that goes into developing the risk column itself is substantial—engineers actually take learning about assumptions and risk analysis serious. And chances are, even though goals are clear, they use talented project managers that adapt their approach as complexities hit them in the face (I have a friend who is a project engineer in a large civil engineering firm and he understands complexity intuitively and practically because he's paid to do so.). But the bridge or road is not the human and ecosystemic changes needed in my two cases at least, so I am happy to dismiss the logframe possibility (or its multiple equivalents) with regards to helping each organization make sense out of what to do.

Now that I have joined the kicking-the-logframe tooth-fairy club (thanks Ben), my point. The logframe is a convenient 'object' of 'our' attack because it so visibly reminds us of the things we know or feel are questionable about development intervention and the rules and incentives that support development intervention—from design to evaluation, and the things that happen outside of that logic as well. Speaking of cause and effect, the logframe didn't cause anyone to offer a linear response to complex situations; our desire or at least willingness to use it did. Our often well-intentioned yet linear, or expedient, or heroic, business efficiency-oriented, positivist, Western, aid-industry, etc. ways of seeing the world have more to do with our predisposition or susceptibility to simple cause and effect thinking, I think, than any logframe does. Take the logframe away and, in many cases, you don't remove the tendency towards linear worldviews that were behind it. And you certainly don't do anything to change the incentives structures that support this worldview. For example, why is it that the organizations I'm working with now, and the ones I've worked with in the past, even when they are faced with obvious complexity every day, choose to use the 'project model' to implement their work—even when they have unrestricted funds that would have allowed them to do things differently (not always, but often)? And why does anyone who studies complexity theory seem to 'get it' and start nodding their heads as to how it explains so many things, but still not fundamentally alter the way we work, even as we say that complexity implies 'fundamental shifts in thinking and practice'? I'm not talking about the creative attempts—some successful— to do things differently, but the things many of us end up doing most of the time as we respond to TORs or organizational demands, or donor wishes.

We may use logframe thinking sometimes because of lack of better tools, or because 'the donors compelled us', but not most of the time. The other explanations, I believe, have more to do with our own complex worldviews, the incentive structures of much development work, and the 'predispositions' (i.e. habitus) that condition us all in the different fields and subfields we operate in as we try to offer meaningful responses to complex change (or as Bourdieu might say, as we struggle for distinction in the fields we belong to. In this sense, knowledge of linear programming tools is clearly highly valued symbolic capital in the development industry). So my final point is that whether the interventions need to be simple or complex I think that in general we need to generate more critical thought to grapple with complexity, not to be able to master it, but to act purposefully within it (ala Checkland, Burns and others). The frames of reference from which we approach change need to be shaken up and examined, continually. Time needs to be spent in development interventions and organizational change processes on 'complejizando'—literally reflecting on multiple complexities in order to 'concientizarnos' about different ways of seeing and reacting to the world. A simple solution may emerge, but the process may be just as important as the solution.

On my way back from airport today, my suegra (mother-in-law) exclaimed as she yawned, 'el sol me dio sueño' (the sun made me sleepy). Certainly that must be part of the story.

Debating complexity and theories of change connections

(This post is a cross post from a class blog for a class I teach)

I just read an interesting article on complexity by Alan Fowler, 'Connecting the Dots'. I encourage you to read it, along with the response by Chris Mowles at the bottom of the article, and the summary of the debate called 'Debating Complexity'. These give a good overview of some of the key issues surrounding complexity thinking, and if you read them in conjunction with the Snowden, Eyben et al, my research proposal, and the ECDPM articles I think you'll get a good dose of this stuff. I would also encourage you to read the Mowles et al article in my bibliography. If you don't have access to it through the MIIS online journals let me know. The Mowles et al article is a longer version of his criticism of the Fowler article, but in an earlier blog post of mine I 'observed' similar language from Mowles himself (if interested, see the second to the last paragraph of this blog post).

The Fowler article has a lot of relevance to theories of change, and I think has some good general ideas on complexity. On TOC he starts off the article with the assumption 'The function of international development work is to accelerate and guide change in societies'. That's a big generalization--what do you guys think the purpose of int'l development work is? Also on TOC, I found it interesting how he broke down the major worldviews on development by Sachs, Collier and Easterly. What was really interesting to me wasn't that such major thinkers, with many adherents around the world, have different understandings about development--that's probably even a healthy thing. Rather, I found it interesting to see them side by side, and wondered how many adherents of each explore the others' points of view. This goes back to the archetypes framework from the Eyben article, which shows how divergent some of this thinking can be, although its adherents often assume it to be true.



(Recreated from Eyben et al, 2008, Thinking about change for development practice: a case study from Oxfam GB, Development in Practice)

The article has some good language on development conditions under the subsection 'Re-framing Perspectives', which I think you'll be able to spot.

I did find his language to be a bit deterministic, even as he notes the strong linear tendencies of these three major development thinkers.

I could say more, but probably should leave further interpretation up to you. Anyway, I recommend the short reading--which I find overall a good complexity intro article, and at the same time share the criticisms leveled by Mowles. Enjoy.

Adding in some 'personal transformation' to my previous post

Building on some recent reflections of my co-researcher Juan Carlos Giles, which include a challenge to analyze the extent to which we take personal transformation and identity into account when we think about developing the capacities of ‘others’, I offer the following modification to the question at the bottom of my previous post:

To what extent do the management practices and systems of social change organizations take into account the complexity (external and internal) of the social change they aim to support, and the identities and personal transformation of the people who put these systems and practices to use?

I think this is important because of some reflections I've been having on my own motivations for supporting social change, as well as the multiple motivations that different people have for desiring, or not, social change prescriptions from outside. The more I reflect on this the more I feel I need to rethink the way I approach capacity development work in general. Also—in addition to human motivations for change—the implications of the broader situational complexity behind any significant change (i.e. multiple hidden and visible factors, relationships, conditions, etc.), make me really question the logic and philosophy behind some traditional capacity development thinking and methods.

One of the exciting things for me is the potential I see in learning based methods for capacity development. An example could be participatory action research not ‘into’ capacity development, but as capacity development. With these methods it’s OK to ask questions and assume that we don’t know the answers going in (i.e., we can assume that there is not already an existing best practice—waiting to be discovered—that can be applied in each case). This kind of approach can support more emergent CD processes that take into account where the individuals that call themselves ‘organization’ have come from and how that affects where they see themselves going, both individually and collectively (as well as what key stakeholders outside the organization have to say about that). It can also take into account local realities, which are situational, emergent, and potentially ill-suited to homogenizing best practice management models.