We all had to change our ways of working and learning during the pandemic and it was both a challenge and an opportunity. Utilising our experience at developing online trainings, the team at IMA assisted the with the conversion and revision of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Independent Evaluation Department's (IED) Project Evaluation course from face to face to online. The content evolved to be suitable for distance learning on project evaluation. Changes involved revising and developing PowerPoints for webinars and self-study modules; reworking the course structure; objectives; participant learning journey; and adding learning process elements throughout.
The training approach was revised to contain live interactive webinar sessions and materials to make the learning experience engaging, and with development of new material for self-study and group work. Two new video series were created from resources and footage provided by IED, both covering key evaluation messages and ‘Eval-versations’ based on interviews with key staff on more in-depth evaluation-related topics.
This project paralleled the Training of Trainers for IED, supporting the design and delivery of an online training course for staff who will be delivering long-term internal training.
Find out more about our Consultancy Services, Tailored Training, MEAL Open Course, and Training of Trainers.
Visit ADB's website to find out more about them.
In our fast changing global context, there’s a great space of possibilities for how leadership is perceived and exercised, and scope to approach leadership thinking and concepts from different angles. Although traditional leadership and management models still have a place, for us to reach the SDG’s we must enquire into what is now required of leadership – in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, and how we can be part of expressing fitting leadership.
Two qualities of fitting leadership are relational and emotional skills. Leaders who develop these skills are able to mediate and create safe spaces and honest conversations that can make a positive difference.
When relationships, emotions, values and identities are taken into account, what is thought to be an objective need with a rational solution often turns into a much more complex field. The more we look at these relational and emotional aspects, the more we are able to flex our leadership and managerial styles and contribute to deeper organisational and social changes.
For the second year running, Ruth Jolly and Silvia Capezzuoli took part and ran one of the four workshops in the UK-based KMb Forum, an annual event for those with a passion for ensuring that knowledge makes a positive difference to society. This year the theme was ‘Crafting our Knowledge Stories’ taking place in the amazing Seven Stories - the National Children’s centre in Newcastle. Over 100 practitioners, researchers, students, administrators and public representatives engaged in the art and science of sharing knowledge and use came together to learn, share, network and create new stories in a convivial way. The Forum is designed as a space for learning and reflection, providing an opportunity for sharing knowledge, experiences and methods and provides access to some of the most up-to-date thinking and practice in the field.
Our workshop focused on relational knowledge sharing to give a flavour of our take on Knowledge Management, and included an interactive exercise on the importance of knowledge champions.
Two months after part one of the KM in-house program with APEFE, we returned to Brussels for part two. We supported the whole HQ staff team of 17 develop their KM strategy, aligned to their current strategic planning process. We started with a collective review of the team's knowledge management commitments since part one. Keeping true to our design principle, we blended input, practice and applying the learning. We introduced and used key KM tools, after action reviews, retrospect, peer assist, communities of practice and KM champions, here using an adaptation of World Cafe methodology. Throughout we built elements to help produce a KM strategy.
These included envisaging a KM organisational ideal in Lego, from the perspectives of the operation and programmatic teams.
Another was to envision KM as a growing tree, with the roots of shared personal and group attitudes and the leaves are supporting aspects already in place.
Another was to produce directions of travel in the form of metaphors, these directly informed making practical plans and next steps.
Together team members looked back on APEFE's history and produced a visual timeline. Here we see the red thread of the time line, connecting key KM influences and moments over the previous decades of APEFE's life. This enhanced institutional memory and strengthened personal and team motivation. Expressing these elements helped the team move forward to pin down key actions for the coming months. The director of APEFE confirms that not only was this tailored program fitting for the team and their KM aims it was equally about the members coming together as a team.
This week IMA Consultants Dani Guijarro and Iñigo Retolaza have facilitated a 2 day workshop for Greenpeace Spain and Greenpeace International staff involved in strategic planning, M&E and communication, it aimed to explore how to implement IMA´s Theory of Change approach and tool in the GP planning and M&E System.
Using current programmes as pilot case studies, Dani and Iñigo have trained staff from different departments on analytical and methodological tools, skills and meta-skills to facilitate processes of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation that ensure an (un)learning perspective, using our ToC approach.
This is how a Theory of Change for Tanzania's five year Multisectoral Nutrition Action Plan looks like when a group of over 30 stakeholders work hard together over five days - a fantastic result. Now the real hard work begins to implement it. In the last 5-10 years the ToC approach has become a popular tool for planning social change processes, especially in the NGO sector. The fast spread of the methodology has created different interpretations and understanding of ToC’s value. Some see it as a new Logical framework, yet more flexible and realistic. Some see it a simple logic model driven by cause-effect logic. Others give more importance to the attitudinal features of the approach which helps one bear in mind the complexities involved in contributing to social change and development. Our understanding is heavily informed by different authors’ interpretations such as Retolaza (2011) and Eyben (2006) and especially influenced by our practice and experience in making sense of it in our work with northern and southern NGOs’, and CBO’s, programmes. We highlight the opportunity ToC frameworks get social organisations focused on learning about how change happens, to achieve greater responsibility and accountability to both donors and end recipients of their programmes.