ParEvo – a web assisted participatory scenario planning process

The purpose of this page

…is to record some ongoing reflections on my experience of running two pre-tests of ParEvo carried out in late 2018 and early 2019.

Participants and others are encouraged to add their own comments, by using the Comment facility at the bottom of this page

Two pre-tests are underway

  • One involves 11 participants developing a scenario involving the establishment of an MSC (Most Significant Change) process in a development programme in Nigeria. These volunteers were found via the MSC email list. They came from 7 countries and 64% were women.
  • The other involves 11 participants developing a Brexit scenario following Britain failing to reach an agreement with the EU by March 2019. These participants were found via the MandE NEWS email list. They came from 9 countries and 46% were women.

For more background (especially if you have not been participating) see this 2008 post on the process design and this 2019 Conference abstract talking about these pre-tests

Reflections so far

Issues arising…

  1. How many participants should there be?
    • In the current pre-tests, I have limited the number to around 10. My concern is that with larger numbers there will be too many story segments (and their storylines) for people to scan and make a single preferred selection. But improved methods of visualising the text contributions may help overcome this limitation. Another option is to allow/encourage individual participants to represent teams of people, e.g. different stakeholder groups. I have not yet tried this out.
  2. Do the same participants need to be involved in each iteration of the process?
    1. My initial concern is that not doing so would make some of the follow up quantitative analysis more difficult, but I am not so concerned about that now, its a manageable problem. On the other hand, it is likely that some people will have to drop out mid-process, and ideally, they could be replaced by others, thus maintaining the diversity of storylines.
  3. How do you select an appropriate topic for a scenario planning exercise?
    1. Ideally, it would be a topic that was of interest to all the participants and one which they felt some confidence in talking about, even if only in terms of imagined futures. One pre-test topic, the use of MSC in Nigeria, was within these bounds. But the other was more debatable: the fate of the UK after no resolution of BREXIT terms by 29th March 2019
  4. How should you solicit responses from participants?
    1. I started by sending a standard email to all the (MSC scenario) participants, but this has been cumbersome and has risks. It is too easy to lose track of who contributed what text, to add to what existing storyline. I am now using two-part single question survey via SurveyMonkey. This enables me to keep a mistake-free record of who contributed what to what, and who has responded and who has not. But this still involves sending multiple communications, including reminders, and I have sometimes confused what I am sending to whom.  A more automated systems is definitely needed.
  5. How should you represent and share participants responses?
    1. This has been done in two forms. One is a tree diagram, showing all storylines, where participants can mouseover nodes to immediately see each text segment. Or they can click on each node to go to a separate web page and see complete storylines. These are both laborious to construct, but hopefully will soon be simplified and automated via some tech support which is now under discussion. PS: I have now resorted to only using the tree diagram with mouseover.
  6. Should all contributions be anonymous?
    1. There are two types of contributions: (a) the storyline segments contributed during each iteration of the process, (b) Comments made on these contributions, that can be enabled on the blog page that hosts each full storyline to date. This second type was an afterthought, whereas the first is central to the process.
    2. The first process of contributing to storylines designed to make authorship anonymous, so people would focus on the contents.  I think this remains a good feature.
    3. The second process of allowing people to comment has pros and cons. The advantage is that it can enrich the discussion process, providing a meta-level to the main discussion which is the storyline development. The risk, however, is that if the comments are not enabled to be anonymous then a careful reader of the comments can sometimes work out who made which storyline contributions. I have tried to make comments anonymous but they still seem to reveal the identity of the person making the comment. This may be resolvable. PS: This option is now not available, while I am only using the tree diagram to show storylines. This may need to be changed.
  7. How many iterations should be completed?
    1. It has been suggested that participants should know this in advance, so that their story segments don’t leap in the future too quickly, or the reverse, progress the story too slowly. With the Brexit scenario pre-test I am inclined to agree. It might help to saying at the beginning that there will be 5 iterations, ending in the year 2025. With the MSC scenario pre-test I am less certain, it seems to be moving on at a pace I would not have predicted
    2. I am now thinking it may also be useful to spell out in advance the number of iterations that will take place. And perhaps even suggest each one will represent a given increment in time, say a month or a year, or…
  8. What limits should there be on the length of the text that participants submit?
    1. I have really wobbled on this issue, ranging from 100-word limits to 50-word limits to no voiced limits at all. Perhaps when people select which storyline to continue the length of the previous contributions will be something they take into account? I would like to hear participants views on this issue. Should there be word limits, and if so, what sort of limit?
  9. What sort of editorial intervention should there be by the facilitator, if any?
    1. I have been tempted, more than once, to ask some participants to reword and revise their contribution. I now limit myself to very basic spelling corrections, checked with the participant, if necessary. I was worried that some participants have a limited grasp of the scenario topic, but now think that just has to be part of the reality, some people have little to go on when anticipating specific the future, and others may have “completely the wrong idea”, according to others. As the facilitator, I now think I need to stand back and let things run.
    2. Another thought I had some time ago is that the facilitator could act as the spokesperson for “the wider context”, including any actors not represented by any of the participant’s contributions so far. At the beginning of a new iteration, they could provide some contextual text that participants are encouraged to bear in mind when designing their next contribution. If so, how / where should this context information be presented?
  10. How long should a complete exercise take?
    1. The current pre-tests are stretching out over a number of weeks. But I think this will be an exception. In a workshop setting where all participants (or teams of) have access to a laptop and internet, it should be possible to move through a quite a few iterations within a couple of hours. In other non-workshop settings perhaps a week will be long enough, if all participants have a stake in the process. Compacting the available time might generate more concentration and focus. The web app now under development should also radically reduce the turnaround time between iterations because manual work done by the facilitator will be automated.
  11. Is my aim to have participants evaluate the completed storylines realistic?
    1. After the last iteration, I plan to ask each participant, probably via an online survey page, to identify: (a) the most desirable storyline, (b) the most likely to happen storyline. But I am not sure if this will work. Will participants be willing to read every storyline from beginning to end? Or will they make judgments on the basis of the last addition to each storyline, which they will be more familiar with? And how much will this bias their judgments (and how could I identify if it does)?
  12. What about the contents??
    1.  One concern I have is the apparent lack of continuity between some of the contributions to a storyline. Is this because the participants are very diverse? Or because I have not stressed the importance of continuity? Or because I can’t see the continuity that others can see?
    2. What else should we look for when evaluating the content as a whole? One consideration might be the types of stakeholders who are represented or referred to, and those which seem to be being ignored
  13. How should performance measures be used?
    1. Elsewhere I have listed a number of ways of measuring and comparing how people contribute and how storylines are developed. Up to now, I have thought of this primarily as a useful research tool, which could be used to analyze storylines after they have been developed.
    2. But after reading a paper on “gamification” of scenario planning it occurred to me that some of these measures could be more usefully promoted at the beginning of a scenario planning exercise, as measures that participants should be aware of and even seek to maximize when deciding how and where to contribute. For example, one measure is the number of extensions that have been added to a participant’s texts by other participants, and the even distribution of those contributions (known as variety and balance).
  14. Stories as predictions
    1. Most writers on scenario planning emphasize that scenarios are not meant to be predictions, but more like possibilities that need to be planned for
    2. But if ParEvo was used in a M&E context, could participants be usefully encouraged to write story segments as predictions, and then be rewarded in some way if they came true? This would probably require an exercise to focus on the relatively near future, say a year or two at the most, with each iteration perhaps only covering a month or so.
  15. Tagging of story segments
    1. It is common practice to use coding / tagging of text contents in other settings. Would it be useful with ParEvo? An ID tag is already essential, to be able to identify and link story segments.
  16. What other issues are arising and need discussion?
    1. Over to you…to comment below
    2. I also plan to have one to one skype conversations with participants, to get your views on the process and products

Conference: Evaluation 2008 – Evaluation Policy and Evaluation Practice

Date: November 5 – 8, 2008
Venue: Denver, Colorado

The American Evaluation Association invites evaluators from around the world to attend its annual conference to be held Wednesday, November 5, through Saturday, November 8, 2008 in Denver, Colorado. We will be meeting right in the heart of the city at the Hyatt Regency.

AEA’s annual meeting is expected to bring together approximately 2500 evaluation practitioners, academics, and students, and represents a unique opportunity to gather with professional colleagues in a supportive, invigorating, atmosphere.

The conference is broken down into 41 Topical Strands that examine the field from the vantage point of a particular methodology, context, or issue of interest to the field as well as the Presidential Strand highlighting this year’s Presidential Theme of Evaluation Policy and Evaluation Practice. Presentations may explore the conference theme or any aspect of the full breadth and depth of evaluation theory and practice.

Developing MSC training materials…

The objectives and the process

This page is intended as a public record of the development of Most Significant Change (MSC) training materials.

The aim is that interested people should be able to contact those listed below (via email to Rick Davies, or use the Comment box below) to get copies of their MSC training materials, on condition that:

  • they adapt this material to their own needs,
  • they then make copies of that adapted training material available to others, by adding their names to this list (along with the supporting information about their use of the training materials)

The descriptions given below of how people (described as “adapters”) are using the MSC training materials will be developed, so that others can find materials that seem nearest to their needs. But, all users of these materials will be expected to make further adaptations. And, at some stage in the future I may add a Commentary on the materials produced by different adapters. PS: For those interested in the background, the design of this process has been influenced by this paper.

The adapters (so far…):

  • Kaia Ambrose, Monitoring, Evaluation and Organizational Learning Manager, Programme Agreement, International Operations, CARE Canada, +1.613.228.5655, Canada
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: May 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials:
      • Here’s how we’ll be using our adapted PPTs: The CARE Canada Programme Agreement will be gathering a group of project managers and M&E officers from CARE Country Offices to participate in a 5-day ‘telling the story’ workshop. We’ll be outlining different ways
        that projects can capture the change that happens in projects, both expected and planned for as well as unexpected and unplanned changes in order to tell a story of the social transformation process among key actors, project influence and support, and changes in project strategies and performance in order to support change. We will be looking at Most Significant Change as well as Outcome Mapping as tools to track change
        processes, or stories.
  • Nyarwaya Isaac, Managing Director, PM Associates, P.O.BOX 6866, Kigali, Rwanda, Tel. 08560622
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: May 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials:
      • PM Associates;….does training, consultancy, research and publication mainly in the area of Project Management. The firm will add MSC to its portfolio of trainings provided. These trainings will be targeted to staff in NGOs and other international organizations that would like to adapt the use of MSC
  • Gaziul Hassan Mahmood, Technical Adviser – Program Quality, Save the Children in PNG
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: May 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials
      • I will share the presentation I will prepare based on your resources. I will also share when I am planning that training.
  • Ivo Haenen, WASTE, Netherlands
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: May 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials
      • Use it as basis for training WASTE’s programme partners in Latin America, Asia and Africa ” WASTE works towards sustainable improvement of the urban poor’s living conditions and the urban environment in general
  • Taline Haytayan, Knowledge Sharing Advisor, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, UK.
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: May 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials:
      • “…to use MSC training material in our HIV AIDS Stigma and discrimination programme in a number of countries in Africa. We would like to adapt the MSC methodology in order to capture stories from stigma trainers, their experiences, lessons learned and changes encountered via the programme”
  • Emma Brathwaite, Technical Advisor Adolescent Health, Nossal Institute for Global Health, The University of Melbourne, 187 Grattan Street, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Tel: +61 3 8344-0909. Fax: +61 3 8344-9130
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: May 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials:
      • I am providing TA to Aceh Partnerships in Health (APiH) which has a number of theme areas (HIV, adolescent health, disability, mental health) and our in-country partners have expressed difficulties in monitoring change which is why MSC has been of interest. We are in the very early stages of this process so I would be very interested to look at these powerpoints.
  • Cecil Laguardia, Communications Manager/TD Communications Pilot Project, World Vision Asia Pacific Region, Mobile: +639184355243/ skype: cecil_laguardia, Bangkok
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: May 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials:
      • We followed the presentations according to the original documents but what we have strengthened is the actual community story-telling activity using the process to generate communications resources and look into the impact of the projects.
        I would be happy to receive new training materials from you. We still have several projects scheduled for training and it will be good for us to keep improving the process.
  • An Sokchea…. working in World Vision Cambodia as a Learning for Transformation (LfT) Technical Officer, Cambodia
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: May 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials:
      • My job responsibility is to learn about MSC and adapt it as a development tool for World Vision ministry. … [new training resources] would be helpful for me to understand more and to find the way to adapt/refine it in Cambodia context.
  • Dr Sani Aliou Assistant Country Director Programmes Concern Worldwide Rwanda Kigali, Rwanda
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: May 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials:
  • Ms Elizabeth REID, Visiting Fellow, Gender Relations Centre & Human Geography, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra
    • When they started adapting MSC training materials: June 2008
    • How they are using the MSC training materials:
  • Tim OShaughnessy, an Australian M&E specialist based in Fiji,
  • A.F.M. Nezam Uddin, Programme Officer: Planning, Monitoring & Knowledge Management, Save the Children, Sweden-Denmark, House: 9, Road:16, Gulshan: 1, Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh
  • Mike Idah, unknown organisation and location
  • Thomas K. Nyagah. I am the Design,Monitoring and evaluation officer, Christian Community services -ACK- KENYA.
    • We have used the MSC for 4 years now and fruits are rewarding. I have also trained many local NGO in Kenya.

How you can participate…

  • You can add your name to the list of adapters. If you want to do this then say so via the Comment box below, or email rick@mande.co.uk. I will then send you my PowerPoints for you to adapt
  • You can ask for copies of the PowerPoints adapted by the adapters listed above. If you want to do this then say so via the Comment box below, or email rick@mande.co.uk

Dont forget…

There is another MSC blog specifically dedicated to developing, sharing and improving different language translations of the MSC Guide, at http://mscguide-translations.blogspot.com/ . Work is in progress on translations into at least eight different languages.

The vision

From something like this

To something more like this

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