By Ricardo Ramírez and Dal Brodhead, DECI-3. A recent i2insights blog by Bonnie McBain outlines three aspects of scenario planning that help: define goals, design strategy, and produce useful and defensible projections. Scenario planning is also useful when working to resolve uncertainties which are common to research efforts - especially those aimed at influencing decision-makers. [...]
By Ricardo Ramírez and Dal Brodhead, DECI-3. The DECI-3 project name is “Designing Evaluation and Communication for Impact”. So what is impact? This blog entry tries to move beyond the numerous recommendations and well-tested practices that we have reported in this blog series. We suspect that when our partners read these blogs, the natural reaction [...]
By Ricardo Ramírez and Dal Brodhead, DECI-3. The following are elements of DECI of possible relevance to other programs: Element 1: DECI principles are enhanced with those of CAE (collaborative approaches to evaluation) While neither Utilization-Focused Evaluation nor Research Communication planning emphasize participation per se, in our experience the hybrid approach is a very effective [...]
By Ricardo Ramírez and Dal Brodhead, DECI-3. This blog provides a review of recent literature that proposes guiding questions to embed sustainability themes into a Theory of Change. It also highlights the view that “an essential part of any accountability regime is planning for sustainability…and that sustainability needs to be a critical aspect of the [...]
By Ricardo Ramírez and Dal Brodhead, DECI-3. In this blog, we draw on an article by Steven Teles and Mark Schmitt which appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (2011) entitled “The elusive craft of evaluating advocacy”; and on an article, we wrote in 2015 about practical wisdom entitled “Can participatory communication be taught?” We [...]