Institutional learning & planning (strand 1)
RBM trial work is part of that.
5 impact pathway regional workshops on ToC feeding evidence for the platforms developed, to be assessed collectively?
Hopefully we can report on this soon... What is required is the adaptive capacity/management.
Not much traction for 'learning' (within CCAFS, CGIAR) so this process-focused work needs much re-branding.
Outcomes are outside though. All the RBM, learning nodes etc. are all part of the CCSL brief series.
The platforms that you were referring to are... CCAFS reporting platforms for the project that now accommodate adaptive management.
Lots of impact / learning briefs but not much feedback on these.
Talking to lots of people and we can now show that other orgs are putting time into this (e.g. CSIRO, CARIAA) but in terms of fund-raising not much happening and we need to spend a bit of time on this to look at options. CCSL cannot be sold on its own. Social learning has to be one of the elements of a wider change initiative.
Options for funding: GIZ large grants (cross-CRP), Polly's call, DfID call, ESRC call...
Evidence-gathering (strand 2)
...
Confusion about process vs. outcomes. Key areas seen sometimes as sequential but we argued that
Worked on rationalising the amount of indicators. Lots of sensitivities of CIP staff...
We may need to build a matrix of the types of answers we get and could hire an intern to analyse the case studies emanating from this.
Bolso-Floresta project (social protection + environmental protection project). They want to include social learning as part of the systematic review. Throughout the year we should be getting results from the systematic review etc.
We can get a profile of the projects and find out if they're pursuing social learning for internal coordination or external outcomes perspectives.
This characterisation can help us tag case studies etc. to source comparable initiatives etc.
Good energy and good outputs but now we need to move to the next level. One of the key next steps is to get back to the projects from the M&E workshop.
Another key next step is to start thinking how we want to gather evidence...
Networking, coordination and coalition-building (strand 3)
Sandbox.
Hoima work - Moses, Alex, Gerd found the use of a social learning approach quite useful and found the results quite different to what they expected, and they really liked the interactions around their integrated water management. Good value of the approach. In terms of outputs, some good blog posts and requesting extra funding/support for 2015. We got some discussion about this on the sandbox. A lot of internal learning happening and the documentation happened but in a more traditional 'report' kind of way. 4 reports happened. Now we need to push them to use the framework to document the process. Gerd attended the evidence-gathering workshop and is planning to use the framework. They have been very responsive to comments made on Yammer etc. Reports are all available on CCAFS website and Yammer. The sandbox worked very much for them.
Are we setting up parallel streams of support? We need to integrate these... Happy families and sandbox learning brief.
Quarterly meetings.
Comms and influencing strategies - underway + ToC work to be adapted etc.
Wiki and website editing. We reviewed every single page etc. and updated the whole series. It's in a much better shape.
Energy a bit low - but perhaps because not much f2f happening except M&E evidence-gathering event - need to link this better with the rest of the work and go in some direction.
We need to check if much traffic is generated from the outputs we publish in other spaces etc.
Developing a vision and theory of change for CCSL
(We decided, through the facilitation of Carl Jackson, to identify vision statements for CCSL by 2025 and also by 2018 as an intermediary step. Each of us came up with a statement for each. We clustered these statements from 2025 all the way down to 2018. Then we worked in groups to polish the statements and make them easier to understand. After that we juxtaposed the vision statements and identified potential gaps, necessary actions, important actors to involve from one step to the next e.g. from the 2025 ultimate impact statement to the development outcomes to the link to development outcomes to the areas of work. etc.. Finally, for each of the five areas of work we identified, we individually suggested activities that will get us there. The results were aggregated and are presented below).
1. International development actors 'do SL'
(An emerging set of international development actors are putting cross-scale (social) learning + adaptive management approaches at the heart of their programmes, from design to evaluation. Evidence of impact:
Show why such approaches have value
Build evidence base to convince others to use SL approach
Case studies of good examples
Evidence base of value of SL in programs (and when not to bother)
Tools / capacity building:
SL tools for program scoping and design are selected, piloted, evidenced and made accessible
Toolkits + quicks ??? to show how to use
Building evidence base for value
Capacity strengthening on how to integrate SL in programming
Work closely with particular institutions to build internal capacity + demonstration
Evidence-supported guidance on integrating these approaches into planning, practice and evaluation
Creating confidence through peer-group (single spaces, dialogue + momentum)
Meta analysis of effectiveness of strategies to support SL uptake and use Influencing and engaging:
Engagement with different international development actors
Network / connect with other actors and find entry points
Influence INGOs to join the sandbox, assess their social learning
Advocacy and influencing on adoption of CCSL tools and approaches
Fostering champions within institutions in well respected spheres of influence
Networking to identify key patenrs and donors
Connecying different people to find synergies to SL
6. CCSL is the force convening other parts?
Mapping:
Map energies and agendas around social learing
Mapping like-minded orgs/initiatives from evidence + influencing
Stakeholder mapping + key players to programs, research, policy, practice
CCSL group convenes meetings about specific S.L. topics
Host 'flagship' convening events
Invite others to join CCSL core
Internal influencing
CCSL initiative has members who reflect key organisations/stakeholders (gov, donor, research)
Engage identified small set of key movers/shakers to help drive the process
CCSL connects with strong thematic or action-oriented networks and organisations, join them if they're better placed (but with a 'CCSL inside' approach?)
Actively engage with (and plant CCSL in) other networks
Partnering + coalition building
Partner with at least two other major initiatives to share the burden
Early adoption by several big programs + few key donors
Community of practice that includes key players across practitioners, academics, policy etc.
Get buy-in from at least two gov'ts who champion our values/approaches
Target small set of donors/ int. orgs we want to influence
Network + collaborate with SL researchers
Comms + identity:
Reframing SL into other contexts
What can/does CCSL bring value?
Deveop a CCSL manifesto positioning CCSL (the theme and the group)
Effective branding
Building legitimacy and endorsement
Has a brand/logo separate from CCAFS
Good comms strategy + resource for implementation to share knowledge understanding and influence
(Internal) capacity:
Stronger growing set of tools + guidance of peer assists for helping uptake
Examine capacity needs and assess gaps against resources we have
Develop facilitation capacity to convene CCSL
Enough full time people to drive programme more meaningfully
Properly resource team for engagement of convening with partners, groups, alliances
Can receive, manage account for funding
Research:
Growing body of evidence to connect SL methodologies with other similar methodologies
Synthesis of evidence base to 'sell' to different target groups
Publish a high impact position paper that begins to showcase the evidence and way forward
Develop an intellectual 'hub' for further CCSL work. Journal? Course? Chair? Programme affiliation?
Demonstrate value of working in adaptive management --> as part of program management,
Finance:
Funding
Cash
Leverage resources
Obtain sustainable funding sources
Meta:
What are incentives for others?
Identify drivers of other networks (WIIFM)
Funding / fund-raising
Funding opportunity
Dates / deadline
Who
What
Other notes
ESRC
Transforming (ISSC)
GIZ small grants for CGIAR
GIZ CIM grants
TBC
A fund-raising strategy
No formal proposal developed yet. We have not been very good at mobilising the time needed to respond to calls (e.g. GIP call)... The people that have been instrumental to provide inputs have not been able to provide these efforts.
What we don't have is an academic organisation that has core funding and can do this type of proposal-development. Perhaps we could find such an organisation to act as principal investigator. We started with John Enser (University of York) but he left this group for other tasks.
We may need someone that is not academic but someone who can do more engagement etc. and has more time for this. It would be good to have a backing institution that can lend the academic credibility to our group and could also lend an office. Such an organisation should be able to provide free time to spend on this work. Marissa has time but would need guidance. Cecilia Schubert can also help with this.
The CIM opportunity could buy us a body to drive the process and to take care of pulling information about fund-raising...
We have resources for it and with the right time horizon.
RSS feed monitoring to collect information about upcoming calls for funding. Next year perhaps some of the time for Carl/Pete could go to whoever takes care of this. But do we have the legitimacy to engage with potential donors in relation with CCAFS? The alternative is to bring more organisations in the mix, beyond CCAFS, to expand our chances of engagement with potential funders.
We stand a real chance for the GIZ funding tracks.
From CCAFS, Sonja and Bruce can go approach funders with that CCSL hat on - we have to provide them with more weapons in their fund-raising arsenal. ACTION: Develop ToR for the CIM position...
If we can pitch RBM as connected to social learning we get some more buy-in.
We have two strands: responsive fund-raising (calls for proposals) and strategic, pro-active fund-raising where we need time and champions. Perhaps we need to prioritise the strategic fund-raising... What do we need to activate latent champions to help us market CCSL work?
We need champions (strategic fund-raising), we need scientific support/credibility (for reactive fund-raising) and across the two we need administrative time to get things going.
Assets we can mobilise? Our ToC, some papers, tools and frameworks...
Our 'foot in the door' has to be very clear. Behind that we need some substance to the story (e.g. analysis of who's on board, the evidence base we're producing, our pathway to change, the way we anticipate paying for our work etc.). ==> That should go into a two-page concept note. Perhaps develop a little hand-out that updates our thinking from the original brief that Liz developed.
This 2-page pitch has to address: Why is this (social learning) essential and what do we have to bring to the table?
We could ask our champions to test out this pitch.
Tomorrow, a group will work on:
the 2-pager,
ToRs for the CIM position + fund-raising strategy (identifying champions);
the ToC further and synthesise it,
the written output (academic )
an outcome story...
Having in mind sthg that could be written collectively.
Funding-wise, we need to identify who are the key movers and shakers...
Addressing loose issues
The M&E framework and guidance document
What questions do we aim at answering?
When is SL useful/beneficial?
What are the outcomes of Social Learning?
What are conditions to get SL working well? In which contexts and under what conditions does it take place successfully?
Does SL create spaces for more voices to be heard? How does this relate to gender and social differentiation...?
Is there a benefit in investing more into SL?
How do you deal with conflicts that arise?
What is the timeline at which SL starts paying off at higher scales?
We could use this work to look at development outcomes that the social learning approach may induce?
We could ask the people who have used the M&E framework what they started learning about SL, as this is not currently covered by this?
This process will continue, and the peer assist will lead to explore some of the questions above. In addition, there may be another round of action/reflection to deepen the questioning process on SL, perhaps thanks to funding or out of their interest. ACTION: Marissa to connect with Cecilia to develop a blog post about the M&E framework and guidance document.
Yammer and the future of the sandbox?
As facilitator, this doesn't really work. It relates to the way it is designed as it is a safe organisational space. If we were to start now we probably wouldn't choose this platform.
It has really rubbish profiles. We need a lot more information about who's in there. If we go public and strategic, we need to connect with like-minded other groups. I don't know how to link up with other platforms.
The more we try to expand, go public etc. the less and less able Yammer will be able to do that.
I suggest using LinkedIn groups. It's commercially provided, it can have specific private networks.
Even if we go for the pro account it remains cheap (US 500). 95% of people on the sandbox have detailed profiles on LinkedIn.
Q: What are the main things people do when they go on Yammer?
A: Sharing resources, creating documents.
What functions do we want, what does Yammer and what does LinkedIn groups provide? If we move platforms, what would be the tradeoffs?
We are linked up with the wiki - where we could publish documents etc.
If we look for a peer-support platform, we might want more closed off conversation spaces - which can be done with (professional) LinkedIn groups.
If we ask the community to vote, we should say: these are the functionalities we know you use, here are some extra ones that we think we will use more of, this is what Yammer/LinkedIn provide... Would you be interested in using either/both?
We would have to preface what our ambitions are...
We might want to ask what are the platforms that users would totally not want to go for?
Q: How many of the people would become more active if we were on LinkedIn?
Maybe we're making it easier by opening up this? We need a survey to understand the potential downsides and upsides. If we want growth and a bigger community, we'll still have lurkers etc. Is it that at the moment Yammer is helpful for sharing docs etc. Do we need both?
It also depends on what we want: quantity? Probably more likely with LinkedIn, or engagement quality?
It may be less appealing, on the other hand, to do a peer assist on LinkedIn which can feel like a public CV...
If Yammer was re-purposed for the peer-support. ACTION: CJ, PC, ELB, PB to come up with a note and a survey + think about administration implications about transitioning platforms...
Internal comms
How can we communicate more often to ensure we're on track etc. What platform do we use to keep track of our work?
Good to have had different strands but we get separate activities. Having a weekly 1/2-hour meeting worked for IIED. Do we need sthg like this?
12 months ago we didn't have quarterly meetings which has helped. The most obvious thing would be to reduce the frequency of our quarterly meetings to e.g. every 2 months. And having a small newsletter could be useful. We could all share updates about our CCSL work every 4 weeks and Cecilia could compile it (and she could publish it on Yammer afterwards). And in the month that we have our bimonthly meeting we would get that news update the day before the meeting and we could focus on other issues for those bimonthly meetings.
Review of the progress
Institutional learning & planning (strand 1)
RBM trial work is part of that.
5 impact pathway regional workshops on ToC feeding evidence for the platforms developed, to be assessed collectively?
Hopefully we can report on this soon... What is required is the adaptive capacity/management.
Not much traction for 'learning' (within CCAFS, CGIAR) so this process-focused work needs much re-branding.
Outcomes are outside though.
All the RBM, learning nodes etc. are all part of the CCSL brief series.
The platforms that you were referring to are... CCAFS reporting platforms for the project that now accommodate adaptive management.
Lots of impact / learning briefs but not much feedback on these.
Talking to lots of people and we can now show that other orgs are putting time into this (e.g. CSIRO, CARIAA) but in terms of fund-raising not much happening and we need to spend a bit of time on this to look at options. CCSL cannot be sold on its own. Social learning has to be one of the elements of a wider change initiative.
Options for funding: GIZ large grants (cross-CRP), Polly's call, DfID call, ESRC call...
Evidence-gathering (strand 2)
...
Confusion about process vs. outcomes. Key areas seen sometimes as sequential but we argued that
Worked on rationalising the amount of indicators. Lots of sensitivities of CIP staff...
We may need to build a matrix of the types of answers we get and could hire an intern to analyse the case studies emanating from this.
Bolso-Floresta project (social protection + environmental protection project). They want to include social learning as part of the systematic review. Throughout the year we should be getting results from the systematic review etc.
We can get a profile of the projects and find out if they're pursuing social learning for internal coordination or external outcomes perspectives.
This characterisation can help us tag case studies etc. to source comparable initiatives etc.
Good energy and good outputs but now we need to move to the next level. One of the key next steps is to get back to the projects from the M&E workshop.
Another key next step is to start thinking how we want to gather evidence...
Networking, coordination and coalition-building (strand 3)
Sandbox.
Hoima work - Moses, Alex, Gerd found the use of a social learning approach quite useful and found the results quite different to what they expected, and they really liked the interactions around their integrated water management. Good value of the approach. In terms of outputs, some good blog posts and requesting extra funding/support for 2015. We got some discussion about this on the sandbox. A lot of internal learning happening and the documentation happened but in a more traditional 'report' kind of way. 4 reports happened. Now we need to push them to use the framework to document the process. Gerd attended the evidence-gathering workshop and is planning to use the framework. They have been very responsive to comments made on Yammer etc. Reports are all available on CCAFS website and Yammer. The sandbox worked very much for them.
Are we setting up parallel streams of support? We need to integrate these...
Happy families and sandbox learning brief.
Quarterly meetings.
Comms and influencing strategies - underway + ToC work to be adapted etc.
Wiki and website editing. We reviewed every single page etc. and updated the whole series. It's in a much better shape.
Energy a bit low - but perhaps because not much f2f happening except M&E evidence-gathering event - need to link this better with the rest of the work and go in some direction.
We need to check if much traffic is generated from the outputs we publish in other spaces etc.
Developing a vision and theory of change for CCSL
(We decided, through the facilitation of Carl Jackson, to identify vision statements for CCSL by 2025 and also by 2018 as an intermediary step. Each of us came up with a statement for each. We clustered these statements from 2025 all the way down to 2018. Then we worked in groups to polish the statements and make them easier to understand. After that we juxtaposed the vision statements and identified potential gaps, necessary actions, important actors to involve from one step to the next e.g. from the 2025 ultimate impact statement to the development outcomes to the link to development outcomes to the areas of work. etc.. Finally, for each of the five areas of work we identified, we individually suggested activities that will get us there. The results were aggregated and are presented below).1. International development actors 'do SL'
(An emerging set of international development actors are putting cross-scale (social) learning + adaptive management approaches at the heart of their programmes, from design to evaluation.Evidence of impact:
- Show why such approaches have value
- Build evidence base to convince others to use SL approach
- Case studies of good examples
- Evidence base of value of SL in programs (and when not to bother)
Tools / capacity building:- SL tools for program scoping and design are selected, piloted, evidenced and made accessible
- Toolkits + quicks ??? to show how to use
- Building evidence base for value
- Capacity strengthening on how to integrate SL in programming
- Work closely with particular institutions to build internal capacity + demonstration
- Evidence-supported guidance on integrating these approaches into planning, practice and evaluation
Creating confidence through peer-group (single spaces, dialogue + momentum)Meta analysis of effectiveness of strategies to support SL uptake and use
Influencing and engaging:
6. CCSL is the force convening other parts?
Mapping:Convening:
Comms + identity:
(Internal) capacity:
Research:
Finance:
Meta:
Funding / fund-raising
A fund-raising strategy
No formal proposal developed yet. We have not been very good at mobilising the time needed to respond to calls (e.g. GIP call)... The people that have been instrumental to provide inputs have not been able to provide these efforts.What we don't have is an academic organisation that has core funding and can do this type of proposal-development. Perhaps we could find such an organisation to act as principal investigator. We started with John Enser (University of York) but he left this group for other tasks.
We may need someone that is not academic but someone who can do more engagement etc. and has more time for this. It would be good to have a backing institution that can lend the academic credibility to our group and could also lend an office. Such an organisation should be able to provide free time to spend on this work. Marissa has time but would need guidance. Cecilia Schubert can also help with this.
The CIM opportunity could buy us a body to drive the process and to take care of pulling information about fund-raising...
We have resources for it and with the right time horizon.
RSS feed monitoring to collect information about upcoming calls for funding.
Next year perhaps some of the time for Carl/Pete could go to whoever takes care of this.
But do we have the legitimacy to engage with potential donors in relation with CCAFS?
The alternative is to bring more organisations in the mix, beyond CCAFS, to expand our chances of engagement with potential funders.
We stand a real chance for the GIZ funding tracks.
From CCAFS, Sonja and Bruce can go approach funders with that CCSL hat on - we have to provide them with more weapons in their fund-raising arsenal.
ACTION: Develop ToR for the CIM position...
If we can pitch RBM as connected to social learning we get some more buy-in.
We have two strands: responsive fund-raising (calls for proposals) and strategic, pro-active fund-raising where we need time and champions. Perhaps we need to prioritise the strategic fund-raising... What do we need to activate latent champions to help us market CCSL work?
We need champions (strategic fund-raising), we need scientific support/credibility (for reactive fund-raising) and across the two we need administrative time to get things going.
Assets we can mobilise? Our ToC, some papers, tools and frameworks...
Our 'foot in the door' has to be very clear. Behind that we need some substance to the story (e.g. analysis of who's on board, the evidence base we're producing, our pathway to change, the way we anticipate paying for our work etc.). ==> That should go into a two-page concept note. Perhaps develop a little hand-out that updates our thinking from the original brief that Liz developed.
This 2-page pitch has to address: Why is this (social learning) essential and what do we have to bring to the table?
We could ask our champions to test out this pitch.
Tomorrow, a group will work on:
- the 2-pager,
- ToRs for the CIM position + fund-raising strategy (identifying champions);
- the ToC further and synthesise it,
- the written output (academic )
- an outcome story...
Having in mind sthg that could be written collectively.Funding-wise, we need to identify who are the key movers and shakers...
Addressing loose issues
The M&E framework and guidance document
What questions do we aim at answering?- When is SL useful/beneficial?
- What are the outcomes of Social Learning?
- What are conditions to get SL working well? In which contexts and under what conditions does it take place successfully?
- Does SL create spaces for more voices to be heard? How does this relate to gender and social differentiation...?
- Is there a benefit in investing more into SL?
- How do you deal with conflicts that arise?
- What is the timeline at which SL starts paying off at higher scales?
We could use this work to look at development outcomes that the social learning approach may induce?We could ask the people who have used the M&E framework what they started learning about SL, as this is not currently covered by this?
This process will continue, and the peer assist will lead to explore some of the questions above. In addition, there may be another round of action/reflection to deepen the questioning process on SL, perhaps thanks to funding or out of their interest.
ACTION: Marissa to connect with Cecilia to develop a blog post about the M&E framework and guidance document.
Yammer and the future of the sandbox?
As facilitator, this doesn't really work. It relates to the way it is designed as it is a safe organisational space. If we were to start now we probably wouldn't choose this platform.It has really rubbish profiles. We need a lot more information about who's in there. If we go public and strategic, we need to connect with like-minded other groups. I don't know how to link up with other platforms.
The more we try to expand, go public etc. the less and less able Yammer will be able to do that.
I suggest using LinkedIn groups. It's commercially provided, it can have specific private networks.
Even if we go for the pro account it remains cheap (US 500). 95% of people on the sandbox have detailed profiles on LinkedIn.
- Q: What are the main things people do when they go on Yammer?
- A: Sharing resources, creating documents.
What functions do we want, what does Yammer and what does LinkedIn groups provide? If we move platforms, what would be the tradeoffs?We are linked up with the wiki - where we could publish documents etc.
If we look for a peer-support platform, we might want more closed off conversation spaces - which can be done with (professional) LinkedIn groups.
If we ask the community to vote, we should say: these are the functionalities we know you use, here are some extra ones that we think we will use more of, this is what Yammer/LinkedIn provide... Would you be interested in using either/both?
We would have to preface what our ambitions are...
We might want to ask what are the platforms that users would totally not want to go for?
- Q: How many of the people would become more active if we were on LinkedIn?
Maybe we're making it easier by opening up this?We need a survey to understand the potential downsides and upsides.
If we want growth and a bigger community, we'll still have lurkers etc. Is it that at the moment Yammer is helpful for sharing docs etc. Do we need both?
It also depends on what we want: quantity? Probably more likely with LinkedIn, or engagement quality?
It may be less appealing, on the other hand, to do a peer assist on LinkedIn which can feel like a public CV...
If Yammer was re-purposed for the peer-support.
ACTION: CJ, PC, ELB, PB to come up with a note and a survey + think about administration implications about transitioning platforms...
Internal comms
How can we communicate more often to ensure we're on track etc. What platform do we use to keep track of our work?Good to have had different strands but we get separate activities. Having a weekly 1/2-hour meeting worked for IIED. Do we need sthg like this?
12 months ago we didn't have quarterly meetings which has helped. The most obvious thing would be to reduce the frequency of our quarterly meetings to e.g. every 2 months. And having a small newsletter could be useful. We could all share updates about our CCSL work every 4 weeks and Cecilia could compile it (and she could publish it on Yammer afterwards). And in the month that we have our bimonthly meeting we would get that news update the day before the meeting and we could focus on other issues for those bimonthly meetings.