TEAM TASK: Using what you learned during your monitoring visits, adapt your workplan and activities to address your program needs.
Step Output: Adapted plan
Tool Needed: Adaptive Management Guidance – description – offline PDF
In these step description pages we give you a breakdown of everything you need to do to get started with program measurement. Completing all the steps (5 per phase, 15 total for the whole process) will round out phase three of the Think | BIG approach, called Track and Adapt. Steps for each phase match the goals for that phase of behavior integration guidance (BIG). We also tell you what tools we have to help you with each step and the main task for your team. Power through to a successful finish!
Adaptive management is “an intentional approach to making decisions and adjustments in response to new information and changes in context.” This type of management means that you deal with difficult program problems during your program. To improve your actively running program. Not just after the project ends, but to improve the next program.
The basic idea behind adaptive management is that if you’re not getting the results you need, study why, and make necessary shifts. Plans are never set in stone and should not be rigidly followed. They are guidelines based on your best estimate, at the time you wrote them, of what would work. If the data indicates that things are not actually working, then you need to adapt.
Use your data and what you learn to inform program changes now. Not later! The faster you respond, the less likely that getting off track will snowball into additional challenges. Or become more costly or complex to fix later.
To adapt, if you are not getting the behavioral or factor-level outcomes you expected, ask:
Then make immediate changes to activities, supporting actor actions or critical factors, based on the answers you gather.
When you adapt on an ongoing basis, you can proactively respond to changing environments, needs, and program elements. It allows you to realign your program interventions, based on rapid learning and feedback. And you can better pair those interventions with your behavioral outcomes. Adaptation lets you compensate for the fact that it’s difficult to see the “best” way through before you start implementation. No matter how well-developed your priority behaviors and pathways to change are.
Adapting on an ongoing basis within your program means:
Adapting as you go lets you program elements in a timely manner, based on your meaningful indicators. This makes sure you are moving towards your goal by changing your priority behaviors. And if you find you are not moving in the direction you hoped? Then adaptive management helps you see what needs to change and how you should course-correct.
You are on the second to the last step of the BIG process! We are so impressed with your program. You’ve adapted your plan and your activities based on what you learned during monitoring. Now, it’s time to evaluate your program. Since you’ve stayed focused on behaviors throughout, you should anticipate awesome results! Move on to evaluating your activities and gathering lessons learned. You will have so much to share.
Need a bit more information before you move on? You might find checking out the offline tool useful.
We’d also love to help, if you need us. Drop us an email.
The Think | BIG website was developed under the ACCELERATE project, which was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID and implemented under Task Order No. AID-OAA-TO-15-00052 by The Manoff Group, Inc. in association with Howard Delafield International, OneWorld UK, Social Impact, Inc., and Sonjara, Inc. ACCELERATE is issued through the Transform IDIQ (Contract No. AID-OAA-I-14-00002). The information on this website does not necessarily represent the views of USAID or the United States Government.
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