sdclan

Reto Wieser is the Head of the Knowledge and Learning Processes Division of SDC. He talks about two basic ingredients for learning: Motivation for individual learning and incentives for organisational learning. Project Cycle Management, thematic competencies and the abilities to work in loose forms of collaboration with changing roles are the three fields of learning he would emphasise for SDC:

• What is your own understanding of learning?

Learning is something which happens inside me, a rather complicated set of processes that go on automatically or consciously. I think of this rather as a kind of „black box“ and don’t need to know all details about it. However, what I can very well grasp or even measure is result of what happened, of learning: The third drafting of a credit proposal as per the new guidelines goes much easier as the first did and it takes less time to accomplish this task. Or, my computer skills have improved after refresher training, or in sports I play a better tennis and make less mistakes after taking up regular practice with a good player. These three examples are visible results of intricate internal processes which combine physical and intellectual skills, self-reflection, improvement by repeated practice etc. (more…)

by Adrian Gnägi

How is it possible that

• social change is emergent and therefore cannot be precisely planned for, but
• LogFrame is the standard tool in aid for planning and reporting on social transformation?

Is theory wrong or are development practitioners systematically lying about what they are doing? In this post I argue that the issue is not lying, but rather precariously muddling through. Imprecision and cascade reporting are the two main techniques used in our business to reconcile LogFrame and emergence. This is unhealthy.

In a recent blog post on what has gone wrong with MfDR (Managing for Development Results) I argued that support for social transformation should not be conceived using LogFrames. In a comment, Rick Davies expressed puzzlement with this demand. I can easily understand why people do not want to let go of LogFrame. The LogFrame approach is backed by the most powerful lobby in our organizations: it is the middle managers who make it our standard. LogFrames are still here after 50 years because middle managers get from them what they need: a nutshell project summary; the link between resources, activities and results; and indicators for measurement and reporting. LogFrames are a great tool for organizing funding relationships. Unfortunately, they are utterly inappropriate as guidance for implementation (see my earlier post on the usefullness of different program formats). This is why we need to go for the institutional struggle, that’s why the standard must fall. (more…)

By Adrian Gnägi 
There is growing international frustration with the way the MfDR (managing for development results) agenda developed. In this post, I reflect on a widely read article by Andrew Natsios, former head of USAID.

A few weeks ago IDS organized an event entitled “the big push back meeting”. The aim of the meeting was to galvanize a movement against the “current trend for funding organisations to support only those programmes designed to deliver easily measurable results”. During the event, a recent essay by Andrew Natsios on what has gone bad with the results agenda in aid was frequently referred to. Natsios message is that “Obsessive Measurement Disorder” (OMD, “… an intellectual dysfunction rooted in the notion that counting everything in government programs will produce better policy choices and improved management”, p.4 ) has spread in development agencies to a degree that it nowadays prevents transformational development. He claims that the drive for transparency and accountability has become the major enemy of good development practice, the main obstacle for developmental impact. Natsios is careful in pointing out that the results agenda was well intended and produced some desirable change in aid. His focus is on the loss of balance, though, on the sickening consequences of taking into account what is measured only. (more…)

“Let children choose! They will choose the most difficult tasks. The moment they are promised a reward, they will opt for the simple ones.”

Matthias Binswanger, a well-known economist and professor at a Swiss Technical University has been interviewed by the Swiss weekly newspaper  “WoZ” (in german) when he talked about meaningless competition and the effects such incentives may produce.

Let the collaborators develop and use their own curiosity (for learning) and limit bureaucratic obligation to the max.

We wish you a happy new year!
Manuel Flury, Michèle Marin, Adrian Gnägi, Tobias Sommer 

By Manuel Flury
The Knowledge and Learning Processes Division of SDC intends to award a prize for “good learning” to collaborators of the organisation. For that matter we launched a debate in the km4dev community seeking examples of “good learning practices”. Besides of many proposals, documented learning from failures was proposed.
After visiting colleagues at their work place and getting to understand how they learn in their daily practice we became aware of the importance of self-initiative, of the key role of superiors to let them do what they intend to do and of the transformative power of such individual initiatives for the whole organisation.
Good learning combines ”doing things better” and  “transforming the way, things are being done”, i.e. the individual and the institutional aspect of learning.

The original query to the km4dev community: What is “good learning”?

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By Manuel Flury
Three words are written in big black letters on a flip chart in front of the workshop room: “CONTEXT”, “OPPORTUNITY”, “SOLUTION”. Eleven specialists from human resources, IT, project management from different Swiss Federal Offices sit behind the u-shaped tables – painted in the usual grey colour – in one of the training rooms at the lower floors of the Federal Office for Personnel Affairs. Outside of the room a remote lawn mower makes its eternal turns over the nice green in between two tall buildings. The summer weather would invite strolling along the nearby river Aare. In the mid-afternoon, the guest speaker takes the floor. (more…)

Why should you bother for participatory methodologies in f2f meetings of networks, if frontal plenary sessions seem to be so much easier to organise? The value added does not only concern the atmosphere and output of a f2f meeting itself, but also the way network-members will collaborate virtually beyond the meeting.
Riff Fullan, knowledge coordinator at Helvetas, shares with us his reflections on the Helvetas experience in network facilitation. (more…)

By Manuel Flury
SDC’s  “Knowledge Management and Instutitional Learning” Evaluation (2009) was clear about it: Metrics, process orientation, a knowledge framework will bring SDC forward in “sharing and learning”. In addition, a somewhat mysterious term reappears: “incentive”. We know a lot about what “incites” collaborators to share, to ask questions or not to do so and we and up saying: It needs a cultural change. Who shapes the organisational culture in this direction and what triggers such a dynamic? In the discussion among the Knowledge Management for Development Community in July and August 2009, Nancy White proposes to build on innovative people that might trigger new ways of learning in the organisation and have support from the managers. In the same spirit, Steve Glovinsky suggests to work with tuned-in decision-makers to get Knowledge Management institutionalised to an extent that new managers won’t have the chance “to mess things up”.

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