most+significant+change

//inspired by meaningful stories//
 * Most significant change**


 * What it is**

Most significant change is a qualitative and participatory method for monitoring and evaluation. It helps you to monitor and evaluate the performance of your activities through the participatory collection of stories that reflect significant change resulting from human rights activities.


 * When to use it**

- To evaluate an activity, project or programme - To build ownership among the stakeholders of a project - To share visions and values - To facilitate a dynamic dialogue - When working with diverse outcomes and multiple stakeholders - Capturing “hard to capture” data about changes in hearts and minds


 * How it is applied**

- The most significant change technique involves a participatory collection of stories. This involves asking staff to provide anecdotes from stakeholders focusing on change that has happened as the result of an activity, project or programme. - Once the change has been captured, a systematic selection of the stories takes place, with a slight bias in favour of success and impact. - Based on this selected sample of stories, the actors involved in the evaluation exercise (internal and/or external to OHCHR) start in-depth discussions on project impact and about the value of the reported changes.

The method was originally invented by Rick Davies and has undergone several adaptations. The original guide, which you will find in the resouces section usually highlights ten different steps to undertake:

Overview of the implementation steps (Davies, R. and Dart, J. 2005, The Most Significant Change (MSC) Technique: A guide to its use, Trumpington, Cambridge)


 * || What? || Why? ||
 * 1 || Getting started: establishing champions and getting familiar with the approach || To build interest ||
 * 2 || Establishing domains of change || defining clearly the type of change you want to capture (for example: "During the last month, in your opinion, what was the most significant change that took place for the beneficiaries of the activity?"). This kind of questions will help those gathering stories to understand the type of inspirational change you are looking for, what type of cases would be useful to illustrate such change, etc. ||
 * 3 || Defining the reporting period || To provide a timeframe for your evaluation. ||
 * 4 || Collecting stories of change || This includes also some quality control mechanisms to ensure that the information content is accurate, relevant and representative ||
 * 5 || Reviewing the stories and selecting the most significant ones || To select stories on the basis of agreed upon criteria ||
 * 6 || Provide stakeholders with feedback about the selection process || To inform them openly about the selected stories ||
 * 7 || Verifying the stories || To check that the stories have been reported accurately and honestly ||
 * 8 || Quantification || To include quantitative information as well as qualitative information ||
 * 9 || Conducting secondary analysis || To identify the main themes and differences among stories, to conceptualize the change, to encourage further publication via articles, conference papers, etc. ||
 * 10. || Revising the most significant change process || To revise the design of the most significant change process and take into account what has been learned. ||

There is usually a high level of enthusiasm throughout the entire process.

The technique links very well with the "storytelling" technique described in this toolkit.


 * How to adapt it**

- Instead of a one time application it might be interesting to run several cycles of the technique - While the MSC technique produces stories in function of monitoring and evaluation, many of the stories that come up can be used for other purposes as well (communication, dissemination, media and future planning). - Stories could be collected before a face-to-face workshop. During the event itself the stories and lessons learned can be discussed. - The stories collected through this method can also feed into manuals and guidelines to illustrate guidance with experiences and examples.

- Make sure you get support from senior management and assign someone to lead the entire process - Make sure everybody understands the process - Stories need to be real and the experiences must be reviewed by those responsible for the project or activity whose impact is being assessed - Make sure the 'change' that you want to document is clearly defined. Make sure you know exactly what you want to find out in order to avoid confusion. - Communicate very carefully how stories will be selected and deal with the selection in a sensitive way, since everybody is attached to his/her story - Stories can also be collected through knowledge sharing technologies (discussion forums, wiki, blogs)
 * What to consider**

During the "Share, Learn, innovate!" workshops, different groups of OHCHR participants brainstormed on the potential application of the Most Significant Change method. Here are some of their ideas for applying this tool:
 * OHCHR Applications**

- To promote the cross-fertilization of experiences from the field, focusing on good practices and demonstrating our impact to external partners. - As a tool for reflection during section retreats, strategic planning meetings, annual reporting and after mission reviews. - When evaluating and reporting on programmes and activities - As a means to assess the impact of human rights training activities -To gauge improvements in IT services


 * Where to learn more**

- The ‘Most Significant Change’ (MSC) Technique: A Guide to Its Use" by Rick Davies and Jess Dart (2005). 104 pages. PDF format - 1.236 KB [] - Most significant change http://www.odi.org.uk/rapid/tools/toolkits/Communication/MSC.html - KS toolkit: http://www.kstoolkit.org/Most+Significant+Change - Clear Horizon: http://www.clearhorizon.com.au/flagship-techniques/most-significant-change/