Outcome Mapping
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Outcome Mapping Practitioner Guide
Progress Markers
Progress Markers reflect the intervention's knowledge of the changes required for the Boundary Partner to understanding and fulfill its roles and responsibilities as implied in the vision statement. Progress Markers identify actions and interrelationships that will continue beyond the life and influence of the intervention - the patterns of behaviour and adaptation that will continue without further support from the time bound intervention.
In formulating Pro... Read more ▼
Progress Markers reflect the intervention's knowledge of the changes required for the Boundary Partner to understanding and fulfill its roles and responsibilities as implied in the vision statement. Progress Markers identify actions and interrelationships that will continue beyond the life and influence of the intervention - the patterns of behaviour and adaptation that will continue without further support from the time bound intervention.
In formulating Progress Markers it is ideal if the Boundary Partner can participate in some way, either at the blank page stage or in discussing an early draft. Among the Progress Markers, try to include actions related to adaptive management and self-organizing behaviour as well as the use of monitoring and evaluation.
One way to think about Progress Markers is to visualize a transformation of deepening competence and commitment and to develop milestones for each of the following stages in such a journey:
- Learning about the possibility of change
- Taking the first tentative steps to change
- Strengthening skills & knowledge for change
- Adapting based on feedback and experience
- Investing time and resources in the changes
- Overcoming obstacles, sustaining effort
- Ownership, identity based on the changes
- Leading, influencing, leaving a legacy
How can we develop and formulate Progress Markers?
The specificity of the Progress Markers depends on the intervention's knowledge of the situation and the stakeholders and on the diversity within the Boundary Partner category. With detailed knowledge or with little diversity, the Progress Markers can be quite specific.
Nuggets related to this section:
- How to go from an Outcome Challenge to a set of Progress Markers by Steff Deprez
- Simplifying heavy intentional designs (reducing numbers of progress markers) by Jan Van Ongevalle
- A checklist for Progress Markers by Kate Dyer
- Using video in Outcome Mapping during the Intentional Design and the monitoring of outcomes by Erica Wortel
How can I use Progress Markers in my existing PM&E framework?
It can be useful to give varying weights to the data points agreed upon for each Progress Marker or to assign them weights depending on the frequency an event (a data point) is observed. For example, under the fairly general Progress Marker 'using community feedback to adjust its programs', data showing that the intervention was monitoring the level fo community participation might count, but with a lower weight than, say, meeting quarterly with a community advisory committee to review program activities. An action that would count with an even higher weighting might be:including in annual reports a section on adjustments made to program activities based on community inputs.
Nuggets related to this section:
Should I use generic Progress Markers or tailor-made Progress Markers?
During the design stage of larger programmes, teams often need to decide whether they formulate over-all / generic Outcome Challenges and Progress Markers for each type of boundary partner or tailor-made Outcome Challenges and Progress Markers for each single boundary partner.
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How often and how should i review and adapt my Progress Markers
A set of Progress Markers can be changed sand adapated during the lifespan of the project /programme. What are the experiences of practitioners in adapting progress markersd during the course of the programme?
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