My Communities

Number 1 point in any project. I would say even more – communication is the driving force in great majority of situations that happen in the world. It is very important to have a constant talk with each member. Thus a manager gets ongoing feedback, updates colleagues and simply shows that he is not a boss with tough management style, but a leader who can discuss even yesterdays’ TV-show.

I worry that my organisation might create a TOC that is difficult to measure because we did not clearly identify specific indicators at different levels (input, output and outcome). To avoid this, I will need to invest adequate time thinking deeply and clearly articulating what my organisation would want to be held accountable for, and what it is we would want to achieve, who we want to target and by when, and clearly stating our assumptions. More practically, it may involve reviewing relevant literature to understand and doing consultations with stakeholders to gain insights that will help us to focus on our goal and identify/develop the concrete "signs" of achievement of results.

I worry that my organization might not take external constraints into considerations because every state or office or branch has its own challenges. To avoid this i will suggest we develop varying action plans for various offices in the different locations
I would explain to my team that realizing we need to change is the first step to a greater success and doing thing the same way as old will not move the company forward in this competitive market

I worry that my organization will not be able to take into account all those pitfalls because they do not have skills to do so. We lack human capacity to develop a fully functional theory of change

Confusing accountability with hope is the most difficult to avoid as you want to do more. We can avoid this by being aware and honest of what we can realistically accomplishment given our context: limited budget and personnel.

I worry that my organization might be assuming we have figured it all out because proper allowance has not been made for the regularly testing the continuous validity of our assumptions as well as considering what new assumptions we might need to test to learn from and improve impact. To avoid this, I will endeavour to recognize and explicitly account for as many relevant uncertainties underlying our plans.

The resources, strategies, interventions to redirect them are very challenging and some times become confident enough to not develop assumptions and engaging resources for the situations. And to counter them it will be good to redesign entire systems backed by the philosophy of ToC

This is a wise thing to be done, and it will be better to orient them over thus concept of theory of change. For this an orientation session with your colleagues and mamagement will work for u

Based on my experience at my organisation, the trap that we fall into most often is "creating a mirror instead of a target," as ToCs are typically not completed at the beginning of the project, and are sometimes designed as an after thought rather than as a strategy tool. To avoid this pitfall, it means socialising this idea of doing a ToC at the beginning of a project cycle, and start conversations about it as early as possible.

Based on my experience at my organisation, the trap that we fall into most often is "creating a mirror instead of a target," as ToCs are typically not completed at the beginning of the project, and are sometimes designed as an after thought rather than as a strategy tool. To avoid this pitfall, it means socialising this idea of doing a ToC at the beginning of a project cycle, and start conversations about it as early as possible.

Based on my experience at my organisation, the trap that we fall into most often is "creating a mirror instead of a target," as ToCs are typically not completed at the beginning of the project, and are sometimes designed as an after thought rather than as a strategy tool. To avoid this pitfall, it means socialising this idea of doing a ToC at the beginning of a project cycle, and start conversations about it as early as possible.

Based on my experience at my organisation, the trap that we fall into most often is "creating a mirror instead of a target," as ToCs are typically not completed at the beginning of the project, and are sometimes designed as an after thought rather than as a strategy tool. To avoid this pitfall, it means socialising this idea of doing a ToC at the beginning of a project cycle, and start conversations about it as early as possible.

I worry that my organization might fail to take the external context into account, because the dynamics of the situation in which the benificiaries of the project is complex one and the level of poverty in the target communities is also needs deeper logical thinking and critical reflection. To avoid this, my project team will take a quality time to get deeper understanding of the external context will help me and my team create a more realistic theory of change. Moreover, integrateing the anticipated actions of policy makers, the work of peer organizations, expected changes in the economic climate, and other factors will be curcial acts to be implemented.

I worry that my organization will create a non-measurable theory , because it might articulate wrong perception assumptions. To avoid this, I will review and set up a real pathway to inter-ling the assumptions and the interventions within my risk register exercise.

I worry that my organization might not be able to clearly define the accountabilitty process because there are no real information about the topic. To avoid this, I will try to find ways to create the numbers we need.

Hello my friend Bello

When we identify pitfalls we gain perspective of what may negatively affect us

Our pitfalls are creating theory that isn't measurable and assuming we've figured it all out.
Our program is to raise awareness of human rights, after trainings completed, it just ended. We don't have any measurable indicator and we though we success.
We can fix that problem by creating survey questions to analyze what they learned from our trainings. And, we need to discuss about our theory again.

I WORRY THAT MY ORGANISATION MAY NOT BE ABLE TO MANAGE THE INCIDENCES OF LOW OUTCOMES IF THE PROJECT DOES NOT ACCOMPLISH ITS PURPOSE

The most challenging pitfall to avoid for my organization would be failing to take external context into account. When developing a program in Venezuela, you're subject to a lot of arbitrary, sudden, and unpredictable changes due to the severe economic, social, and institutional crisis that the country is undergoing. To avoid this, we have to consider the worst-case scenarios and be prepared accordingly with plan B or C.

Not be able to avoid our activities, strategies and resources because to avoid this, I will have to rethink what we intend to achieve

A well-run Theory of Change process can be transformative for an organization. A poorly-run process can be a huge waste of time. Identifying the problems that might occur (the pitfalls) beforehand will help your organization avoid common issues.

I worry that my organization might fail to reach the expected target audience (beneficiaries) and also not fully achieve very concrete results (results). This is mainly due to the fact that some learners from non-under resourced schools may be among those benefiting, and chasing them may be very hard. In fact, not all the beneficiaries may benefit from the project. This can hence influence the project scope and budget, among others. To avoid these, we will work will school head teachers, who will provide us with school registers so that the right beneficiaries are part of the project.

external constraints if not paid attention to can bring about what we call scope creep, where the project scope changes on its own...

I worry that my organization might have assumption of figuring it all out because I think some of the assumptions have not been considered during developing the ToC. To avoid this, I will set a learning agenda and revise the ToC constantly.

I worry that my organization mostly creates a mirror instead of targets. This is because there is already a set out methodology that guides how things should work making it abit rigid when it comes to coming up with a theory of change. To avoid this i will brainstorm of various ways to work around the organization methodology, making it more flexible to the activities and strategies

I think my organization will have problems producing its results in the allotted time. because the interventions take place during the school year during this one the teachers always go on strike. Pupils therefore do not receive the initially planned hourly volume.
To avoid this trap, I recommend that the organization links the expected results of the project to the number of hours taught.

I think the object was to consider one of the six pitfalls that can be encountered in the conception of the theory of change.

I worry that my organization might write about the mirror instead of the target because it s difficult. To avoid this, I will write the outcomes and activities clearly with assumptions.

In our organization as pitfall we can identify the fact that we can create a theory that it may be not measurable

I do not belong to a specific organization, although I have worked with several. The pitfall I most revise myself in designing programs or projects is "Failing to take the external context into account". To avoid this, I would need to work on a deep understanding of the external context, research what has been done on the program main topics, and what it is planned to be done in the next years.

I worry that my organisation might fail to take external context into account because we are the only implementing partner within our area of work. To avoid this, I will ensure to corporate with government agencies responsible for the same program and to remotely coordinate with other IPs elsewhere through selective borrowing and improvement strategy

I worry that my organization might assume that we have it all figured out because of the inevitable subjectivity that comes with being part of the process of creating a theory of change. What we can do in this regard is to work together to ensure that there are different perspectives that allow us to recognize the things that need to be improved in our theory of change.

One of the pit fall my organization is most likely to fall into is not considering external context. This is because some of the interventions would be impacted by some external stakeholders working along the same line. To prevent this we need to understand what other stakeholders are doing along the various pathways to the desired change and ensure that our strategies/interventions build synergy with other initiatives and avoid duplication of efforts and counterproductivity

@MES-Diyan i resonate with your point as well

Measure our impact will be hard. We will try to come back and validate our indicators.

I worry that my organization might "Not confirming the plausibility of your theory" because of limited resources and time. To avoid this, i will take time to make research and get to know all details before embarking on working or finishing the theory of Change

I worry that my organization might creating a mirror instead of a target, because does not reflect what is already doing. To acoid this, I will help to define a target population and indicator to measure results.

You do not worry, there are many organizations that works with a lack of people. The important thing is try to applied the Theory of Change in the projects where it can be succesful.

I worry that my organization might assume that we have figure it all out because we have confused our accountability with our hopes . To avoid this, I will we need to make sure that we specify our assumptions, regularly reflect on whether such assumptions are bearing out, and monitor what new assumptions can be tested to improve the organisational impact. Our organisation can also develop a learning agenda - with simple list of assumptions and hypothesis that our organisation can test at various timeframes.

Interpersonal conflict, To avoid this i will improve competence.

I worry that my organization might not be well enough equiped at this time to take into consideration the external factors because the COVID-19 pandemic caused a lot of uncertainties and the effects on our community are devastating and reaching far. It affects our goals in ways we believe we cannot yet comprehend. To avoid this, we will discuss this potential pitfall and try to make some possible scenarios for this

I worry that my organization might assuming figured it all out, because we are too sure of our assumptions without paying attention to the possibilities that might happen in the future. To avoid this i will make a periodic schedule to test our assumptions whether they are still relevant or not.

A potential pitfall is to not confirm the plausibility of our theory because we typically rely on internal dialogue. With this realisation now, we will definitely take steps to ensure we engage available data and resources to confirm our theories/assumptions.