The SustainaMetrix Approach
Developing solutions to complex challenges requires an understanding of the conditions that must be present to enable success, increased capacity, collaboration and communication across sectors and disciplines, adaptive learning systems, the means to measure progress, and the resources for sustained support.
Breaking out of disciplinary or sectoral silos to collaborate effectively is in itself a very complex challenge.
Instead of ignoring or attempting to tame complexity, we look at how a particular issue fits within a larger web of interconnected social and environmental issues to build a far stronger sense of context. We accomplish this through timelines, case studies, cultural audits, needs assessments and learning journeys.
Then, we weave into this deep appreciation of context an intricate understanding of people and institutions and the power dynamics (both formal and informal) between them. We then look at how the resulting mosaic aligns and interacts through interests, responsibilities, and vulnerabilities. We accomplish this through network analysis, stakeholder dialogues, systems mapping and governance baselining.
Looking at an issue as part of a larger, complex, dynamic system of issues intertwined and operating at multiple scales, can generate great confusion or can empower strategic thinking for setting goals, planning and implementing actions. Once this level of complexity is embraced, it is easier to move away from a search for precise cause-effect relationships. New connections and issues will be discovered or emerge over time. A shift in one seemingly distant part of the web could have unanticipated impacts on the issues addressed by a specific program. So, an approach that embraces complexity must also commit to continued learning, flexibility, and better forms of adaptation.
We do not propose to solve issues for our partners through diagnostics and recommendations. Rather, we work together with them to understand the challenge and build the skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed to plan, implement, monitor, and adjust to stay aligned with their ultimate goals and make progress within the context of complexity.
Our unique approach to training, evaluation, and consulting draws from three innovative concepts:
The Ecosystem Approach
This approach considers human society to be an integral piece of an interrelated social-environmental ecosystem. The implication of this is that environmental issues cannot be addressed independently of social issues. The entire context must be understood, and our actions should be focused on bringing about beneficial changes in human behavior, as it is through our behaviors that we make both beneficial and detrimental impacts on the natural environment.
The Six Core Competencies
These aptitudes were identified by our thought partner Stephen Bloye Olsen of the Coastal Resources Center at the University of Rhode Island as the Six Core Competencies for Practitioners of the Ecosystem Approach. We have found that these competencies are key for practitioners attempting to implement collaborative cross-disciplinary education initiatives, as well.
1. Competency in facilitation, mediation, stakeholders engagement, and public education
2. Competency in strategic design/improvement of stewardship initiatives
3. Competency in design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation in support of adaptive learning and acting
4. Competency in analysis of long term changes in condition and use of ecosystems
5. Competency in analysis of governance structures and processes
6. Competency in building leadership required to influence political will
Developmental Evaluation
Developmental evaluation is a form of program evaluation that has evolved over time and is described by Michael Quinn Patton as part of the “multi-starred evaluation universe,” yet moves away from traditional formative to summative evaluation methods. The essence of developmental evaluation lies in the purpose of the evaluation and the relationship between an innovator and the evaluator. In more traditional formative to summative evaluation approaches, this relationship is marked by distance and formality. In developmental evaluation, the innovator and the evaluator coalesce in a form of a partnership to facilitate learning and adaptation. While the purpose of developmental evaluation may be ongoing development of an innovation, or adapting effective principles to a new context, or responding to massive change, it always embraces complex systems challenges. We often find this form of evaluation most useful to help our partners to sequence and prioritize their actions, monitor their progress in terms of process and the achievement of outcomes, to track the process and learning of the program and to build the the six competencies within a program - to promote better collaboration and bridge the gap between planning and implementation. To learn more about the nuances of developmental evaluation, please
contact us or
click here to read an in-depth article by Michael Quinn Patton.
To learn more about our capabilities and the tools we use in our approach, click here.
