Start with this question: if this project is successful, WHO will change? WHAT GROUPS of people or organisations will be affected? Be realistic, and prioritise the most ‘affected’. Then, try to be as specific about the actor groups as possible – in some cases you have the names or exact location of the actor(s) – use them here.
A change in practice or behavior is a change in the way people (in this case, the ‘actors’ in the 1st column) DO things. So here, try to use action words – such as ‘use’, ‘coordinate’, ‘plant’, ‘participate in’, ‘integrate’, etc.
To be able to ‘use’ something, people usually need to first know/understand it, and its advantages, and/or have developed the skills to use it, or at least to believe or trust the benefits of using it. Look at your practice change, and make explicit two to four KAS changes that are key to having the actor groups change their practice.
How will your project contribute to make these changes happen? What are your ideas on how to help people change? Here, it may help to think what other projects have done before that has NOT WORKED well – what will your project do that is DIFFERENT / BETTER? Strategies can be the way (for example, co-developing instead of imposing) you do things. Strategies are also the timing, methods, partnerships, ‘language’, etc. you chose to use.
Your project outputs come straight out of your road map/research questions and/or your contracted deliverables. Which is/are your project’s main output(s) related to this ‘line of change’?
Now start backwards – what will you be doing, how (strategies) and/or producing (outputs) that will contribute to modify actor’s knowledge, attitude and skills? In this space for the Outcome Narrative, you can further test your assumptions by telling them as a story: our project will be doing this, to help actors better be able to understand and/or use this and this, and therefore they will be likely to adopt this or this behavior. Does it sound right? Is it really a ‘solid’ way to try to affect this group’s behavior? When you do this for each outcome line, you ‘narratively’ present the logic of your thinking in that outcome pathway to others, and it should also help you ‘test the sound’ of your story. It is by narrating the outcome pathway, or ‘connecting the boxes’ of that line, that many times you find the gaps.
This is the space for a narrative description of how the project predicts that the outcomes it achieves are likely to reinforce each other and eventually contribute to longer-term impact: it is your opportunity to tell the world how these changes will add up to make a big difference!
Next page: ii. Different Uses of OLMs