What Will Work Here? Convenings and Tacit Knowledge...from Bob Klitgaard

Bob Klitgaard recently reminded me of a paper he wrote in 2012, on the power of convening and learning by engagement with others in purpsoeful processes of sharing. It is called 'What Will Work Here' and is great. Here is the opening salvo:

In our rapidly changing world, many policy problems and possible solutions are in flux. History is happening all around us, with changing politics, shifting social mores, and new institutions. New technologies are creating new alternatives and enabling new levels and forms of participation. In issues ranging from public health to environmental protection to economic transformation, multiple actors from government, business, and civil society will have to collaborate in the improvements we need. Evaluating what will work here often takes place in complex ecologies.

In such settings, evaluation needs broadening and deepening. Beyond “the study” for “the decision” by “the policymaker,” a central activity of evaluation may be the convening of multiple actors to understand their complex ecologies, define issues, reconsider objectives and alternatives, digest promising practices, and forge new relationships. A convening brings together

• facts, examples, and frameworks from outside with

• local knowledge and creativity.

  One hoped-for result: better inferences about what will work here.
  Ten years from now, convenings may be the grist of evaluations in complex ecologies. 

The article fits in really well with my recent blog posts about tacit knowledge. Literature shows that this knowledge is acquired by doing and shared by engaging in high-trust interactions. The 'convenings' Bob discusses create such interactive fora, and are important vehicles for folks to acquire and disseminate tacit knowldge and work out 'what works here' (by sharing facts, examples and frameworks).  The convenings are what doing development  differently is trying to achieve (promoting convenings in person, through video-based sharing, and more, between people and organizations in differnet parts of the world doing different things but trying to be more effective in the future than they have been in the past). Consider Bob's description:

Those convened have different if overlapping objectives, different if sometimes overlapping capabilities, and different if overlapping information about the state of the world and about if-then relationships (such as treatment effects). The stakeholders are strategically connected, in the sense that what one party does often affects the outcomes of what other parties do. They are not fully aware of each others’ objectives, capabilities, or information sets; they do not fully understand their strategic interrelations.

The kinds of convenings of interest here are those that build on evaluation. In particular, I have experience with research-based convenings that provide stakeholders with:

• Data, especially data that helps people “get on the same page” about the nature of the problems, if’s and then’s, funding, and costs. Data-rich discussions, in my experience, also help build trust, particularly about controversial issues where someone may be suspicious of being sold an ideological or political argument.

• Examples of success in similar problem areas, which spotlight goals, alternatives, if- then relationships, and partnerships. These examples are based on an evaluation of what they achieved and theory-based speculation about how.

• Frameworks for understanding goals, alternatives, if-then relationships, and/or strategic interdependence. A framework may be a grand theory, a program theory, or a heuristic. The framework draws upon social science, policy analysis, and evaluation. 

Read the full article. Well worth the time.