Featured Resource: Dissemination & Implementation Models Webtool
By Dr. Jonathan A. Caballero, Implementation Support Consultant
5-min read
Success in making change happen is more likely when the process is guided by evidence, theories, models and frameworks, and approaches (TMFAs) . However, selecting the ones that best fit your project can be challenging: there is a myriad of TMFAs and their focus varies widely. For example, some of them center on dissemination, implementation, or a combination of them, and they are often tailored to different levels of the system, such as individuals, organizations, or policies.
We sometimes think of TMFAs as tools in your toolbox. The key is selecting a tool to match your goals / purpose (e.g., if you are trying to measure distance, would you pick a hammer, a screwdriver, or a measuring tape?). When a TMFA feels very challenging to use, we often find that’s because it doesn’t fit the purpose you are trying to serve. For example, if you are trying to map organizational barriers / facilitators to the theoretical domains framework (TDF), it’s going to feel like things don’t fit because the TDF best helps you understand individual barriers/facilitators.
The Dissemination & Implementation Models Webtool is an interactive resource that can help you navigate 100+ theories, models and frameworks to support your project, and provides practical guidance for combining, adapting, and using them from initial planning to evaluation stages.
Planning your project
The webtool advices to start your quest for change by defining a logic model for your project: a concise representation of how your project will work which connects the problem with the activities to address it and the expected short- and long-term outcomes. It offers fillable templates and video tutorials to guide you through the process.
Selecting models and frameworks
After defining the logic model for your project, the webtool helps you to identify theories, models, and frameworks that would fit your project. To do so, it offers practical advice on how to select them, an extensive list of 100+ models with descriptions, citations, and examples of projects using them, and a practical search tool that allows you to identify theories, models, and frameworks depending on their place on the dissemination and implementation spectrum, levels of the system that it targets (e.g. individuals, organizations, etc.), and to refine your search by constructs of interest (e.g. barriers and facilitators, readiness, complexity, etc.)
Combining, adapting, and using theories, models and frameworks
Acknowledging the complexity of real-life projects, the webtool helps you in the process of
Combining models: Guidance on reasons to do it (e.g., using different models to design your initiative vs to implement it); practical steps to combining them, and publications that exemplify the use of combined models.
Adapting models: Reasons to do it, benefits, considerations, and recommended limits when making adaptations (such as monitoring and documenting changes, and avoiding drastic changes that may interfere with key components of an evidence-based model required to achieve the intended result).
Using models: Guidance on operationalization (i.e., converting the model into measurable constructs), and a worksheet on how to use theories, models or frameworks for different parts of a project and/or to inform the writing of a grant proposal: identifying aims and gaps in literature, stating how using a certain model is innovative, and planning the methods.
Connecting to measures
Lastly, the webtool provides a list of constructs (e.g., feasibility, fidelity, outcomes, among others) related to the theories, models, and frameworks it provides. It includes a definition of each of those constructs and, when existing, a link providing direct access to the “Dissemination and Implementation Measures Initiative Workspace” at the NCI Grid-enabled Measures Database.
Putting it all together
As you can appreciate, the webtool provides relevant guidance for your project from planning to delivery and evaluation, as well as additional resources such as video tutorials and worksheets to guide you during the process. If you’re interested to learn more about the basics of these topics, a good place to start is our free course Inspiring Change 2.0. And if you’re ready to delve in-depth into these topics, our courses Strategease: The HOW of Creating Sustainable Change, and Implementation, Spread and Scale can help!
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