Using Systems Science Approaches in Practical Implementation: Net-Map
By Dr. Sobia Khan, Director of Implementation
Systems thinking has been on people’s minds lately, particularly because many of us are working on large scale change in incredibly complex circumstances. There has been such a steady flow of questions about implementation in systems that we are developing a special training series about it. The challenges we have heard from people who are trying to enact large scale change are numerous and important. One of them is how we effectively work with one another across sectors, levels, organizations and teams; connectedness is a fundamental component of systems and a principle of systems thinking, and collective action is paramount to meeting implementation goals.
Systems thinking: The role of collaboration and partnership
In our last bulletin, I talked about the importance of partnering and we highlighted a project that was taking a deep dive into collaboration strategies as implementation strategies. You can also read my blog post on partnering on PubTrawlr. It helps to know what can foster better partnering. It can also be very helpful to deeply understand and assess relationships that are fundamental to implementation. Just like a program, relationships between multiple actors in a system have a structure, process and outcome. Structures are dictated by who is connected to who, and in what ways. Relational processes are the things that make the relationships transpire, sustain, or dissipate. Relational outcomes are the end state of relationship building – the level at which you work together that can lead to effective implementation in the long run. We will be discussing trust (a relational process) in a future bulletin, and are developing a new course on relationships in implementation that will be released in the fall.
There are tools from systems science (i.e., the science of measuring system patterns and actions within systems) that can help us better understand relationships. Social network analysis is a great example of a tool that can inform and enhance implementation efforts. This type of analysis can be very illuminating to help understand relational structures across multiple people/organizations/entities in a system. At the same time, the practical utility of classic social network analysis is limited.
How adopting a network mindset can enhance implementation
Often my advice to people who want to better make sense of their system is to adopt a “network mindset”. This means defining the boundaries of your system (i.e., how big of system is implementation going to take place in), thinking about who is important in this system, what their roles are, and how they are connected to one another. Talking about these relationships means that you can think beyond structures to describe process and outcomes. This sense making exercise can really help you understand which relationships to leverage, which ones to build, which ones to repair, and what the purpose of different relationships are to make implementation happen. Adopting a network mindset and discussing and analyzing relationships more frankly can highlight the trust, power and fairness dynamics that affect implementation.
I got a chance to speak to Eva Schiffer, Capacity Development Team Lead at Planet Partnerships, who developed an incredibly practical tool called Net-Map that can be used as part of an implementation process to encourage people to adopt a network mindset. Below are excerpts of our very interesting conversation, which has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Net-Map
Our conversation with Eva Schiffer, Capacity Development Team Lead, Planet Partnerships
Sobia: Do you want to describe the unique…perspective(s) that you bring to [your] project with the Net-Map tool?
Eva: Yeah, so the initial spark of inspiration for Net-Map came when I worked in Northern Ghana on water governance and I was the only foreigner in this project… I was trying to understand how people in government agencies that had to work together, how they may make decisions about agricultural and household water use…. I didn't have an intuitive understanding of all the pressures and powers that make decisions happen. So I needed a way of putting what the locals knew intuitively because they've grown up in the system…on paper.
I was exposed to network mapping in a workshop and I thought ‘this is a great approach to better understanding what's going on’, but there was one thing that I thought was missing, and that was understanding how those networks and influence go together… So, I combined [multiple approaches]… What came out of it was a system where you sit with people around a flip chart paper with post-its, and colorful pens, and checkers pieces, and then you start with a question where you say, “Who influences something on the others?” – some outcome that you're interested in. And then you put all the different individuals, groups, and organizations on post-its on your piece of paper and then you think about what are the ways that they could be connected to each other… So you draw these different lines … and then you start seeing a picture emerge. And once you have all the actors and their connections to each other, you ask —how strongly do they influence the result? And do they influence it positively or negatively? And in the end, each actor will have an influence tower made of checkers pieces (the more influence, the higher the tower) and a plus or minus sign next to each other for those that influenced it positively or negatively, or zero for those that are neutral. And in the end you have something like a three-dimensional sketch that all of you drew together after a very complex understanding that each of you had in their head.
Net-Map: A simple way to understand complex systems
Sobia: Yeah, sounds like a sense making tool. Like, not only drawing the map but you’re sense making and you're trying to understand people's mental models and how they fit together. So that’s pretty neat. And so, is it easy, I guess, for people to grasp the concept of it?
Eva: If you did network analysis in your thesis, you saw that most people do it in a way that nobody understands … When I lived in Northern Ghana, I had internet once a week and I was trying to teach myself network analysis. I cried… But the thing is, if you ask people so… who influences, let's say, the use of this small reservoir, whether it's overused or not, just tell me the names of all the people that you can think of and we’ll write them on cards. Then you write them on cards and you put them on paper. Anyone can do that…And then you say so, who of all of these people, who is supporting each other? Let's draw some lines between these people. Who has a conflict? You know, does somebody give money to somebody, does somebody buy fish from somebody — you draw some lines, different colors for different things. Super simple. And because people see the map grow as they sit there, they're not given a super complex picture. But they just, you know, they build it as they sit there together.
We haven't been to Antarctica, but everywhere else, in all other continents we've used Net-Map and these concepts of putting names on cards, drawing arrows between cards, and putting towers up for influence have been understandable in all cultures. It's been a little bit more intuitive for people who can read and write, you know, when we worked at the really extreme village level, they were able to give us the information but they didn't have the same level of “aha moments”. But as soon as people can read and write and are more comfortable with paper, they always also have insights about the system and not just give us the information.
To learn more about Net-Map, you can access the toolbox here: https://netmap.wordpress.com/about/
These articles were featured in our monthly Implementation in Action bulletin! Want to receive our next issue? Subscribe here.