What did I learn from a week discussing adaptive management and MEL?

Just got back from an extraordinarily intense week in Bologna, running (with Claire Hutchingsand Irene Guijt) a course on ‘Adaptive Management: Working Effectively in the Complexity of International Development’.

The 30 participants mainly came from NGOs and non-profits, but with a smattering of government officials and consultants. What made the discussion different from previous AM chats is that they were largely involved in the nuts and bolts of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL). Broadly, they fell into two camps: MEL people whose organizations find themselves increasingly being told to ‘be more adaptive’, and want to know what on earth that means, and others who have already bought into the importance of systems thinking and adaptive management, but now are wondering how to put it into practice in an aid sector that has lots of countervailing pressures – short project cycles, tangible and attributable results, the dreaded logframe and all the rest.