Using the DoView Visual Planning Approach with climate change adaptation

In a webinar I ran earlier this week at the invitation of Sea Change – the Southeast Asia Community of Practice for Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Change Interventions – I outlined how large scale visual outcomes models (visual Outcomes DoViews) can be used to make the problem of planning, monitoring and evaluating climate change interventions easier.

What I’m trying to do in my work is to make planning both faster and easier in complex areas like climate change through using a radical visual planning approach. We think that the DoView approach to visually modelling programs and proving success has struck the ‘sweet spot’ between being overly complex and overly simplistic by leveraging the power of visualization without falling into the trap of over complicating it. Click on the image below to explore the webpage version of the Climate Change Water Sector DoView.

The approach is faster (you can build a DoView Visual Monitoring and Evaluation Plan in less than 1/2 the time it takes to wordsmith a traditional text-based evaluation plan, and its faster for Funders to assess the evaluation plan – the Rockefeller Foundation recently funded an evaluation just based on a DoView Visual Evaluation Plan); it’s more accessible to planners and stakeholders (you can use DoView strategic ‘line-of-sight’ to make sure that you’re  focusing your activities on your priorities within strategic planning; it’s scalable and therefore able to handle sector-wide planning; and its more agile in that you can change your strategy hyper-fast in the face of changing situations.

I took the water sector issues summary report from the recent IPCC SREX report series on climate change and visually ‘DoViewed’ the section talking about what what steps could be taken to improve adaptation to climate change in the water sector. I also briefly looked at the other IPCC SREX summary reports (health, ecosystem services and agriculture) and they could all be visually DoViewed in exactly the same way as I did with the water sector report (if anyone wants to try this just look at the webinar below, download DoView and start DoViewing (if you want a hand doing it get in touch with me).

Here’s the webinar on the Sea Change site.

Here’s the PDF of the presentation.

Here’s the DoView Visual Strategic Planning Process.

Here’s how to draw an Outcomes DoView.

Here’s how to build a DoView Visual Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

Here’s how the DoView approach can be used for whole sector planning.

If you have any questions or comments on how DoView could be used in the climate change or other sectors, come up to the DoView Community of Practice on Linkedin and share them with the community discuss the DoView Visual Strategic Planning and Proving Success approach.

Paul Duignan, PhD Follow me on Twitter.com/paulduignan.