3 Ways to Optimize Environmental Results by Understanding the Nuances
We all get tired of hearing about doing more with less. There is a finite amount of matter in the universe! It’s physically impossible sometimes!
Image courtesy UnSplash, Matt Palmer @mattpalmer
You know what they say: you can have it fast, good, or cheap – pick two. In my career, when I’ve been told for the umpteenth time to “do more with less,” you know what I’ve usually done? Cut scope.
Program evaluation can help you optimize your work and maximize your results.
The techniques we use in program evaluation can help you optimize your operations so that – even though you still can’t get it good, fast, and cheap– you are getting the best outcome most efficiently.
How does this work? It’s not magic. Optimization work involves looking for ways to make work simultaneously efficient and effective.
In the manufacturing world, concepts like Kaizen, Six Sigma, or Lean help companies streamline processes while protecting or improving results. For decades, we’ve applied these systems of thinking to the corporate world with mixed results. This is because manufacturing a product is not like saving a forest.
We’re here to let you know that there are evaluation techniques that can help us optimize environmental results. Here are a few to consider:
Image courtesy UnSplash, Anton Nazaretian @anton_nazaretian
Network Analysis
Transformational change occurs when multiple organizations (and the people they’re made of) come together to solve a problem. The Montreal Protocol, developing the first Covid-19 vaccines, and the Omaha 360 Violence Intervention and Prevention Program each provide examples of success, and all have required years of collaborative problem-solving.
In our complex world, there is rarely (if ever) a direct, causal connection between the tasks we undertake to get a result and the result itself. One zillion factors come into play to thwart and assist with our work and aims. In the end, causation is collaborative. Network analysis lets us explore these collaborations and study how they change over time. By better understanding networks, we can imagine how to adapt them so they can work better together toward our goals.
Program System Mapping
System mapping is like network analysis for organizations and other non-human influences. The zillion influences that thwart and assist us as we try to create significant, lasting change in the world range from evident to invisible. An exercise in mapping out the system helps us to identify the obvious influences, brainstorm about the assumptions and additional influences we cannot immediately see, and explore how they influence our actions.
Once we understand the types and strengths of forcing and restraining influences, we can design programs and strategies that will consider these forces. When a boost or a slowdown occurs, we’re more likely to understand it and know how to address it.
External Outcome Analysis
The phrase “can’t see the forest for the trees” describes being so close to a problem that keeping the big picture in mind becomes challenging. My favorite method for returning to the big picture is vacation. A second great way to make this happen is to get an external analysis of your work. External evaluations help you explain the trees, see the forest, and identify ways your trees can create the peaceful, sustainable woods you hope to see.
There is an optimum order to placing the nuts and bolts of a complicated product–even an airplane – whereas protecting a community from pollution can be done successfully in many ways and unsuccessfully in many ways. To be sure, there are valuable lessons to be learned in viewing processes through the lens of manufacturing optimization. But programs are made mostly of people and ecosystems, and the nuts and bolts have feelings, seasons, tenacity, and adaptability.
Understanding how to optimize a program takes expertise and objectivity. We can help with that.
