Activity: Seek input from other people
If you haven’t already, now is the time to share your map with other involved in the project to get their input.
Aim to have one or two conversations, where you introduce the map to some stakeholders and let them explore it. Then discuss what they think of it and how it could help your project.
Activity: Take 5 minutes to plan how you will share your map. Answer the following questions now to complete your plan:
Who will you share with?
Why? What do you hope to get from this?
Where and how? (examples: sit down together, online via video call with screen share, send a Kumu presentation link)
When will you do this?
What will you tell them about the map and what will you ask them? See tips below.
Tips for introducing the map to others
How will you introduce the map? You may wish to describe the map as a kind of story of the project. You may like to point out some or all of the following features of your map:
- Activities and their outputs, consequences or expected consequences
- Connections between elements with direction
- Sense of sequence or Time (flow left to right)
- Resulting or expected or desired impacts
- Branches – one activity can have several outputs or outcomes, and conversely often several activities contribute towards an outcome or impact.
- Feedback loops
- Any surprising twists in your project’s story. These might be represented by surprising outcomes, feedback loops, emerging needs that required additional activities, etc.
Tips for getting the most from the conversation
What will you ask them? This will depend on what you would like to know, and the person or group’s role and knowledge of the project, but you might like to explore these three distinct areas in your conversations:
- How well the map represents the project.
- How the map can help communicate within and outside the project.
- What the map reveals about the project / what we can learn.
- Is the map understandable? If not, what is not clear?
- Does the map fully represent the project? (If not, what is missing, how could we change it?)
- Is there anything that surprises you about the project when you look at this map view of it?
- How could this map help our project? What is the value of this map or how could it be useful to us?
- How could we use this map to communicate with people internally and externally?
- Where are the opportunities in our project?
Activity: Hold the conversations that you have planned, and afterwards improve your map in light of the discussion.
Take some time to digest the feedback from others. Which of their suggestions and ideas will you incorporate into the map?
“Team members were excited about our Change Pathways Map. They suggested a few activities to add, but more importantly to me, they said that seeing the map has given them a clearer direction in their work. They also suggested that we use the map to help us track our achievements against our targets.”
– Paul Omollo, Community Mobilization for Regenerative Agriculture, Kenya