In the rapidly changing landscape of international development, traditional, rigid approaches often fall short when dealing with complex and evolving environments. This is where adaptive development and systems shifting come into play, allowing practitioners to remain responsive and flexible in the face of uncertainty. A key method that supports this approach is strategy testing, a technique that helps development teams assess and refine their strategies in real time, ensuring that their efforts are both effective and sustainable.
Strategy testing is particularly valuable in adaptive management because it provides a structured yet flexible framework that allows for continuous learning and adjustment. By regularly evaluating and iterating on their strategies, development practitioners can respond more effectively to changing circumstances, political dynamics, and emerging challenges. This iterative process not only enhances the impact of development programs but also helps in shifting systems in a way that aligns with long-term goals.
The Asia Foundation has recently published an update to its Strategy Testing method, which serves as a key tool in the adaptive management and systems shifting toolkit for program and MEL teams.
You can access the paper here: The Strategy Testing Workbook: Politically-Smart Adaptive Programming in Complex Environments
Here is the abstract:
‘Strategy testing, a technique that The Asia Foundation employs for the adaptive management of international development programs—enhances both the effectiveness of programming approaches and achieves stronger, more enduring results. The Asia Foundation’s new Strategy Testing Workbook, building on its previous publication from 2015, offers a practical guide to mastering this crucial approach.
This comprehensive workbook illuminates key insights and tools, including political economy analysis, theories of change, and robust monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems. It proposes techniques and practices that development practitioners can use to adjust strategies in response to evolving conditions, ensuring greater impact and sustainability. The guide has three sections: Build the Scaffolding, Set Up the System, and Document, Learn, Adapt. Together, these sections guide practitioners through designing and implementing adaptive strategies, emphasizing the importance of documenting observations, reflecting on real-time data, and making strategic adjustments with input from critical friends.
Designed for our program teams and partners, we hope this workbook will inspire innovations in contemporary development theory and practice, helping practitioners move beyond formulaic approaches and embrace adaptive, context-sensitive strategies that are responsive to the complexities of real-world environments.’