Theories of Change
This week we were introduced to the concept of “Theories of Change”, which discovered how and why a desired change is going to happen in a particular context. Theories of Change allow us to see the pathway by getting to know the specifications for achieving a certain goal. In this process, underlying assumptions need to be articulated and tested. Theories of Change is all about changing how we perceive the status quo to the goals we want to achieve. Theories of Change is a useful methodology for approaching complex social problems on the institutional and governmental levels. For me personally, Theories of Change also gives me inspiration to develop good habits and self-regulation. The process includes first identifying the long-term goals working backward and considering the required conditions to achieve the goal. For example, if I adapt this methodology to my self-regulation, I would first set my goal to go to the gym every morning, and then identify the required conditions for me to meet the goal, like going to bed early and prepping enough food to supply energy. In class, we were introduced to “backcasting”, which is the backward mapping method, and saw a social problem as an example. Backcasting requires the participant to have a well-developed and detailed goal at first and define the needed previous interventions in order to reach the present place. We saw the example of helping survivors who just escaped domestic abuse. The well-defined goal is to help domestic abuse survivors have long-term employment that can sustain their lives. Having a job allows domestic abuse survivors to be self-independent and confident. In order to do that, we can trace the design opportunities for creating classes to teach them marketable skills and workplace etiquette. To expand the mapping even larger, there could be female-only internship opportunities and counseling services.
In our in-class activities, we briefly practiced the backward mapping methods on our previous collaborative topic — why design new grads can’t find entry-level tech jobs. For the problem of “lack of hands-on experience”, we set the long-term goal to allow the students to transform jobs obtained at school into real-world projects. In our collaboration process, there was a constant flow of ideas followed by debate or agreement. I appreciate the debates because we can align expectations and assumptions together. Once we have come to an agreement, we write it down on the paper. Step by step, we started with a broad goal of actionable design opportunities for intervention.
Theories of Change in Collaborative Setting
The reading “ Articulating Theories of Change towards More Just and Transformative Design Practice” gives me a lot of inspiration when it comes to using ToC in a team setting. The authors introduced 3 phases as the framework to support dialogue, which are 1) situate and relate (who), 2) understand and reframe (what), 3) intervene and observe (how).
1) Situate and relate: in a team setting, one needs to understand and acknowledge their relationship to the system, and social and political personality.
2) Understand and reframe: when working together, we can use multiple synthesis and visualizing activities to help us investigate the challenge.
3) Intervene and observe: in systemic design, the changes are often to be long-term and large-scale. The design interventions are not conclusive solutions but should be considered as careful experimentation.
Furthermore, the authors gave a few questions examples in each phase, which I found helpful to bring up and discuss in the collaborative process.
