Jayamala Subramaniam on Failure: Pilots vs Scale
“Pilots never fail, but they never scale” begins Jayamala Subramaniam, attempting to formulate her own idea of why scale is such a common hurdle in the development sector.
What does scale mean in fast changing world? Do good models result in easily scalable ideas? Do we have the ideal resources to scale even when our pilots prove to be successful.
To contextualise the sheer size of the problem, Subramaniam chose to use the example of her own organization; Arghyam water identified 300,000 distressed units where interventions were required. In their 7 years working in the field, they had managed to affect 1000 units. Would that mean that it would take another 1000 years for them to fully eradicate this issue? These were the questions Subramaniam wished to tackle.
The Context
As a person with 7 years experience with Arghyam Water, Subramaniam felt that she had an understanding of the issues that faced water and sanitation, but it took her to get on to the field to truly understand the magnitude of such issues.
When the magnitude and complexity of the issues feel so immediate, the natural tendency is to lean towards a one-size-fits-all solution that can be scaled. The essential point is this- should pilots be designed for scale or not?
The Failure
However, priorities change, a community that once received an intervention might have different priorities now. Various forces involved, whether it be government or the private sector, might not be as interested anymore.
When it comes to water alone, there are 13 ministries in the central government that one will have to deal with. To compound matters, the ministries involved in access and distribution of water are different and don’t function in tandem with one another.
Moreover, when you choose to scale, the conditions and resources present in your pilot may not be available to you.
The Diagnosis
Jayamala believes that there will always be trade-offs when it comes to scaling a project.
“We think that development is all very linear, but real life is never linear that way. It’s always going to be a journey and there will be trade-offs along the way. The question is, which trade-offs will you make? And will you be aware of them?”
She stresses an importance on knowing your trade-offs, making the right ones and being aware of the consequences. It is also essential to take into account all the societal complexities that arise with a physical resource like water, where factors like caste, gender and local hierarchies also come into the mix.
Jayamala also tells us to exercise a great deal of foresight, there are chances that somebody might run into problems in the macro level of scaling up as opposed to the micro level of pilots. This foresight can also carry over to the important function of various roles on the field that make a project successful, how do we ensure that these roles are retained?
Subramaniam suggests that we take stock of the ecosystem, the individual players that constitute the ecosystem and have them scale up as well so that the ideal situation in the micro level can be replicated on a macro scale. In the complex world of development, Jayamala offers a simple, pragmatic approach.
