Thinking through 'how change happens'

 Program identification 

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During these discussion, be aware of the assumptions you are making about how change happens.   Change takes place in different ways. Our own experiences will lead us to favour - or appreciate more clearly - certain ways that change takes place.  

For example, some people may feel that building political pressure through popular mobilisation is the best way to bring about change; other people might feel that change happens naturally if we help people to resolve their immediate needs and gradually accumulate resources and a stronger voice; and still other people may feel that change will happen if we create a pilot project to show that it is possible to do things differently.  

When we are planning our programmes in Organization, it is important to state clearly how we think change can be brought about and why we favour certain strategies. Even within our own team there may be differences in how we see this, and we therefore need to think whether our partners and people in the communities we work with see social change happening the same way as us to ensure that we do not develop projects and programmes that are inappropriate or ineffective . 

Seeking out people who think differently from us and being open to learning from them will help us think of new ways to see a situation.  Having this discussion about how we might best contribute to bringing about change is a crucial step in deciding what we should do.