Tools & Resources

John Kania introduces the six conditions of systems change framework. An excerpt of a video interview in 2020 with John Kania by CFI Director, Kerry Graham.

This resource provides practical guidance on how to and when to engage in horizontal management, which is concerned with working collaboratively across organisational boundaries.

This resource provides a guide to using the Most Significant Change (MSC) method, together with an MSC story collection guide.

This resource provides a guide to the Most Significant Learning Technique, which is an adaption of the Most Significant Change Technique, and helps to surface assumptions and workshop key lessons. 

This resource helps collaborators to scope a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) plan for place-based initiatives, drawing on Clear Horizon’s standard MEL planning tools.

A Place-based Evaluation Framework and Toolkit, co-commissioned by the Department of Social Services and Queensland Government Department of Communities, Disability Services and for evaluating place-based delivery approaches. The toolkit has over 80 methods and tool to choose from.

Logan Together’s 2018 Progress report is an example of the type of reporting that can be achieved through the measurement and learning effort.

Rubrics are a useful tool for assessing performance, these can be co-designed with the community.

This resource is a compilation of tools and techniques for working in groups and facilitating meetings and workshops.

This resource describes the theory and objectives of reflection workshops, and provides a step-by-step guide to conducting them, based on three stages of evaluative thinking: What happened? So what? Now what?

This resource uses a basic matrix to distinguish between simple, complicated, political, complex, and chaotic issues and challenges, and the types of intervention most appropriate to each.

The language and practice of place-based and community-led change in Australia: Building a shared understanding Collective Impact and community-led approaches have been increasingly adopted and applied by Australian governments recently, reflecting a desire to engage and work with the public…

A paper on Theory of Change for complex initiatives aiming at systems change.

There are many more tools and approaches that can be used to engage with and learn about your community, have a look through the following websites for inspiration: 100 Conversations, appreciative inquiry, there are also a number of arts-based methods that can be useful…

More tools for evaluating complexity can be found here.