Tools & Resources

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 explores what the spread of social innovations looks like in contexts that go beyond organisational growth, such as replication and dissemination. 

This resource explains that big visions can be too generic to develop actional strategies around, and thus advocates breaking them down into several smaller goals.

This online resource offers a set of guides for systems thinking, systems mapping, systems change and systems building through the lens of Systems Innovation, which aims to change the underlying structure of a system rather than its individual parts.

This resource identifies different levels of thinking and intervention regarding systems, emphasising that most of what occurs, particularly root causes, sit below the surface.

This resource is a video that explains pivoting as changing strategy, not changing your vision, much like changing your route if you encounter an obstacle while driving.

This resource describes six conditions of systems change: policies; practices; resource flows; relationships and connections; power dynamics; and mental models.

This resource helps individuals think systemically about social change, explore what is happening below the surface on issues they care about, and determine how they and their organizations can pursue large-scale change in a disciplined and holistic manner.

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. 

This resource unpacks key concepts of ‘co-design’ and explains how the range of design-based traditions that sit under the co-design banner have something very important to bring to social innovation. 

This resource includes a six-step process for practitioners to understand and gather evidence of the contribution their work made to achieving observed outcomes.