While the term “theory of change” is often used by funders expecting an outcome of systems change for their investment, is there really a theory there?
The November 2020 Systems Thinking Ontario session was an opportunity for Peter H. Jones (OCADU) and Ryan J. A. Murphy (Memorial U. of Newfoundland) to extend talks that they had given over a few days for the Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD9) Symposium.
The talks covered some early research and conversation on deepening the understanding of “theories of change”. After our usual round of self-introductions by meeting attendees, the core content starts in the web video recording after 12m45s.
The video file is also viewable and downloadable at the Internet Archive,
| Video | H.264 MP4 |
| November 9 (1h56m) |
[ (FHD 203kbps 276MB) [on archive.org] |
The digital audio was extracted from the video, and transcoded to MP3.
| Audio | |
| November 9 (1h56m) |
[20201109_ST-ON_Jones_Murphy_TheoriesOfTheoriesOfChange.mp3] (40MB) [on archive.org] |
Here is the original abstract from the Systems Thinking Ontario November 9, 2020, session.
— begin paste —
Redesigning Our Theories of Theories of Change
Peter Jones presents a customized talk from the RSD9 plenary session for ST ON. Ryan Murphy joins with a full presentation of his RSD9 talk.
We often use the model of “theories of change” to argue for the process by which envisioned change programs might achieve their goals. Essentially these are the working theories by which we explain the logic of system change outcomes, and we often include quasi-systemic logic models to communicate them.… Read more (in a new tab)
While the term “theory of change” is often used by funders expecting an outcome of systems change for their investment, is there really a theory there?
The November 2020 Systems Thinking Ontario session was an opportunity for Peter H. Jones (OCADU) and Ryan J. A. Murphy (Memorial U. of Newfoundland) to extend talks that they had given over a few days for the Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD9) Symposium.
The talks covered some early research and conversation on deepening the understanding of “theories of change”. After our usual round of self-introductions by meeting attendees, the core content starts in the web video recording after 12m45s.
The video file is also viewable and downloadable at the Internet Archive,
| Video | H.264 MP4 |
| November 9 (1h56m) |
[ (FHD 203kbps 276MB) [on archive.org] |
The digital audio was extracted from the video, and transcoded to MP3.
| Audio | |
| November 9 (1h56m) |
[20201109_ST-ON_Jones_Murphy_TheoriesOfTheoriesOfChange.mp3] (40MB) [on archive.org] |
Here is the original abstract from the Systems Thinking Ontario November 9, 2020, session.
— begin paste —
Redesigning Our Theories of Theories of Change
Peter Jones presents a customized talk from the RSD9 plenary session for ST ON. Ryan Murphy joins with a full presentation of his RSD9 talk.
We often use the model of “theories of change” to argue for the process by which envisioned change programs might achieve their goals. Essentially these are the working theories by which we explain the logic of system change outcomes, and we often include quasi-systemic logic models to communicate them.… Read more (in a new tab)
