Ripple Effect Mapping

Do you wish you had a better way to see what impact your work is having that enables you to learn and adapt as you go?

Do you want an evaluation technique that helps contribute to your project delivery?

Do you want to see both the planned and unintended impact of your service?

This workshop demonstrates a form of developmental evaluation that shows contribution to something rather than attribution.

In a complex system, such as a local community, there are lots of external influences and drivers, so its impossible to prove attribution. This participatory approach is based around mapping events in a project, programme, place, and/or partnership with participants or stakeholders involved at points throughout the project. These events can then be mapped and potentially coded to give analysis of the activity evaluated.

This approach doesn’t look at what happened at the end of a project, it informs the delivery while it's happening and captures what happened, rather than focussing on what was intended. Often the unintended is equally or more valuable than what was intended.

We will share our experience and approach to using this methodology within the session. To gain more of an understanding about the the approach, please see this published paper: Capturing the wider impacts of systems change efforts in public health (https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/files/315514711/Nobles_et_al._2022_Ripple_Effects_Mapping.pdf).