What is Outcome Mapping?

Outcome Mapping (OM) is branded as a new paradigm in the evaluation of international development cooperation - one that offers a structured methodology for planning, monitoring and evaluation, and focuses on the outcomes of development interventions. OM provides a set of learning tools that encourage development actors to develop and monitor their strategies for enabling change in a systematic and rigorous fashion. It is grounded in an understanding of development as a complex and non-linear process that involves multiple actors, some of whom work for, and some who work against change.

Practically, OM represents a move away from the measurement of attribution of change to particular interventions organiations, and towards the measurement of the contribution that an intervention or organiation makes to a given change. Undertaken correctly, OM is a process that moves away from measuring impacts towards assessing outcomes. Outcomes are defined as changes in the behaviour, relationships, activities, or actions of the people, groups, and organisations with whom a program works directly.These people, groups or organsiations are termed boundary partners.

From the OM perspective, this focus is justified because of the many problems that practitioners are beset with when attempting to measure impact. These are rooted in the assumption, in impact-based methods, of a simple cause and effect, when development cooperation is in fact an open and complex system. For example, impact evaluation focuses on intended positive results, and frequently ignore the unexpected, and the negative results which can also occur focuses on ultimate effects; impact evaluation focuses on ultimate effects, when upstream effects are also of importance; impact evaluation credits a single contributor, when multiple actors create results and need credit; and finally, impact evaluation ends when the programme obtains success, whereas in reality, complex change processes never truly come to an end.

OM focuses on the systematic application of knowledge and learning principles, which means that addressing and measuring the contribution to change is crucial. The rationale is as follows: if actors know how they have each contributed to a particular change, they can work better together and focus their efforts on what they do best. If, however, they focus on attributing a particular change to themselves, they risk duplicating efforts and failing to coordinate their work.

Much like the ODI's RAPID approach, then, OM is has at its core a systematic learning process, one that begins with effective planning.

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