Rating Performance over Potential

The famous American statistician and consultant, W. Edward Deming, largely credited with the transformation of the post-war economy of Japan from the late 1940s, once said, “In God we trust, but all others must bring data”!

On The Thoughtful Path, we obsess about results and are building partnerships with universities around the world to help change the mindset of people to challenge communities, to empower them with the skills by which they can measure what they are doing and perfect the processes that lead to constant and never-ending improvements in the health and total well-being of orphans and other vulnerable children.

George Bernard Shaw observed, “The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew every time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them”. In a rapidly changing environment like Munsieville, we recognise the importance of making the collection and analysis of data the foundation of every activity.

For far too long, “monitoring and evaluation” (fancy charity-speak for measuring and analysing impact) in many international development programmes has been soft-edged, narrow in scope and so slow that by the time it is processed, the whole situation has changed out of all recognition. In response, our aim with this “model of excellence” programme is to develop “real-time monitoring” so that, just like Shaw’s tailor, we always know the situation as it is today, rather than what it was a year ago.

This aspiration will take a while to bring to fruition, but every journey starts with a single step! Over the past two months, we have taken several steps forward in Munsieville. International Development Masters student, Candice Wallace, of Brunel University, UK, undertook a month of “participatory action research” on the issue of child sexual abuse, with focus groups of children and adults in the township, uncovering the alarmingly high number of incidents of such abuse and also demonstrating the importance of measuring the scope and impact of the problem as a basis for future community-led action.

Ten days ago, Betty Nkoana, our programme manager, and I led a community workshop for those working with us to deliver change under The Thoughtful Path. We were able to introduce delegates to Megan Quinn and Twanda Wadlington, both doctoral students with our highly-valued partner, East Tennessee State University, and deployed in Munsieville for two months to help push forward better data collection and analysis across the seven “Hubs” of the programme.

Workshop delegates immediately grasped the essentials as Megan and Twanda led a short Monitoring and Evaluation Basics class. “It’s not good enough that our children smile more than those in the township down the road”, said one local community activist, “We need a much greater understanding of the things that affect them, and then we must develop the programme so we can all be part of the change process”.

How quickly they have embraced the spirit of W Edward Deming, who said, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing”.