We think that development projects need to be holistic, adaptable, and relevant to what works in practice for different communities. We plan to keep building out our values and mission as we learn and grow
Our work is guided by a network of practitioners who (i) use systems thinking to understand development challenges; (ii)adapt broad learning for specific contexts and; (iii) create practice-oriented solutions for our clients. Our Practice is grounded in these values.
Towards a Development Practitioners’ Manifesto
When creating The Development Practice, one of the first questions we got was: What makes you different from all the other international development consultants out there? In some ways we need to say that we are not that different from other passionate development professionals who want to solve real problems for real people, and who want responsible, dynamic careers. But- that's not a great response for clients who want capability statements and a value proposition. So what makes us different?
Our work is guided by a network of practitioners who (i) use systems thinking to understand development challenges; (ii)adapt broad learning for specific contexts and; (iii) create practice-oriented solutions for our clients.
As we created our value statement, we got some feedback from the network that it just seemed like word jargon. We thought a lot about how to ground generic values to make sure that they are not empty words. We tagged our core values with the approaches and tools we use to implement them. Our network referred us to two other organizations that had manifestos that really inspired us- The Agile Development Manisfesto for ICT4D Projects and the Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) Manifesto. From these sources we started to write down our own principals:
Prioritize working projects over endless reporting
Implicitly incorporate monitoring and learning
Design projects to be flexible to where the evidence leads
Keep a collaboration mindset, not a negotiation one
Stay humble
Prioritize individuals and interactions over processes and bureaucracies
Remember that a project is only as good as the clients ability to use, incorporate, and implement the findings in their day to day work or mindsets
Essentially we want to work hard, focus on real problems, develop projects that address those problems, create genuine partnerships, and build on the shared knowledge of everyone we are lucky enough to learn from. We also want to help clients build out the internal or local capacity to drive strategy, management, and learning for themselves in the long-run. Finally, we want to focus on what works in practice. So what does our jargon practically mean?
Systems Approach: We do not shy away from complexity
Context Specific: We believe that there are no ‘one size fits all’ solutions
Practice Oriented: We know that knowledge is only as good as the action it translates into
This thinking really helped us get down to our core values and prompted us to begin writing down these principals to form the beginnings of a Development Practitioner’s Manifesto. We are still in the process of developing it out more fully with our network and partners. We’d love to hear from you if you have thoughts about what should be in such a manifesto or if you have a personal manifesto for your own work.
We do not shy away from complexity and believe that the strongest programs are those that holistically consider problems and potential solutions. We work with Practitioners who not only have deep knowledge of their own organizations and sectors- but who also understand how other stakeholders, initiatives, and sectors can affect their outcomes.