Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Overview
Prepared by (Name of the experimenter)
Javier Brolo
On date (Day/Month/Year)
August 2024
Current status of experimental activity
Completed
What portfolio does this activity correspond to? If any
Polarization
What is the frontier challenge does this activity responds to?
Promoting dialogue and collaboration
What is the learning question(from your action learning plan) is this activity related to?
How to promote dialogue and collaboration in scenarios of polarization
Please categorize the type that best identifies this experimental activity:
Pre experimental (trial and error, prototype, a/b testing)
Which sector are you partnering with for this activity? Please select all that apply
Public Sector
Please list the names of partners mentioned in the previous question:
General Secretariat of the Presidency and 60 other public institutions from the Executive Branch.
Design
What is the specific learning intent of the activity?
This activity aims to understand in which ways polarization is affecting the work of public officials, what are the main drivers, and some opportunities to overcome the barriers imposed by polarization.
What is your hypothesis? IF... THEN....
IF a collective intelligence exercise is conducted with public officials, THEN relevant difficulties imposed by polarization to their work and opportunities to overcome them can be identified
Does the activity use a control group for comparison?
No, it does not use a control group
How is the intervention assigned to different groups in your experiment?
Non-random assignment
Describe which actions will you take to test your hypothesis:
We will gather public officials from different institutions into a three hour workshop. They will be guided to discuss on three issues: how polarization affects their work, what are the main drivers, and what are opportunities to mitigate the effects of polarization. The ideas will be gathered in post its and digitalized into a Mural for analysis through sensemaking. The results will be compiled and given back to participants and decision makers to inform policy decisions.
What is the unit of analysis of this experimental activity?
Each public institution
Please describe the data collection technique proposed
We collected qualitative data from participants in the workshops through post-its and then digitalized them using Mural.
What is the timeline of the experimental activity? (Months/Days)
Two months
What is the estimated sample size?
50-99
What is the total estimated monetary resources needed for this experiment?
Between 1,000 and 9,999 USD
Quality Check
This activity is relevant to a CPD outcome, The hypothesis is clearly stated, This activity offers strong collaboration oportunities, This activity offers a high potential for scaling, This activity has a low risk
Please upload any supporting images or visuals for this experiment.
Please upload any supporting links
What are the estimated non- monetary resources required for this experiment? (time allocation from team, external resources, etc) If any.
There were preparation meetings with the institutional champion (General Secretariat of the Presidency). Also, the workshops needed to be designed, along with materials, access to digital tools, and facilitators who volunteered.
Results
Was the original hypothesis (If.. then) proven or disproven?
Proven
Do you have observations about the methodology chosen for the experiment? What would you change?
There are some logistical challenges that need to be overcome when there is such a large number of workshops and participants, each of them running for a short time. On the one hand, the goals of the workshop need to be limited and simple instructions. Then, there is a need to have multiple facilitators, and to complement the general facilitation with facilitation in each table with participants. It's important to constantly remind participants to write their ideas, as there is a tendency to only share them by speaking, and writen ideas are needed for analysis. Finally sensemaking of such a large amount of post-its required non trivial decisions on how to group and categorize the ideas. The final categories can be dependent on the level of abstraction and background of the person analyzing so they need to be revalidated with participants and other facilitators, eventually after a few iterations, key ideas do seem to converge.
From design to results, how long did this activity take? (Time in months)
Three months
What were the actual monetary resources invested in this activity? (Amount in USD)
About USD10,000
Does this activity have a follow up or a next stage? Please explain
Yes. The results from the workshops are compiled and given back to participants to enable actions and decisions as well as to the high-level officials to advance the general government policy priority regarding legitimate and effective public service.
Is this experiment planned to scale? How? With whom?
Besides diffusing the use of the results, it's potentially possible to replicate or adapt the methodology in other contexts.
Please include any supporting images that could be used to showcase this activity
Please add any supporting links that describe the planning, implementation, results of learning of this activity? For example a tweet, a blog, or a report.
Considering the outcomes of this experimental activity, which of the following best describe what happened after? (Please select all that apply)
This experiment influenced public policy at a national or local level, Solutions tested in this experiment were scaled in numbers, This experiment led to partnerships, This experiment led to adoption of new ways of working by our partners
Learning
What do you know now about the action plan learning question that you did not know before? What were your main learnings during this experiment?
We know that polarization affects the work of public institutions in two main ways. On the one hand, it creates disfunctional relations among members of society. This leads to unreasonable social demands, lack of participation, apathy, and even aggression. On the other hand, it weakens institutions, creating mistrust from society, stagnation, lack of agreements, and ultimately reduces quality and coverage of services.
Also, we learned that from the perspective of public officials, some actions to mitigate the effects of polarization include managing information both within and outside the institution, strengthening coordination between institutions, supporting the well-being of public servants, and promoting social participation.
What were the main obstacles and challenges you encountered during this activity?
See the sections on observation to methodology.
Who at UNDP might benefit from the results of this experimental activity? Why?
The country office in general. Particularly, the RR benefited from the interaction with a large number of public institutions in the executive. Also the teams linked to dialogue and the human development report, as well as the governance team. They can use the results and methodologies for their own projects, and the relations with public institutions to promote additional sessions to listen the perspective of public officials.
Who outside UNDP might benefit from the results of this experiment? and why?
Mainly the 60 public institutions that participated in the exercises. Also the presidency for learning priorities to be addressed and ways to support public officials to increase their effectiveness and legitimacy.
Did this experiment require iterations? If so, how many and what did you change/adjust along the way? and why?
Yes. We iterated and improved the method in about seven rounds.
What advice would you give someone wanting to replicate this experimental activity?
See the section on main obstacles and observations to methodology.
Can this experiment be replicated in another thematic area or other SDGs? If yes, what would need to be considered, if no, why not?
Totally. The materials can be made available to replicate the workshops.
How much the "sense" and "explore" phases of the learning cycle influenced/shaped this experiment? In hindsight, what would you have done differently with your fellow Solution Mapper and Explorer?
Sense and exploration were important to identify the relevant institutions and actors to engage. Experimentation was important to design and implement the workshops. It was important to use exploration methodologies for the analysis of the results, and sensing for the facilitation of the workshops.
What surprised you?
We were surprised at how receptive public officials were, and their willingness to participate. It's is noticed that these exercises offer opportunities to public officials to develop, and learn tools they can apply within their institutions.
16Peace, justice and strong institutions
17Partnerships for the goals
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