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What can we learn from 'competing’ / complementary planning frameworks?

Jon Fisher and Claire Relton

October 17, 2023

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Outline

Context - why look at other planning frameworks or tools
Grouped list of frameworks / tools
Overview of three frameworks

IUCN principles / plan
CPSG
Systems Thinking and Mapping

15 min feedback

3 questions (tools you most like and why, when you might use non-CS methods, what gaps in CS are limiting)
voting (1-2 tools you want to learn more about)

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IUCN Species Conservation Cycle

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Understand and inform the world about the status and trends of biodiversity.

Develop collaborative, inclusive and science-based conservation strategies, plans and policies.

Convene and mobilize conservation actions to improve the status of biodiversity.

Drive strategic and targeted communications to enhance our conservation impact.

Enhance and support our immediate network and alliances to achieve our biodiversity targets.

Implementation requires two transversal components:

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CPSG Species Conservation Planning

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CPSG Species Conservation Planning

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CPSG - CS Similarities

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Define

Current Context

Outline the theory behind your conservation impact

Define how you’ll achieve conservation impact

Foster Learning, Adapting, and

Sharing

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CPSG - CS Strengths

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CS Strengths

Useful for everyone from implementing team to project donors/ funders
Allows for critical thinking around a conservation plan
Highlights assumptions made during implementation
Sets teams up to monitor and evaluate progress to understand impact and adapt as necessary

CPSG Strengths

Designed to build trust, shared ownership and multi-stakeholder commitment to the plan
Emphasises the value of developing shared definitions of success- a sense of common purpose
Capitalises upon the value of quantitative modelling to inform conservation decision-making

Alongside these four commonalities, the two approaches have specific, distinct strengths.

CPSG’s Principles and Steps and the planning tools used, have a particular emphasis on inclusivity in the planning process- of all stakeholders and of their individual voices. The steps encourage the development of shared definitions of success, joint critical analysis of both qualitative and quantitative information to inform collaborative decision-making. CPSG also demonstrates the value of quantitative tools such as population viability analysis (PVA) in order to deepen the quality of the thinking done by all involved…

CMP’s Conservation Standards are useful at any scale - from implementing team to project donors/ funders. The Standards provide a structure for critical thinking around a conservation implementation plan, highlighting assumptions made during implementation, and setting teams up to monitor those assumptions. The Standards support your team to evaluate progress, understand impact, and adapt as necessary

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Systems Thinking and Mapping

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Systems Thinking and Mapping

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Systems Thinking and Mapping Strengths

A way to maximize program effectiveness.
Used across multiple disciplines, e.g. health, engineering, cybernetics, psychology AND can be described as transdisciplinary.
Promoted as both a methodology and a set of tools.
Framework for seeing interrelationships and patterns of change.
Considers how other aspects outside of a program’s traditional boundaries might influence program success.

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Sticky note feedback on:

What have been the main benefits of your favorite tool / framework / etc.?
Under what circumstances would you want to use a different tool / framework other than CS?
What gaps in the CS have you found the most limiting (or have you innovated around)?

Dot voting on:

Which planning framework / tool would you like to learn more about?

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Complementary Planning Tools (1/3)

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A Logframe (or a Logistical Framework) is a planning tool consisting of a matrix providing an overview of a project’s goal, activities, and anticipated results.

Cambridge Conservation Forum Framework & Evaluation Tool

Logframe

An organised approach to identifying and evaluating creative options and making choices in complex decision situations.

Structured Decision Making

Framework for evaluating success and failure in conservation outcomes.

This a conceptual framework and scorecard based on an easy to use Excel spreadsheet.

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Complementary Planning Tools (2/3)

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Cynevin

Has five decision-making contexts or "domains."

As there is more uncertainty and variance, Cynevin suggests less planning and more experimentation.

PESTLE looks at key external factors (opportunities, threats, etc.) that affect an organization. Most often used in a corporate context

PESTLE Analysis

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Complementary Planning Tools (3/3)

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Strategic Foresight informs planning given uncertain future conditions of the social and natural world. It assesses a range of plausible future conditions (along with drivers and uncertainties) and identifies actions most likely to achieve a desired future state.

Strategic Foresight

Systems Thinking (as per Peter Senge and others) looks for systemic drivers and mental models underlying behavior, as well as different kinds of feedback loops w/ different delays

Systems Thinking (for social change)

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“Competing” Planning Frameworks (1/2)

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The Species Conservation Cycle

guides efforts for valuing and conserving biodiversity

Assess, Plan, Act (IUCN)

A set of principles that emphasize

sound science and the meaningful participation of

key stakeholders

CPSG Principles & Steps

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“Competing” Planning Frameworks (2/2)

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With roots in disciplines as varied as biology, cybernetics, and ecology, systems thinking provides a way of looking at how the world works that differs markedly from the traditional reductionistic, analytic view.

Systems Thinking and Mapping (Mahajan et al. 2019)

Pew’s process focuses mostly on short-term policy outcomes, barriers to that change, and emphasizes specific milestones w/ accountability & evaluation. Many people outside the team doing the work participate.

Pew’s Strategic Planning Process

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Conservation Standards (CS) Modifications (1/2)

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Healthy Country Planning is an adaptation of the CS developed for use in participative and cross-cultural situations – typically with Indigenous communities.

Healthy Country Planning

The Tacare philosophy is based on the principle that local people are the most connected to and dependent on healthy landscapes and ecosystem services.

The Jane Goodall Institute’s ‘Tacare’ Approach

The Nature Conservancy’s Conservation by Design (2.0) marries a collaborative, science-based approach with key analytical methods. Conservation by Design 2.0 contains 14 steps grouped around five major phases.

Conservation by Design

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Conservation Standards (CS) Modifications (2/2)

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WildTeam’s Project Management for Wildlife Conservation provides conservationists with a standardised approach that will help them to manage their work efficiently, and in a way that achieves maximum impact.

Project Management for Wildlife Conservation

Developed in conjunction with major international environmental NGOs and endorsed by the WWF Network, the Standards lend consistency to planning, implementing and monitoring effective conservation projects and programmes worldwide.

WWF Project and Programme Standards

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Spatial Targeting

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Systematic Conservation Planning seeks to optimize where to deploy conservation actions, on which targets, and how best to protect diversity. Tools associated with SCP include identifying and prioritizing where to take action, minimizing cost while achieving conservation, or other, objectives.

Systematic Conservation Planning

A strategic planning framework primarily for selecting a portfolio of places to do conservation across an ecoregion.

Ecoregional Planning