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SCALE 3D
Strategic Capacity development, Leadership and Evaluation
in 3 Dimensions
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What?
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SCALE 3D is a strategy & evaluation tool for supporting network leadership to develop transformative capacity and impact across three dimensions of depth, width and length. It can be used to clarify strategic goals and activities of transformative innovation networks and projects, as well as to evaluate their performance and impact.

For a general introduction see these slides. For using this tool in a workshop setting, use this canvas. Also check out this simplified 3D canvas that can be used for projects of local initiatives.
For more information about the theoretical background of this tool, see Tims PhD thesis (or this 15-minute overview).
Email tim.strasser@yahoo.de if you have any questions about how to use this tool, want to receive guidance in the process, or have feedback on the tool itself.

SCALE 3D © 2023 by Tim Strasser is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
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Why?
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This tool can help you with:
1) strategic planning, by identifying your impact and outcome goals and clarifying which network leadership activities are needed to contribute to these (i.e. articulate your theory of change)
2) evaluation and learning, by clarifying how you're performing, how to further develop your strategies, and to prioritize where to allocate resources.
The act of reflecting on these aspects together with your network's core team and/or network members can lead to insightful discussions, a sense of appreciation and motivation by seeing what you are doing well already and/or a shared clarity of how to further develop.
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How?
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Use the following 5 steps (explained in more detail in this article) which need not be followed in a linear way, as these can partially co-occur or influence each other in non-linear, iterative ways)
1. Clarifying the strategic goals (intended impacts and outcomes) and network leadership roles of your network, organization and/or project - use Tab 1 for a general overview and Tabs 2-4 for zooming in to more detail.
2. Defining and designing activities so they contribute to these goals - see Tab 5
3. Planning appropriate ways of collecting and reflecting on relevant data to measure progress toward and achievement of goals (use this template to develop an M&E plan for each work stream in your project or organisation, and see Column C in Tab 5 for defining your outcome indicators)
4. Learning about and adjusting strategies over time through reflection on monitoring data. (You may also want use Tab 6 to reflect on key challenges you might be facing, and which ones are most important to address.)
5. Reporting on progress, lessons and achievements.

Additional considerations:
Before / as part of Step 1, you may want to clarify what transformative change you seek to realise (e.g. circular economy principles become the norm globally), and how the terms below (SI elements, SI actors, dominant institutions) would apply to your context.
Decide if you want to invite each member of your network's core team and/or a selection members, to contribute to the tool application. Doing this separately can be a helpful prepatory step before discussing the results collectively. You could send the results to one person to integrate the responses, including the ratings and summarising the main points from each of the responses. This helps bring in more diverse perspectives, generate an average rating, and show points of disagreement through the different ratings.
As one aspect sometimes includes multiple sub-points, just make your rating based on an overall sense, while noting down the specific strengths or points for improvement in the respective column.
Consider regularly using this tool, to evolve your strategies and monitor your development over time.
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Terminology
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“SI elements” refers to socially innovative social relations and related ways of doing, organizing, framing or knowing (DOFK).
Examples in the case of ecovillages may include: community owned and self-governed stewardship of land and resources (social relations), regenerative agriculture and eco-construction practices (doing), sociocracy-based governance & decision-making (organizing), holistic framing of sustainability in five dimensions (framing), whole-person learning and sense-making (knowing).

“SI actors” refers to people and organisations working on promoting social innovation at various levels.
For example: grassroots innovators, network coordinators, trainers & educators, institutional supporters, funders, etc.

“Dominant institutions” refers to established social rules and relationships and related ways of doing, organizing, framing or knowing (DOFK), that are strongly institutionalised.
For example growth-based free-market relations and related price-driven production & consumption practices, private and profit-maximizing organizational forms, GDP-oriented economic goals, indicators and assessment practices, which are widespread around the world, deeply embedded in cultural norms and structural policies and incentives, with long-lasting persistence over decades.